blubyu Wrote:gyrene2083 - I am currently running an AMD setup. I have the AMD X2 6000+ (3.0GHz) CPU. I can play about 95% of all the 1080p content I have come across. I can live with that. Can I play the "killa sample" that seems to be the benchmark? Not with out dropping frames. But I don't care. For what you want to do that CPU would be fine. Why people insist on telling everybody that the only way to enjoy XBMC is with an intel chip and board is beyond me. I paid less for my cpu and my MB then I would have spent on an intel cpu. My MB has on board Nvidia 6150, and optical out. I run off of a 4 gig usb stick and I have no problems with my setup.
I just wanted you to know that there are those of us out there that run an AMD system and are quite happy with what we got.
Why Intel over AMD? Because the Intel CPU handles it better than the AMD clock for clock - simple as that. I'm not a fanboi of Intel either, I'm an AMD stockholder! Until recently all of my computers were AMD too but no more - the C2D is a beast. Same with ATI vs NVIDIA, buy which works and move on.
You can play 95% of the 1080P? I can play all of it I've come across or encoded myself and if I need more grunt I can overclock further. Seems like the best I hear from AMD owners is "almost everything" and that generally from those running a higher end AMD. The CPU you quoted is running $92 at NewEgg, the
2.5Ghz C2D is $117. Guess which I'd pick to be sure I could run anything I wanted? That CPU will overclock to 3Ghz easily and run COOLER than the AMD. You bought the AMD CPU and M/B for less than $117? Wow, that's one cheap motherboard!
Yes, the Killa' Sample is a beast of a clip and a pretty tough test, that's why so many use it.
Most content isn't that tough especially if you download it but watch the Planet Earth series at a decent bitrate and you WILL see skipping if you drop frames in Killa' Sample - which BTW is from the Planet Earth series. In my case at stock clock speeds I dropped frames in lots of BD rips and badly in that sample. I overclocked the CPU and it all went smooth when I approached 3ghz. King Kong from HD-DVD in particular gave me grief early on with panning shots in the jungle and chase scenes, but not with the CPU clocked up. I rip and encode my own content and I use high bitrates while still halving the size of rips. Your AMD would indeed have issues with much of the content I encode.
As for multi core support, I don't run the betas but the SVNs from which the betas have been built have had multi core support for somewhere around a YEAR I'd guess. Multi core support isn't new by a very long shot and it works great - for two cores. A search for CABAC patch in the SVN log or here would probably get you the exact dates of when ffmpeg was patched, I know it's worked for me ever since I built my system. If you're just getting one core working then something's not right for sure.
HDMI audio out, yes someone had it running and no I cannot find the thread. It was a short one, I'm pretty sure it was an Intel board, and I
thought it was a G45 chipset. The thread was short and badly titled, I cannot find it now but I'm not going to spend too much effort on it either. Honestly unless audio over HDMI includes the ability to play the newer uncompressed audio codecs for say 7.1 sound (does it?) who cares? Skip the hassle and do coax or optical out. <shrug>
Here's yet another thread to read to find out about hardware support and examples of what has worked for others in XBMC. ->
http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=28648
I keep up and read every single thread in this forum subsection, yeah it gets old reading yet another thread asking what hardware is compatible or which hardware is cheap, or which works "best". I have linked to two different lengthy threads on just that topic including one with HDMI Audio in the title! You'd get lots of information from either of those or the bunches of other threads like this one instead of having yet another. If the content in those is too dated for you then wake the thread up by asking for updates. Having the information in one place is nice, having to hunt and search many threads is a PITA. Probably about time one of those threads got stickied, not that it would help. <sigh>