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+--- Thread: Best XBMC HTPC Hardware with HDMI / HD / 1080p + HDMI Audio (/showthread.php?tid=34235)
- BLKMGK - 2008-12-15
Succo - am currently working with the ASUS P5N7A-VM board. Right now I have the later ALSA but darn it I need the later NVIDA video drivers so that's next. I am trying not to upgrade to Hardy as others seemed to have issues with it but... lets see how I do installing the NVIDA drivers first I guess.
Edit: to heck with it - 8.1 is going on. I loaded the NVIDIA drivers after shutting down the GDM (thanks for the command!). All looked good but no NVIDIA splash, low rez mode, and it claimed to not be using the X driver when I brought up the NVIDIA X config tool. Since ALSA was fairly painless to install compared to the grief I get with X I am going to load 8.1 and see how it goes. Looked like the bad EDID data from my FP was screwing things up too so am setting it up on VGA again and will backup the X.org file before it touches that TV. Grrr!
- spozen - 2008-12-15
Well buying Celeron E1400 is pretty smart because even though it gets to hot you can run it in 3GHz this winter then when VDAPU arrives you can reset it to normal clock speed.
- BLKMGK - 2008-12-16
I honestly don't think it's getting very hot. The machine is barely warm at all and it's yet to lockup. My office where I built it and where it's sitting now is over 75degrees and it's purring along loading 8.1. I didn't bump voltage, there's no reason why it would run too hot. <shrug>
- Asswipe44 - 2008-12-16
Hey BLKMGK, did you get a chance to test the killa sample yet?
- BLKMGK - 2008-12-16
Asswipe44 Wrote:Hey BLKMGK, did you get a chance to test the killa sample yet?
Still building it - getting all of the drivers and whatnot setup is kicking my butt! I am trying to build XBMC on Intrepid 8.1 right now. My office is VERY hot (75 or so) and I've had the machine lockup twice under the load of building XBMC. I have slowed the CPU some and will bump it back when I have it in a room with normal temps. This locking up isn't making me happy though to say the least. I had no issues under 8.04 but it was also not quite so warm <shrug> Stay tuned...
- Jay_Kay - 2008-12-16
spozen Wrote:Thats not true there is few guys out there on AMD X2 6000+ and they can play some 1080p content but they get dropped frames. If you really want AMD you should look at the black editions you might be avablie to clock one to 3.5GHz and it should play the killa sample. But i don't understand why you want the 790GX boards, they cost as much as the geforce 9xxx chipsets.
And look at these CPU prices:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition (3,2GHz) Tray -- 160 USD
E8400 -- 185 USD
*swedish prices.
But if i was on windows i definitely choose AMD because the Nvidia drivers suck.
BLKMGK please tell me what celeron you are using.
Also is this CPU any interesting?
Intel Pentium D 925 3,0GHz -- 111,23 USD
I recently discovered XBMC for Windows and I must say I am very impressed with this program. Still have to learn a lot of it, but already I cannot do without it.
Ontopic, my current HTPC is now almost 3 years old, locked up in a too tight space (you can almost fry an egg on top of the case in way of the power supply). Also the wife would like to rearrange the room, resulting in the need of an ever smaller case for the HTPC.
The config I now have in mind is the following:
GigaByte GA-MA78GM-S2H
Kingston ValueRAM 4 GB DDR2-800 Kit
Antec New Solution NSK1380
LG GGC-H20LRB BluRay
Western Digital WD10EACS (2x)
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 4850E
Scythe Ninja Mini SCMNJ-1000
Hauppauge HVR-2200
I am going to run XBMC together with MCE2005, hence the TV card. 2 TB of hard drive space seems overkill, but it is also going to be used as media storage and download machine.
The following review inspired me to go for this configuration, Link to Tom's Hardware
Please note, this is not a working configuration yet, but looking at the conclusion of the review, this should be a killer system.
- BLKMGK - 2008-12-16
What content are you looking to play? If 1080 content you may be disappointed with the performance. You will also not likely need 4gig of RAM unless you will be booting Windows.
- falc410 - 2008-12-16
Jay_Kay Wrote:The following review inspired me to go for this configuration, Link to Tom's Hardware
Please note, this is not a working configuration yet, but looking at the conclusion of the review, this should be a killer system.
But XBMC does not make use of the 780 chipset, so your cpu will not be enough to play 1080p. It will only work for Blu-ray discs if you use PowerDVD or whatever the software is called which makes use of the hardware acceleration.
- Jay_Kay - 2008-12-16
The idea is indeed to run Windows (for the wife so she can see the 'normal' recorded analogue TV programs )
Regarding the HD playback, the intention is to use PowerDVD or some sort, to be able to make full use of the decoding of HD material by integrated video card. I expect that, with PowerDVD installed, XBMC can make use of it as well. If not, than please correct me.
- spozen - 2008-12-16
Sorry i don't think XBMC would work with powerdvd or anyother codec it uses FFMPEG correct me if im wrong?.
- lovedaddy - 2008-12-16
How about some of this:-
http://mini-itx.com/store/default.asp?c=49 Intel DG45FC Mini-ITX Power Bundle
Given that its an intel g45 mb, it should have opengl (and an open source driver) - and I'm lead to believe sound over HDMI with alsa 1.0.18a. Could this be perfect?
What CPU you think you could get away with to play upto 6 gigs ish 720p h264 mkvs and 12 gig ish 1080p 264 mkvs.
Has anyone tried a Solid state drive for xbmc?
- spozen - 2008-12-16
lovedaddy -- read this thread: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=42092
The size of your movies have nothing to do with what processor you need as long as you want to play 1080p you need a Intel processor with 3GHz+/- clock speed or a AMD cpu with higher clock speed there is no behcmarks out there with AMD cpus but i think 3.5GHz should be fine. Also it seems like you need a dual core.
Solid state drives is like any other drives just that you should limit the read/write on it becasue it has limited read/write cycles.
- Chaos_666 - 2008-12-17
Hi there
Just wanted to mention that i got my P5N7A-VM running.
Installed Intrepid Server i386
Installed x-window-system
Installed envyng-core and used it to install nvidia 177.x drivers.
Installed xbmc (svn repo)
Installed alsa via apt-get -> Sound via HDMI did not work (Maybe as someone mentioned before 1.0.17 is too old for this)
So i used the script from ubuntuforums to update to 1.0.18a
Created .asoundrc in my home folder with content:
Code:
pcm.!default hdmiAnd finally got sound.
Not sure if this is the right way, but at least i can go and find some sleep now.
UPDATE:
As BLKMGK found out:
MP3 do not seem to work, with PAPlayer.
There might be something wrong with the .asoundrc
One solution could be waiting until the svn is updated (and dvdplayer can be the standard player)
Playing MP3 via DVDPlayer works.
THX
Chaos
- BLKMGK - 2008-12-17
Chaos, dude I owe you! After beating my head against the wall for HOURS your simple fix got me sound. One change - for me just swapping default to hdmi got me interface sounds only but NOT in movies. I changed the passthrough to hdmi and I now have it in movies!
So testing results.... Killa drops something like 150 frames - noticeably jittery! Think that sample sux? Well watching Zohan that I encoded and it's dropping frames too <sigh> I am seeing bitrates peaking as high as 14MBit/s. So, I will clock this upwards a bit and see what we get. However I have to go out so it may be a bit before I can give results. I travel tomorrow night too so that will also slow me. I'll try though and if I do not meet with success I'll swap in this other CPU and see if that fixes things and ensure it's not a software issue.
A question - under Ubuntu 8.04 inserting a USB drive mounted it. Under 8.1 this isn't happening. Help a n00b out here please? XBMC not seeing the drive either and I need this functionality before I hand the machine over at least.
- harryzimm - 2008-12-17
I think you need to start "xbmc --standalone" for usb mounting.
cheers