[shinnlly]

Hello all. I have been watching these forums waiting for the right time to move to a PC version of XBMC and away from Xbox. I made the move this week.

Yesterday I received my hardware and I have working on building my HTPC today. Here is what i ordered:
CPU: INTEL|C2D E8400 3.0 GHz
MEMORY: 2G|MUSHKIN 991580 DII800
BOTHERBOARD: ASUS V2-P5G43 G43
Video: onboard video (Intel GMA X4500)
XBMC: XBMCSetup-Rev17640-jester-ffmpeg-mt (although I have also tried 8.10)

I have installed XP Pro SP3 and the drivers from the ASUS website for the chipset, audio, video and LAN.

I am displaying on my Dell monitor (only supports 60Hz) via DVI for right now, but plan to hook it up to my Sony 46" LCD (supports 24fps) via HDMI when I get everything working.

Here is my issue. I have three video files (all 1080p24) I have been testing with and they all drop frames. I have tested:
killa.sampla.x264.mkv
Sample-Cloverfield.2008.1080p.BluRay.DTS.x264-CtrlHD.mkv
Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl.ts (I made the .ts file from a BD rip using TSMuxer)

After a reboot, the very first time I play the Killa clip, it plays great, CPU tops out at 56%. But if I try to play it a second time, it drops about 10 frames and CPU hits ~70%. Each subsequent time I play it, it gets worse. After playing it 5 times in a row, the CPU is hitting the high 80s.

Playing the other files yield similiar results. The longer it plays, the frequency of the dropped frames increases. However, I have never seen the CPU get above 88% (using the "o" option).

I have tried slimming down XP by disabling un-needed services, but that has not helped.

Since the concensus seems to be that an E8400 is adequate, if not overkill, does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can try next to eliminate dropped frames?

EDIT: Should have mentioned that I am playing the Killa clip from the C: drive of the XBMC PC to eliminate network issues as a cause.

[xanadu1979]

Probably that Intel video card. Is it integrated?

Intel lags pretty far behind ATI and NVidia. I would recommend NVidia myself.

[shinnlly]

Yes, it is integrated on the motherboard. But I thought all the work was done by the CPU and the GPU was not involved.

[Maxim]

Yes, it is integrated on the motherboard. But I thought all the work was done by the CPU and the GPU was not involved.

This is pretty accurate. I'm not sure what to do about your issue though.

[danillll]

Not sure if it is the issue in your case, but try to the memory in a dual channel mode. If you need more info, search the forum for "dual channel"

[xanadu1979]

Yes, it is integrated on the motherboard. But I thought all the work was done by the CPU and the GPU was not involved.

Your GPU is always involved when doing multimedia stuff like this. Even if it's not doing the actual video decoding.

[shinnlly]

Regarding memory, I only have one 2 GB stick. You need to sticks to run dual channel right?

[xanadu1979]

Regarding memory, I only have one 2 GB stick. You need to sticks to run dual channel right?

Yes, and that's very possibly your problem. You should definitely use dual channel if you have a dual channel board.

I still think the Intel GPU is the main suspect though.

[shinnlly]

I had an Nvidia 9500GT lying around, so I installed it. Latest drivers downloaded and installed. Now when I start XBMC, it crashes right away with one of those "XBMC has encountered a problem and needs to close." messages.

Any way to turn on a log to see what is going on? I can;t do it the normal way since it will not even start up now.

[xanadu1979]

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=AdvancedSett...oglevel.3E

You have a 9500GT just lying around? I would definitely use that. It's likely much better than that Intel GPU.

My htpc has an 8500GT and it's fairly new.

[shinnlly]

:-)
Regarding my 9500GT lying around, I had bought a second one for my gaming rig so I could run SLI. It didn't work because the two cards had a different type of RAM (something I failed to notice when I bought it).

I got XBMC up and running by uninstalling, rebooting then installing 8.10.

Played the Killa sample again. Not really any better. I am dropping about 30 frames after playing it 5 times. The CPU peaked at 89%.

Edit: I've got two 1GB sticks in my gaming rig. I will try swapping that out tonight.

[Dwolf]

most likely, its not the gpu, ive been using the x4500HD with many htpc's with xbmc, i dont have an problem with dropped frames (although i wonder how much worse your x4500 is from the x4500HD? )

maybe drivers?

[shinnlly]

Good question Dwolf. This board has HDMI out. I assumed it would handle HD.

[dlmh]

Actually, the Intel IGP's aren't capable of outputting true 24p (=23.976Hz), so it'll drop a frame once in a while to keep up.

The Geforce 9500 on the other hand should be very capable and dropped frames shouldnt be an issue. If you plack back @ 60 Hz you get the inevitable 3:2 pulldown judder, but no frames should be dropped. If you playback @ 50 Hz, the drivers will drop frames to keep audio and video in sync.

For 24p playback, stay away from Intel. Their chipsets/drivers aren't capable. Ati has some issues, but can work. nVidia, starting with the Geforce 8xxx series, has great 24p support.

Dropped frames doesn't necessarily mean that your system isn't capable, processing power wise. It could just be wrong drivers or driver support. Have you installed the latest drivers for the Geforce card? And what settings have you set the Windows Desktop? And in XBMC?

Since you're using version 8.10 'Atlantis', playback is always set at 60 Hz. If you try one of Jester's SVN builds, you'll be able to switch framerates during playback. And with the Multi-Threading builds XBMC will benefit from multicore systems.

[shinnlly]

This where I stand now:
Nvidia 9500GT installed and running the latest drivers: 182.06_geforce_winxp_32bit_english_whql.exe

Installed XBMCSetup-Rev17640-jester-ffmpeg-mt.exe and it is running fine. I think my problem with it before was I was not rebooting after uninstalling.

However, I see no improvement between 8.10 and Jester's build. My CPU is still hitting the mid 80s and I am dropping about 30 frames on average, after I have run the killa sample 5 times in a row. After a reboot, my system played the killa sample with no dropped frames the first time, 15 dropped frames the second time, then on up to 30 dropped frames for the third time and beyond.

I guess I will still try to install two sticks of RAM instead of one so I can run it dual channel. I'll let you guys know how that goes, but I am still open for any advice.