[zwat]

so there are no benefits of doing 4gb ram compared to 2gb for xbmc on a atom\ion pc? thinking of getting one as a portable htpc.

[kurai]

so there are no benefits of doing 4gb ram compared to 2gb for xbmc on a atom\ion pc? thinking of getting one as a portable htpc.

Nope. No huge benefits if that's all you are going to be doing with it.

I should clarify slightly - the "1.3Gb free" as reported by XBMC should really read "1.3Gb available" if we are being pedantic.

Some of that is actually in use by the OS as cache and buffers, rather than sitting there empty and idle (about 750Mb in my case, after XBMC has been running a while and I've been flicking around the UI a lot) and can be released to applications if they need it.

[As an aside, and in reference to earlier posts, that's part of the reason why upgrading the storage medium can only do so much - after a while all the UI image data is going to be in ram cache, and that's as fast as it's going to get.
From there on out speed is down to how well the system's chips and busses can throw data around.]

Given that caching more of the HDD contents doesn't lead to much more performance, any more than 2Gb installed is a bit of a waste of time.

In fact - I only have 2Gb in mine because the BIOS won't allow you to assign more than 256MB as video ram (512Mb needed for totally smooth playback of high bitrate 1080p video) unless you have more than 1Gb physical ram installed, otherwise I'd have made do with the single GB stick it shipped with

[Groove996]

doh!!

I was just about to pull the trigger on the Revo for their HDTV upstairs... I've never heard such a negative review before, and espeically since you modded the ram to 4gb and everything.. now you scared me away from buying it

damn it, why does this youtube video show it being so good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf5h6QxFleE

that certainly looks acceptable to me!

I'm sure standards range for how quick is acceptable, but i have mine running faster than that guys (imo) and it runs great. I find it 100% usable.

The Revo under Ubuntu runs faster than my other HTPC (windows, amd 4200+, 2 gigs ram 7600GT - won't play 1080 and is slower in the UI)

I whipped up a quick youtube - its messy, i'm half asleep and i'm using my cellphone camera - but i just did it to give ppl an idea of how it runs with multiplex view, 1080 backdrops, media flagging, mods, trailers, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_k2o77ITyk

(first post and first youtube - yay! lol)

p.s. not to threadjack but if someone who watches knows why my movie thumbnails don't cache anymore, lmk how to fix that hehe

[Naser]

I'm sure standards range for how quick is acceptable, but i have mine running faster than that guys (imo) and it runs great. I find it 100% usable.

The Revo under Ubuntu runs faster than my other HTPC (windows, amd 4200+, 2 gigs ram 7600GT - won't play 1080 and is slower in the UI)

I whipped up a quick youtube - its messy, i'm half asleep and i'm using my cellphone camera - but i just did it to give ppl an idea of how it runs with multiplex view, 1080 backdrops, media flagging, mods, trailers, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_k2o77ITyk

(first post and first youtube - yay! lol)

p.s. not to threadjack but if someone who watches knows why my movie thumbnails don't cache anymore, lmk how to fix that hehe

Is that on a newer rev. with atom "330" ?

[Groove996]

Is that on a newer rev. with atom "330" ?

Yea its the dual core with hyperthreading, for a total of 4 threads

i guess the older Revos were the Atom 230 with only 1 core?

[Naser]

Yea its the dual core with hyperthreading, for a total of 4 threads

i guess the older Revos were the Atom 230 with only 1 core?

There you go, thats why you are seeing much smoother performance. It also has bigger cache 1MB on the 330 Vs 512k on our older Revo.

[PantsOnFire]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_k2o77ITyk

(first post and first youtube - yay! lol)

p.s. not to threadjack but if someone who watches knows why my movie thumbnails don't cache anymore, lmk how to fix that hehe

That looks abolutely fantastic mate! Pleasing to look at (and importantly- to use) I'm sure! And nice one for doing that vid even though you were probably whacked-out tired! Ppl here on the thread appreciate it I think.

Just a couple of quick q's:
1) How large are the thumbnail/poster images? (resolution, filesize)
2) Where are the images stored? (local hdd, memstick?)
3) Any chance we could see a typical usage of the 'flow' style view?
4) Or the WALL view mode?
5) Any chance we could also see typical usage of the MyPictures bit? (That would surely be quite an intensive 2D task for Aeon on this system).

Thanks again.

[Groove996]

That looks abolutely fantastic mate! Pleasing to look at (and importantly- to use) I'm sure! And nice one for doing that vid even though you were probably whacked-out tired! Ppl here on the thread appreciate it I think.

Just a couple of quick q's:
1) How large are the thumbnail/poster images? (resolution, filesize)
2) Where are the images stored? (local hdd, memstick?)
3) Any chance we could see a typical usage of the 'flow' style view?
4) Or the WALL view mode?
5) Any chance we could also see typical usage of the MyPictures bit? (That would surely be quite an intensive 2D task for Aeon on this system).

Thanks again.

It's my pleasure - I'm having a lot of fun with this Revo, and my old HTPC is quickly gathering dust. I just couldn't believe that ppl were so unhappy with this box for XBMC when i was having such a great time with it. As for the Q's, I'll do my best

1) Never payed too much attention to the poster sizes as they're all scraped from imdb - i could probably check out a few if its important. The extrathumbs are all resized small (under 200k'ish). And the backdrops are Aeon standard uncompressed BMPs at about 6megs each (i have about a gig and a half of backdrops).
2)posters/backdrops/thumbs are all on the local HD, extrathumbs/trailers are in each of the movies folders on the network share.

3-5) Once i figure out why those poster thumbs aren't caching i'll post a new vid - hopefully when i'm fully awake Right now it drives me crazy and i KNOW I've seen the setting somewhere in the skin .xml's

I just got it all installed in the last few days so I still have a lot of tweaking to do here and there. For some reason not all my media is flagging either. Once I get it running the way I like I'll definitely throw together another quick vid.

[Naser]

Groove996, the reason "some" of us not being happy compared to your system is that yours comes with the newer Atom which is 2cores Vs one & also double the cache.

Another reason is i am on a 50'' Plasma running native 1080p & therefore all my fanart is of highest res & size ( 300K ), but manily cpu diffrences bro.

I am not in anyway dissing the ION or Atom nor ( decoding 1080p movies, that is the purpose of ION but the 2D performance in navigating around the skin & windows ), just this particular model, Also i some times exit XBMC to browse, download etc.. and there where you see a little more lag.

Again thank you for your feedback & after watching your video, i might actually pick one of the newer Revos & see how well it does.

[Hitcher]

p.s. not to threadjack but if someone who watches knows why my movie thumbnails don't cache anymore, lmk how to fix that hehe

It looks to me like it's just struggling to keep up.

I'd try dropping the skin resolution down to 720p or turning off the info panel.

[Groove996]

It looks to me like it's just struggling to keep up.

I'd try dropping the skin resolution down to 720p or turning off the info panel.

I'm pretty sure it has to do with the background=true & preloaditems stuff discussed in this thread: http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=51814

I guess it's just by design now to keep scrolling smooth? I'm too much of a newb to figure out how to add the preloadingitems tag to Aeon correctly

It just seems strange that if i scroll around my TV stuff, it's all pre-loaded and there's no blanks - the only thing that doesn't preload fast enough in Aeon is the movie posters

and Naser - yeah i guess i'm just surprised the dual core atom makes that much of a difference

although i did try out andyblacs Showmix and it was a bit laggy

p.s. thx for the replies

[Hitcher]

Even on my old PC (single core 1.6Ghz) preloading never took that long to load the next item.

Try it with the info panel and flags off to see if that makes a difference.

[PantsOnFire]

Hitcher, you're bringin me down!! (just jokin)

Groove996, thanks for all the answers.

[Groove996]

Even on my old PC (single core 1.6Ghz) preloading never took that long to load the next item.

Try it with the info panel and flags off to see if that makes a difference.

Exact same thing w/info panel and flags off - even scrolling one by one, the next poster thumb always takes a second to load - it's definitely not being pre-loaded at all - and any poster that goes off screen needs to be reloaded if its off-screen for more than 2 seconds.

But Wall view and list view both seem to pre-cache to some degree, as scrolling right one by one gives (3 in the case of wall) new posters instantaneously. Either that or they're just loading fast enough to not notice a delay. But why would Wall view load 3 images faster than Multiplex (with no info panel or flags) can load one?

TV Multiplex scrolls super-smooth with no blank images or loading delays whatsoever.

It's possible that it might have to do with the mod'd multiplex w/trailer view I'm using - I'll try a standard Auriga install tonight and see if that helps.

Thx again guys <3

edit: tried Stark 0.91, saw the way it used to work - it would only let you scroll as fast as the images could load, leading to jerky animation when scrolling fast. The new behavior seems to let you scroll as fast as you want, but the posters take a second to load - i guess the new way IS better

Mediastream and PM3HD both load movie posters fast enough for similar views and fast scrolling though, and the Aeon TV Muliplex doesn't lag the same way - so something has to be different... ?

[Hitcher]

TV Multiplex scrolls super-smooth with no blank images or loading delays whatsoever.

Less shows.

edit: tried Stark 0.91, saw the way it used to work - it would only let you scroll as fast as the images could load, leading to jerky animation when scrolling fast. The new behavior seems to let you scroll as fast as you want, but the posters take a second to load - i guess the new way IS better

That's exactly what background loading does.

Mediastream and PM3HD both load movie posters fast enough for similar views and fast scrolling though, and the Aeon TV Muliplex doesn't lag the same way - so something has to be different... ?

Aeon simply has more going on (includes, conditions, etc) than other skins so it's going to push your hardware more.