2014-04-03, 01:42
I've been running XBMC for a few years now and have tended to play it safe by always being a few releases behind as I use the machine daily for playing watching Sky News, music + streaming to other devices in the house, movie playback and a bit of streaming.
My current setup consists of the following:-
Motherboard: ABIT AB9 Pro
CPU: Intel C2D E6600 @ 2.4GHz
RAM: 5GB
GPU: 256MB nVidia Geforce 8400GS G86 revision - 304.116 driver
Tv Tuner Card: A TechnoTrend for Freeview
Primary HDD: 36GB WD Raptor
Secondary HDDs: 2 x 200GB + 2 x 250GB
PSU: Corsair 430w CX
Monitor: Samsung 42" LCD via VGA + Audio Jack
Connectivity: TP-Link 450MB/s PCI, using Qualcomm Atheros AR9227 driver
OS: Ubuntu 12.04
XBMC: 12.3 Git: 9ed3e58 (compiled Dec 13 2013)
Remote: Android > XBMC Remote
Overall I'm fairly happy with how things run but I appreciate things move on and I can't help but feel that my setup could be improved. Some annoyances are Aeon Nox not performing particularly well on my machine whilst navigating through the library. Blu-ray playback isn't always fantastic either and I've tried to fine tune the video settings based on various threads I've come across over time, but I still see jitter and dropped frames. XBMC itself seems to suffer from the occasional hang or crash on my machine which can be annoying.
I appreciate that this machine is now a few years old but it still performs ok for most things. I'm just looking to spruce it up a little and improve the user experience, plus improve video playback and resolve the stability issues. Hopefully with a few hardware upgrades, possibly a Q9000 CPU, or maybe a slightly better GPU which has better support for Purevideo. Plus upgrading to the Gotham, and the latest Ubuntu, the latest nVidia drivers, and connecting the machine into my router via ethernet as opposed to using WiFi which isn't always great. I'd like to play around with the streaming a bit more above and beyond my DVD collection that I've spent hours ripping, plus a few classic Blu-ray collections that I've been bought.
I suspect a better GPU [nVidia rather than AMD] may help for than a better CPU. Plus I don't know how much benefit a quad core CPU will bring when used with Ubuntu and XBMC? I 'think' I'm ok on the Ram and primary HDD front? I also don't know how much of a benefit Gotham will bring about above and beyond my current XBMC version. I'd quite like to use Aeon Nox and customise the menu's so that they are a bit more fitting to what I use. Plus I don't know if I should be using a MYSQL DB for the library indexing and covers.
I would really appreciate some input from those who are running, or have run similar systems and have strived to improve their setup with some minor upgrades and tweaks and allow their XBMC setup to be all it can be - which mine doesn't feel like it is at the moment.
All the best.
A[/b]
My current setup consists of the following:-
Motherboard: ABIT AB9 Pro
CPU: Intel C2D E6600 @ 2.4GHz
RAM: 5GB
GPU: 256MB nVidia Geforce 8400GS G86 revision - 304.116 driver
Tv Tuner Card: A TechnoTrend for Freeview
Primary HDD: 36GB WD Raptor
Secondary HDDs: 2 x 200GB + 2 x 250GB
PSU: Corsair 430w CX
Monitor: Samsung 42" LCD via VGA + Audio Jack
Connectivity: TP-Link 450MB/s PCI, using Qualcomm Atheros AR9227 driver
OS: Ubuntu 12.04
XBMC: 12.3 Git: 9ed3e58 (compiled Dec 13 2013)
Remote: Android > XBMC Remote
Overall I'm fairly happy with how things run but I appreciate things move on and I can't help but feel that my setup could be improved. Some annoyances are Aeon Nox not performing particularly well on my machine whilst navigating through the library. Blu-ray playback isn't always fantastic either and I've tried to fine tune the video settings based on various threads I've come across over time, but I still see jitter and dropped frames. XBMC itself seems to suffer from the occasional hang or crash on my machine which can be annoying.
I appreciate that this machine is now a few years old but it still performs ok for most things. I'm just looking to spruce it up a little and improve the user experience, plus improve video playback and resolve the stability issues. Hopefully with a few hardware upgrades, possibly a Q9000 CPU, or maybe a slightly better GPU which has better support for Purevideo. Plus upgrading to the Gotham, and the latest Ubuntu, the latest nVidia drivers, and connecting the machine into my router via ethernet as opposed to using WiFi which isn't always great. I'd like to play around with the streaming a bit more above and beyond my DVD collection that I've spent hours ripping, plus a few classic Blu-ray collections that I've been bought.
I suspect a better GPU [nVidia rather than AMD] may help for than a better CPU. Plus I don't know how much benefit a quad core CPU will bring when used with Ubuntu and XBMC? I 'think' I'm ok on the Ram and primary HDD front? I also don't know how much of a benefit Gotham will bring about above and beyond my current XBMC version. I'd quite like to use Aeon Nox and customise the menu's so that they are a bit more fitting to what I use. Plus I don't know if I should be using a MYSQL DB for the library indexing and covers.
I would really appreciate some input from those who are running, or have run similar systems and have strived to improve their setup with some minor upgrades and tweaks and allow their XBMC setup to be all it can be - which mine doesn't feel like it is at the moment.
All the best.
A[/b]