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+---- Thread: Hardware for Linux and XBMC (/showthread.php?tid=29552)

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- Razor_109 - 2008-01-18

I see, TSlayer used 7050 indeed, well I was planning on buying the GigaByte GA-73PVM-S2H which uses the nForce 630i/GeForce 7100 chipset..

But i find it strange the GUI wont run on a 7050.. got it running smoothly on a GeForce Ti4200 @ 1366 x 768.. (60FPS @ 20% CPU Pentium 4 2,26ghz)

Well have to wait anyway before buying my new system.. just gonna do some more research about the Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H.

1 Question left, since the n630i doesnt support Dual-Channel memory.. will that ever be a problem in running a Mediacenter box? I dont supose it will does it? And how much memory is adviced..


- gzusrawx - 2008-01-18

I'm using 2gig and never see it go too high.


- rodalpho - 2008-01-18

I'm using an E4500 overclocked to 2.93Ghz. It works perfectly on most 1080p; that bird scene is unusually high bitrate.

I installed via the GUI, too. But I did have to disable acpi in the kernel to get the live DVD to boot, maybe that was gzusrawx's problem.

Singlechannel memory is a problem if you do encoding, or compress a lot of files, or play videogames. It's not a problem in a HTPC.


- BLKMGK - 2008-01-19

gzusrawx Wrote:I have the same mb as rodalpho it works ok but I had to use the graphical safemode to install ubuntu and I had to install the nvidia 169 beta driver to get video working properly and I had to install from synaptic backported_linux_modules to get the sound working.

You might want to look into ENVY. http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

Envy will install the very latest NVIDIA or ATI video drivers - ones NOT in the Ubuntu repositories. I've used it twice now with no issues and if you want any support from NVIDIA you'll have to be running the latest drivers.


- rodalpho - 2008-01-19

I don't believe ENVY installs beta drivers, which are required for the 630 integrated video. It installs the latest general release.

Note that my windows desktop can't play that bird 100% clip with ffmpeg either. It's an e6600 at 3.2Ghz, 8800GTS 640MB video, with dual channel ddr2-800. CoreAVC is smooth as butter of course.


- BLKMGK - 2008-01-19

Okay, for those of you who have the MCE303 case or one of the Zalman cases that use the IRtrans drivers - I've got mine mostly working! My remote is seen by IRW but cannot control Myth nor XBMC and my VFD displays data but is mostly hash although Myth appears to at least try to send it data. That's a big step from not being able to do anything with the VFD and not having the remote seen at all. It also is setup to automatically run on startup which is nice.

What I did to get this far was follow the instructions found here -> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=304807 It's pretty much step by step, the only steps I skipped werethe ones to learn the remote since the irserver software has files for the MCE remote and keyboard.

The biggest issue I see, other than it not working 100% yet, is that the VFD is using drivers that have been FORKED from LCDproc which looks to be a somewhat active project. Sadly the current LCDproc doesn't appear to support the IRTrans stuffSad

Anyway, this is closer and should help others I think. I'd appreciate otherswho get this far documenting anything they find that gets this closer to 100%...Cool


- gzusrawx - 2008-02-03

I got mine fully working. The only other thing you need to do (for the remote it comes with) besides what's instructed in that forum is change the irserver .rem file which is most likely located in (/usr/local/share/irtrans/remotes) you need to edit the title of the file and the device in the file from what it currently is "mediacenter" to "mceusb" and then edit the userdata/Lircmap.xml file in the XBMC build to match the title's of the commands in the .rem file. And also make sure all the commands are lowercase no matter what the .rem files says they have to be lowercase.


- gzusrawx - 2008-02-03

I'll type up full instructions at some point soon hopefully. As far as the vfd goes it's all configured properly for this setup based on the instructions on the forum link that BLKMGK posted (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=304807). We're now just waiting on support from xbmc's side for lcdproc, there's currently a preliminary patch that's been posted just awaiting testing and approval (unfortunately the devs don't currently have an lcd to test it with)


- BLKMGK - 2008-02-03

My only issue with tis is that the drivers from IRTrans aren't exactly "new" nor are they part of standard code maintained by anyone. They are hacked up\forked from IRC and LCDproc I believe. Bugs me that support doesn't seem to have been rolled back into the main. Very cool that you got the drivers for the IRDA working with XBMC, sounds like I was this >< close! I might yet load up the IRTrans drivers, I'm pretty sure I found that they and LIRC could live side by side. Building and installing them was nowhere near as easy as the MCE USB dongle though that's for sure!

For those interested in the MCE303 case we've both got it looks like Colorcase has gotten a little more flexible with some of his eBay auctions and you might be able to get them cheaper than we did. Do know that you need to find a P/S for this that only vents out the back else you'll end up having to ventilate" the case with a drill as I did. It's heavy steel so this is "no fun".


The display is available separately but from the PDF it's not clear how the device is interfaced with - it doesn't come with the interface board that the case does. It's fairly cheap though which is nice. At this price I'd be willing to buy one for a Dev who thought they could get support going but I'm not sure just the bare display would be much help Sad If someone finds something better I'm all ears!


- aaronb - 2008-02-09

OK, I was thinking about spending my Saturday afternoon getting XBMC up and running on Linux. Here's the hardware I have available:

Asus P4P800SE mobo
P4 3.0 Ghz
1GB PC3200 RAM
Radeon 9600 or Geforce FX5200 for video

I'm not the least bit concerned about 1080p, just 720p x264, will this be sufficient? Eventually I'll probably build a new box with a C2D and better video, but will this work OK for my needs now? I'm guessing the Nvidia card will be easier to get working, but it is an older card so I didn't know if I needed more power.

I also have a P4 2.0 GHz lying around, but I figure that was not enough juice. If that is enough I'd prefer to use that one since it runs cooler.


- touser - 2008-02-10

aaronb Wrote:OK, I was thinking about spending my Saturday afternoon getting XBMC up and running on Linux. Here's the hardware I have available:

Asus P4P800SE mobo
P4 3.0 Ghz
1GB PC3200 RAM
Radeon 9600 or Geforce FX5200 for video

I'm not the least bit concerned about 1080p, just 720p x264, will this be sufficient? Eventually I'll probably build a new box with a C2D and better video, but will this work OK for my needs now? I'm guessing the Nvidia card will be easier to get working, but it is an older card so I didn't know if I needed more power.

I also have a P4 2.0 GHz lying around, but I figure that was not enough juice. If that is enough I'd prefer to use that one since it runs cooler.

I think you should be just fine for 720p with that setup. Right now i am running an X2 4200+ and geforce 7300gs and it decodes everything 720p i have thrown at it effortlessly. The fact that your cpu isnt dual core doesnt matter right now as support for smp hasn't been built into xbmc yet as far as i know. Of course, i could be horribly wrong Eek


- dvd.collector - 2008-02-12

Hi folks.

Well I put together my spare bits and built a P4 3.0g with an ATI 2600XT AGP card. Initially I loaded XP and basically the PC plays pretty much all I have thrown at it (x264 recodes excluded), because the card is doing all the work.

However I've yet to find an interface for XP that I like.. so I tried installing ubuntu 7.10 to see if I could get XBMC up and running...No

Well ubuntu installed ok however I can't seem to get the graphic drivers for my ATI card to work. As a linux newbie there was far too much typing in the console required!! Eek So I've pretty much given up on using my old PC.. However this has taught me an important lesson.. make sure to get hardware that linux supports!

With that in mind I'd like your advice on the following HTPC spec:

Case MCE303 (not cheap shipping to the UK, but looks nice - thanks to the people on here for pointing it out)
Mobo Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H (using onbard nvidia 7100 graphics)
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
Mem 2gb
PSU 430W Antec NeoHE
CPU Fan ZEROtherm CF900 Socket 775 Low Noise CPU Cooler
HD Samsung Spinpoint S250 HD200HJ 200 GB

Specifically, has anyone used this mobo with Linux and got it working? Total cost is around £400 and I'm hoping will play anything I throw at it...


- rodalpho - 2008-02-12

Sure, that should work fine. But your old box should be able to handle 720p no problem; just pop a cheap nvidia card in there. There's not that much 1080p content available. HDTV rips are all 720p, and not to get into discussion of illicit materials but I think you'll find that pretty much everything else is too.

On the other hand if you can't get the ATI card working in linux at all you may not be the right audience for XBMC/linux at this stage of development. It's definitely an alpha release and contrary to what the greybeards would like you to believe linux is not ready for joe user. You may be better served getting a mac mini and running XBMC/osx instead; the developer offers nicely packaged and tested DMG packages for download. It's a bit behind XBMC/linux but catching up quick.


- dvd.collector - 2008-02-12

rodalpho Wrote:Sure, that should work fine. But your old box should be able to handle 720p no problem; just pop a cheap nvidia card in there. There's not that much 1080p content available. HDTV rips are all 720p, and not to get into discussion of illicit materials but I think you'll find that pretty much everything else is too.

On the other hand if you can't get the ATI card working in linux at all you may not be the right audience for XBMC/linux at this stage of development. It's definitely an alpha release and contrary to what the greybeards would like you to believe linux is not ready for joe user. You may be better served getting a mac mini and running XBMC/osx instead; the developer offers nicely packaged and tested DMG packages for download. It's a bit behind XBMC/linux but catching up quick.

Hi, thanks for the reply. Just to explain a bit further, the ATI issue is with the drivers (specifically AGP versions of my card), rather than my inability to install them at least from what I read. Envy was pretty easy to use, however the HW acceleration still doesnt work.

Most of my content is actually 1080p, both bluray and HD-DVD.. and I also have a hidef camcorder, so make my own bluray discs (albeit 1080i).
This content plays fine using PowerDVD on XP with low cpu, but obviously not in Ubuntu.

I'll have a look at the mac mini.. however the reason I wanted to build a PC was that if I could not get XBMC working, I could at least use XP (or Vista if I was pushed).


- Razor_109 - 2008-02-12

I was wondering did someone else tried the Asus P5E-VM HDMI yet? I know BLKMGK has it but didnt get the Onboard Intel GMA X3500 running, but didnt try that much I thought.

Still not sure whether to go for a C2D E6750 with a Nvidia 630i/7100 GeForce Motherboard or an Asus P5E-VM HDMI with an E8400..

CPU prices are the same, only Asus Mobo is more expensive though.. dont know if it's worth the difference.. (Dual-Channel RAM/ OC-Capabilities/ 45nm Support)
Just think the Asus + E8400 is more future proof..