2012-06-05, 20:11
I'm currently in the planning stages of a XBMC box.
I'd like to play H.264 / x264 content and output at 1080p via HDMI.
I have some older hardware laying around and I'm trying to decide what, if any of it I can use.
I have an older P4 motherboard, currently sporting a Pentium M via an adapter. I have a P4 CPU that I could use in this board.
I also have a Core2Duo based system that could be re-purposed if necessary.
Questions:
1) On the XBMC wiki, it says "Fast modern dual-core processor is required to decode H.264 videos in FullHD (1080p)."
If you have a modern video card, doesn't the GPU do H.264 decoding? And if so, is the statement above no longer true? i.e. Can you get away with a slower CPU if you have a powerful modern GPU?
2) Assuming that the GPU does H.264 decoding at 1080p, what is the minimum required card from Nvidia/ATI/Intel?
3) Does the OS choice Linux/Windows affect the situation above?
I'd like to play H.264 / x264 content and output at 1080p via HDMI.
I have some older hardware laying around and I'm trying to decide what, if any of it I can use.
I have an older P4 motherboard, currently sporting a Pentium M via an adapter. I have a P4 CPU that I could use in this board.
I also have a Core2Duo based system that could be re-purposed if necessary.
Questions:
1) On the XBMC wiki, it says "Fast modern dual-core processor is required to decode H.264 videos in FullHD (1080p)."
If you have a modern video card, doesn't the GPU do H.264 decoding? And if so, is the statement above no longer true? i.e. Can you get away with a slower CPU if you have a powerful modern GPU?
2) Assuming that the GPU does H.264 decoding at 1080p, what is the minimum required card from Nvidia/ATI/Intel?
3) Does the OS choice Linux/Windows affect the situation above?