[tails_naf@yahoo]

Hi All,
A friend of mine saw XBMC running on my computer and fell in love. He asked me to help him set it up for him on his existing desktop.

Now, his desktop is a little old, so after trying it it seemed to consume 100% of the CPU (downloaded the PPA build last night for ubuntu hardy).

My guess was that his graphics card was not up to snuff (seemed to be using some mesa driver according to ubuntu).

So heres the question I want to ask -
If you had a computer with the following specs, what would the experts upgrade. Or to phrase the question another way, what part of the system matters most?

P4 3.6 GHz
integrated graphics card (not even sure what it is, but I'm sure its terrible)
256mb ram


We already intend to give it 1gb, and will probably go for a new graphics card (nothing fancy - motherboard only has agp 8x) - do you think this should do it (for SD content) or are we snookered with the cpu being an old P4 ?

Thanks for any and all comments - I'd love to get a feel for what uses the xbmc resources, so I know what direction to go in here.

[ShortySco]

Can you find out what type of video card it is, possibly a driver update is all that is required, but perhaps it will need replaced.

That should be pleanty of CPU for only SD media, and the video card doesn't have to be too fancy, something along these lines should do. (a 6150 or higher nvidia is recommended). I'd go for something which is passively cooled, to reduce noise.

Probably the most important update of all, if it's a full time media center in the living area, would be a remote of some kind.

Rob

[tails_naf@yahoo]

I found out the specs:

The graphics card is:
Integrated UniChrome Pro 3D Graphics

Yep, I've never heard of it either!

The full specs are here:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P4VM800

The card you suggested (6200 Geforce) seems pretty cheap - do you think it should be enough to handle most SD content, or am I really cutting it close picking that card to upgrade to?

[herg]

I use a GeForce 7200 GS with a E8400 CPU and can play 1080p. Here's a nice cheap 7200 GS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814125091

I'm guessing that a P4 @ 3.6GHz and a 7200 GS will play any SD you throw at it, and probably a lot of 720p stuff.

[dizzey]

That rig will do very fine. I got an old p4 2.8ghz with an nvidia 5600 card
and that one has played any 720p that i have used on it.

with a 3.6ghz it should handle some 1080p content to so for SD stuff you vill have no problem.

the 6200 should be sufficient heck it's better than the gpu in my macbook (integrated intel) and even that one handels 720p

[scheater5]

There are apparently a couple of distinct bugs which all can cause your cpu to go to 100% usage and stay there. I am experiencing a similar problem - and I know it's not my hardware, because it ran just fine until an ubuntu update.
I run XBMC on a 6 or 7 year old Compaq that was modest when it was new (old AMD chip, no dedicated gpu, 512MB ram) and it puts out SD content just fine - it's just my (much newer, much more powerful) laptop that experiences the bug. Just be aware when you're thinking about upgrading.
BTW - it's my understanding that XBMC does not bring the gpu into play for playing back content; it's all decoded on the cpu.

edit: New to the XBMC community - not that I doubt what I say, but just so you know.

[dizzey]

Nah the only thung wrong with his rig is the chrome gpu.
never heard anyone that managed to get xbmc to run well on one of those.

it uses a to old version of opengl to be usable.

[althekiller]

Nah the only thung wrong with his rig is the chrome gpu.
never heard anyone that managed to get xbmc to run well on one of those.

it uses a to old version of opengl to be usable.

Hell I'm surprised XBMC even started on it. Normally it just throws SEGV straight away.

[ShortySco]

The card you suggested (6200 Geforce) seems pretty cheap - do you think it should be enough to handle most SD content, or am I really cutting it close picking that card to upgrade to?

I running with an Nvidia 6100 (integrated) and can play all my 720p stuff fine (AMD XP3000+), so i'd imagine that would be fine, and much cheapness.
Most importantly, it supports the openGL 2.0 stuff (you can get away with less today, i think, but it will probably be required in future updates to XBMC)

But don't order the other card suggested, as it's a pci-e card, and you stated that the board only supports AGP 8x, which the 6200 is. (easy thing to miss Herg )

Also if you can find a higher nvidia card at AGP 8x, it'd probably not be much more, so you may aswell have it... just a quick look i had earlier, but that seemed to be about the lot?

Rob

[BLKMGK]

There's a 7300 and a 7600 AGP NVIDIA card listed as in stock at NewEgg. If you use their advanced search stuff you can dig through their stock pretty good!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...7%20series

Sad thing is they cost as much as a PCI-E 8500! Might be worth just pricing what updating the MB, CPU, and memory would cost although if he has just an SD display perhaps it wouldn't matter...

[tails_naf@yahoo]

Thanks guys, great advice!
I'd say the 6200A is the way to go - not much to buy and should do the trick.

I'm actually kinda sorry about my own rig now - its a Q6600 with ATI 4850 - all nice on paper, but it seems the quad core 2.4GHz is not going to be great if I ever get HD content (I'm running all SD content so far).

Who knows, maybe ffmpeg may eventually take advantage of more cores (fingers crossed!)

[melat0nin]

I running with an Nvidia 6100 (integrated) and can play all my 720p stuff fine (AMD XP3000+), so i'd imagine that would be fine, and much cheapness.

Hi rob

What codecs are you talking about? I am running an AMD XP3200 with an AGP Nvidia 6200 and Matroska 720p is slow/choppy as hell.

I played a ripped blu-ray disc (1080p) flawlessly, but the decoding of 720p MKV is a nightmare.

Any thoughts?