Linux XBMC platform: Hardware help

Again, thanks for all the replies.

To be clear, I'm not worried about AMD chips in general. I've had an AMD tower before, and had no problems with linux.

What I'm worried about with something like the A6 is not the lack of CPU power, it's the integrated graphics, and the compatibility of not only ATI with linux, but of that style of cpu-integrated graphics chip with linux.

I fully realize there are plenty of folks who will run an AMD and ATI as separate cards / chips, but how many are running the A6 as their only graphics card? And for those, do they get flawless 1080P playback / decoding while streaming from NAS or network, and do they get full HD (5.1) audio?

The links provided suggest that the audio may be an issue, and many, many people are responding with artifacts, tearing, pausing, sleep, etc. It seems like there's a lot of good work going on there, but it's perhaps not "stable" yet for everyone.

It's a tempting solution, since the chip itself is only 65W and you'd have both your graphics and your cpu finished, but I think, seeing the responses on this thread and the ones linked, an Nvidia (like a 430) paired with a celeron seems much safer to get 1080P flawlessly, even if the heat might be slightly higher (about 85W), and that way I get both a dual core and a 430 chipset which is known to work very, very well.

So truly thanks for all the input ... it's helped me get a much better picture, but I think I'm going to shy away from the A6 / A8 chipset for linux / XBMC for the time being.

I'm quite sure AMD and Intel have built their chips in such a way that the OS does not know the GPU is on-die. After all, all that matters to the OS is that there is a GPU. It doesn't matter whether it's on-die, part of the chipset, or as a separate add-in card in a VGA/PCI-E slot.

So it should not matter.

.:B:. Wrote:I'm quite sure AMD and Intel have built their chips in such a way that the OS does not know the GPU is on-die. After all, all that matters to the OS is that there is a GPU. It doesn't matter whether it's on-die, part of the chipset, or as a separate add-in card in a VGA/PCI-E slot.

So it should not matter.

That may be entirely true, but from the forums linked here and elsewhere, compatibility still seems to be a general issue. That may be more of an ATI thing than an AMD/ATI thing, but it's still there.

On top of that, another user brought up the point that with the graphics chip on-die, you basically had the one chip running hot all the time, either doing graphics, crunching on processes, or both. That meant he was always running higher fan speeds. With only 65W TDP, you still might not need a big fan, but he found a lower power CPU with an external graphics card was quieter (I'm guessing doubly so if I get a fanless graphics card).

Either way, you end up with about the same amount of case fans ... 65W vs 80W is not a huge difference as far as air you have to move through the case, but it could be a pretty big difference in 65 vs 50/30 that you have to move off of a single chip (vs off two chips at 50/30). Doubly so when the 65 might sit regularly near the max, while the other two might run much cooler than their max since they're under-utilized.

AndyMac Wrote:Secondly, you found a single core 1.8 enough to run linux (what flavor?) with XBMC and skinning?

XBMC originally ran on a 700 MHz P3. It's handled everything I've thrown at it. Occasionally hiccups when it's generating a dds. But once they're made no problem. 1GB of Ram and I almost always have at least 512 free if not more.

The GT220 has played even the highest bitrate h.264 BR rip that I threw at it without a problem.

Just running a basic Debian install with XBMC compiled from source.

Maybe it's improved but last time I tried XVba it got all crashy when trying to play anything.

darkscout Wrote:XBMC originally ran on a 700 MHz P3. It's handled everything I've thrown at it. Occasionally hiccups when it's generating a dds. But once they're made no problem. 1GB of Ram and I almost always have at least 512 free if not more.

The GT220 has played even the highest bitrate h.264 BR rip that I threw at it without a problem.

Just running a basic Debian install with XBMC compiled from source.

Maybe it's improved but last time I tried XVba it got all crashy when trying to play anything.

Yeah, I'm hearing a lot of people try to steer me away from XVba. It looks like there's been a lot of good work going on there, but I don't want to dedicate $400 of resources on a special purpose box to something that's a little too much on the edge or beta.

And sorry, I wasn't meaning to imply in general that linux wouldn't run on a 1.8 or anything like that. I'm currently running minix on a 386 laptop (kind of awesome). I just wasn't sure how well XBMC would run on /top/ of some flavors of linux, since some (Ubuntu included) tend to be a little more cpu intensive than others, so I was curious what he was running as his OS choice.

For the last two years, I've favored Ubuntu for being fairly up to date and still providing some cool user experience (like Compiz) even though it can be flaky, but it is definitely heavier. I'll have to take a good look at Debian again for this box. I like Fedora as well, but I've already got two Ubuntu PC's in the house, so I'll probably stay debian-based just to keep things simple .

I'm leaning heavily to a low power dual core celeron now (1.8 or 2.0 or so offer 30W options) with a GT 430. That should pretty easily crush anything I want to do with it and they're still cheap as well while providing some upgrade options (socket 1155 and PCIE2 or 3) in case I want to change things going forward. I don't think I'll find a CIR option, but who knows, they might be out there .

If you don't want to run any other programs you can just do OpenELEC. But I don't run any desktop. I have X11 and XBMC and nothing else.

darkscout Wrote:If you don't want to run any other programs you can just do OpenELEC. But I don't run any desktop. I have X11 and XBMC and nothing else.

Yes, I've heard of that and I'm going to give it a try once the hardware gets here. I think I want general access to the desktop so I can run a browser now and then (one of the problems with every media presentation platform is the apps that external providers frequently break, sometimes intentionally), so it probably won't fit the bill ... but I want to see it .

darkscout Wrote:Maybe it's improved but last time I tried XVba it got all crashy when trying to play anything.

It has, otherwise I wouldn't be singing its praises . I am very impressed with the stability (seen quite a few movies and series episodes with XvBA already). In fact, so impressed I am getting an E-350 solution for my standalone Xbmc setup.

AndyMac Wrote:Yes, I've heard of that and I'm going to give it a try once the hardware gets here. I think I want general access to the desktop so I can run a browser now and then

And this requires a full desktop why? I have Chrome right now.

Im running an XBMC on a full featured Xubuntu simply 'cause it's much easier to maintain XBMC and everything around with a full linux environment .. and I had and have a lot of stuff to maintain (using PVR and other nifty stuff) .. simply quit XBMC and start working ..

While XBMC and PVR performs very well and smooth there are sometimes tasks that seem to stress my hardware (switching to mainmenu with enabled LiveTV in background) so I wouldn't sign the message that a full featured XBMC with PVR doesn't need high(er) power hardware ..

OpenELEC is really neat but it's an full customized linux build without roots to other distributions - but I prefer well know distribution like debian simply for maintain and support issues .. it's really sad that the OpenElec crew didn't choose debian

A config like mine (Celeron G530 (2*2,4 GHz) + Scythe Shuriken Rev. B
4 GB RAM, NVidia GT430 silent 1GB, ASUS LGA1155 Board, LiteOn BluRay) isn't much more expensive than an ION or LIano Solution, but it's more generic, expandable and has more power ...

It seems that the discussion about the "better HTPC hardware" is comparable to the "linux or windows" flame wars

So long

LastCoder