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Zotac IONITX-A Atom N330 Nvidia Ion?
#1
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Is anyone else running XBMC-Live 9.04.1 on a Zotac IONITX-A board with Nvidia? I am running it with 2GB of ram and so far everything except 1080p is running flawlessly. When running at 1080p with VDPAU I still get video jitter on occasion. I am pulling the mkv over a network so I am not ruling out the fact the jitter could be caused from network congestion. Does XBMC Live have any settings for buffering video like the original XBOX? I did not see them in the menu structure. As far as CPU and memory on this box they are all sitting at less than 10% utilization. It looks like Linux is seeing the Atom as 4xCPU (I will have to check the BIOS and see if hyper threading is enabled.

Overall the ZOTAC is working as expected, I just need to get rid of the video jitter on 1080p.

On another note the M200-LCD case from mini-box.com does not fit the Zotac motherboad with the CPU cooling fan. I would stick to the M300-LCD for this board. Also note the Compact flash on this case is IDE not SATA and the Zotac does not have a IDE interface. Lastly the connector for the front USB ports to the Zotac motherboard is less than desired. I have not tested the IR or the LCD either.

How is everyone else doing on testing this cpu/motherboard?

ps. I got my box from OrbitMicro.com they had a shipment earlier this week!
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#2
search and you shall find...
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#3
buster Wrote:Is anyone else running XBMC-Live 9.04.1 on a Zotac IONITX-A board with Nvidia? I am running it with 2GB of ram and so far everything except 1080p is running flawlessly. When running at 1080p with VDPAU I still get video jitter on occasion. I am pulling the mkv over a network so I am not ruling out the fact the jitter could be caused from network congestion.

I received mine on Saturday morning and started to play with it this week end.

It's currently installed in a mini-box M350 case, the Zotac FAN _is_ connected (GPU temp around 45°, 85 without the FAN ...)

I started with Kubuntu + XBMC 9.04.1 and noticed a lot of jitter ... until I realized that I forgot to disable KDE effects ;-)

I tested XBMC live during few minutes and did notice some jitter also ... but I did not spend time to find what was the cause of this.

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 with latest nvidia drivers, and everything is running pretty well so far. I however do notice some jitter (very low number, I can stay several minutes without noticing anything) when watching 1080p over the network (streamed from my Alix NAS), even if XBMC does not show any "buffering" message. I also do not have any "dropped" frame according to what I can see after having pressed the "o" key. I'm not sure what this really means, if no frame is dropped according to XBMC, what can be the cause of this "jitter" ?

I did not have a lot of time during the week end, so I only _started_ to play with it. It's currently connected to my Dell 24 monitor using DVI, I did not test it up to now on my TV so do not know if HDMI works as expected (with sound). It seems that standby and hibernate don't work yet, and lm-sensors is unable to recognize any chip for temperature monitoring. The Atheros Wi-Fi card works out of the box (my access point is another Alix box running pfSense so 802.11g only -> I don't know if the 802.11n mode supported on the Atheros chip can be used with Linux).
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#4
Portnawak Wrote:I installed Ubuntu 9.04 with latest nvidia drivers, and everything is running pretty well so far.

Update :

I did some additional tests, the Zotac is now connected thru its wired ethernet interface and uses a Samba (*) share -> there's no more jitter that my eyes can see on 1080p mkv content :-)

(*) I've been using XBMSP shares for years (ccxstream running on my Kurobox, then Linkstation Pro then the Alix, and used by my Xbox like a charm). It seems however that this is no more the solution these days, when streaming _HD_ content to the XBMC / Linux, things like Fast Forward & Rewind are a pain -> with a Samba share, no problem).
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#5
Did someone tried tu run Aeon with this board ?
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#6
Are you guys using a remote control with this board? If yes, how? Does it have a n IR or are you using some kind of usb adapter?

Thanks!
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#7
mazda Wrote:Are you guys using a remote control with this board? If yes, how? Does it have a n IR or are you using some kind of usb adapter?

Thanks!

I am working on getting the M300-LCD case IR port on the PICO-LCD. So far no luck though. As a backup plan I have a Super Joy 9 with the original XBOX DVD Remote Kit.
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#8
P@co Wrote:Did someone tried tu run Aeon with this board ?

Yup - it's not quite as smooth as my desktop (Shock!) but it's perfectly useable and looks very good.

VDPAU is working an absolute treat for me, though I did have a bit of a game getting the drivers on. I semi-followed the XBMCBuntu guide and it's all going sweet, though I opted for full fat Ubuntu because I'm a newbie and wanted to play, too.

High Quality Flash in fullscreen [in Firefox] works great, though I'm told High Def will stutter.
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#9
I'm thinking about buying one of these myself but I'm very concerned about flash... can you confirm that HQ flash full screen is ok but HD not?

Thanks
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#10
Hi Fred, I'll try and take a look at HD tonight. HQ was definitely fine though - looked just like normal broadcast TV in full screen mode. I'm hoping Adobe will eventually bring out a version of Flash which takes advantage of the GPU.

The two issues that I have ongoing are:

HDMI Overscan in Ubuntu - not an issue with XBMC (as you can correct it within the software) but I've had to change the toolbar sizes in Gnome for now so I can get to them on the top of the screen. Apparently this can be fixed by some magic with the xconf.conf, but I've not really looked at it yet.

The wireless signal is rubbish compared to my laptop (which doesn't have an external antenna) and I can't get it to connect to my new Netgear Wireless N router. I'm hoping the latter is just user error, but I'm also wondering if my Wi-Fi aerial is broke.

It is nice kit - you need to run the fan, but even running full speed without a case you can barely hear it from the sofa. And not at all when you're watching a film. I'm still going to get a fan controller, though, I think.
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#11
just wanted to say, that the "A"-boards in germany are now available and they have the usb-power-jumper on board.
got mine yesterday.
http://www.xbmcnerds.com - german xbmc community
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#12
Hi Hermand

Did you try the performance with flash in the end? Thanks...
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#13
fred82 Wrote:Hi Hermand

Did you try the performance with flash in the end? Thanks...

I did and sadly, HD Flash video won't play well at all. There does appear to be a workaround, though as apparently you can download the FLV and play it in MPlayer which does have VDPAU.

I'm gonna have a play with that.

I did, however, get the wireless sorted and that's sweet now. I actually managed to stream a 16Gb 1080p file. It wasn't 100% perfect, but plenty watchable.

Personally though - I've given up on the file server idea, I think I'm just gonna put the hard drive in with the HTPC. I was originally going for a silent PC, but the HDD is quieter than the fan. I can't hear it from more than a few feet and you can't hear it at all when anythings playing. No more intrusive than a DVD player.

Managed to sort overscan, too - my TV had a "Full HD" option and setting that sorted it.
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#14
Okay, I just used http://www.keephd.com to grab the new T4 trailer. Downloaded an MP4 which promptly played back great in XBMC. It's not a perfect solution as obviously it's not streamed, but I'll bet someone will whip up a better way in no time!
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#15
donabi Wrote:just wanted to say, that the "A"-boards in germany are now available and they have the usb-power-jumper on board.
got mine yesterday.

Can you explain this, please, mate? What jumper and where on the board?
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