Can you compile XBMC and FFmpeg for 64-bit Linux / FreeBSD with PathScale EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite that was just released as free and open source software under the GNU GPL license, so that XBMC might use less CPU and FFmpeg can run faster on newer low-end hardware?
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ar...path4_open
It could perhaps even then be of interest to look into the OpenMP API for multi-processing too which EKOPath is optimized for to take full advantage of multicore systems?
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=ne...&px=OTU2OA
PathScale also offers EKOPath Boost which is the Boost Libraries that are built with EKOPath, those are however not open source but maybe we can compile the Boost Libraries ourselves now with the new PathScale EKOPath 4 Compiler?
Off-topic and not sure it would be of use for XBMC directly but PathScale has also promised a "CUDA killer" OpenCL GPGPU library or GPU compiler that will also be open sourced and freely licensed when released later this year.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/0...a-killer/1
#pathscale - irc.freenode.net
Such a build is maybe not for generic use but for specific builds like OpenELEC and XBMC Live?
