[Dragonschild]

I am currently researching parts for a htpc for my living room and I am not sure which way to go with this. I was first looking at the Zotac boards because they are kinda all in one but then I wasn't sure that they would be powerful enough to handle everything that I wanted to do here. So I started looking at separate parts to put one together piece by piece, here is what I have so far:

Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811129054

Mobo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813121355

PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6817822001

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6819115056

RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6820148160

Optical drive - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6827106335

I realize that it is more expensive to do it this way but I feel that I will get better performance out of this system than I would from the all in one boards. One reason why I want a more powerful system is that I am going to be using it also as an emulator platform and I want to make sure that it can handle the rendering.
One other thing I am not decided on yet is should I go with a linux os or stick with windows. If I stay with windows I am going to be using XP because I dislike Vista and I just dont have money for 7 atm. I don't have very much experience with linux, (I used Ubuntu for a short while but I didnt really get into it that much) and am not sure which build is good for a htpc. I would like to buy the system soon but as far as setting everything up I want to get all my movies organized on my workhorse first so I dont have to defrag the hell out of the new system right away from moving and changing all kinds of files. If I decide to go with linux its going to take even more time because I am going to have to learn the os first before I start the project too...ugh when I started this whole thing I never imagined that it would involve so much.

Also I know that there is a wealth of info on the forums and I will be looking around but I just wanted to post up my situation to get some direct answers to my project while I search previous posts. Thanks in advance all.

[xbs08]

I would just prefer a nvidia GPU.

[sraue]

i run xbmc also on my thinkpad X200t, with an core2duo @ 1,8GHz under linux. it runs very fast, also HD Videos. so i dont need any nvidia gpu or any hw decoder card.

[Dragonschild]

I would just prefer a nvidia GPU.

What is the difference between the nvidia gpu and the intel video? why is nvidia better or why is intel worse?

[MDPauley]

Nvidia is better because of VDPAU.

[Dragonschild]

Nvidia is better because of VDPAU.

from what I read, VDPAU is linux/Unix specific right? So if I decided to go with windows then this wouldn't be a big deal right? Right now I am leaning towards windows because I am extremely familiar and comfortable with it. If there is any outstanding reason for me to switch over to a linux distro I may consider it instead.

Does XBMC run better on a linux OS? Is it more responsive, do I have more options? Again I am still reading around the forums and I don't have tons of time atm so its going to take me a while to absorb all the info here.

[Dragonschild]

how would a pentium dual core chip perform in a htpc as opposed to a core 2 duo chip of just about the same cpu speed? I ask because I am switching the case that I originaly chose for my build and it will cost a little more than I really want to spend, and if I can switch from core 2 to a pentium dual core I can save about $50. I noticed that the cache is different by about 2Mb(I think).

[the_alien]

You can save $100 if you choose to use a Arock ION (for example). Including a remote...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...ht&x=0&y=0

Or go with an Acer Revo which is even cheaper.

All you have to do: Think about linux as the OS for your HTPC.
There are enough How Tos in this forum to tell you every step to get it up and running

A friend of mine just bought an Asrock because he was so amazed how mine acts. He isn't familiar at all with Linux and got it up and running in a few hours. Including opening the package, installing the OS etc

With VDPAU you wont have any problems with 1080p playback. Another friend of mine is still fighting with his windows HTPC with C2D to have it playing 1080p without any stutter!

[Dragonschild]

You can save $100 if you choose to use a Arock ION (for example). Including a remote...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...ht&x=0&y=0

Or go with an Acer Revo which is even cheaper.

All you have to do: Think about linux as the OS for your HTPC.
There are enough How Tos in this forum to tell you every step to get it up and running

A friend of mine just bought an Asrock because he was so amazed how mine acts. He isn't familiar at all with Linux and got it up and running in a few hours. Including opening the package, installing the OS etc

With VDPAU you wont have any problems with 1080p playback. Another friend of mine is still fighting with his windows HTPC with C2D to have it playing 1080p without any stutter!

I have actually decided to buy a htpc case and place my old desktop setup in there instead and just buy an upgrade for my desktop . I didn't really like the look of the Asrock case so that wont be an option for me, I want it to look as if it belongs in the entertainment center with the rest of the electronics.

the setup I will be using now is:

CPU - AMD X2 2.6GHz
GPU - BGF 8600 GTS OC( actually a pretty fast card for being old)
RAM - 4GB Corsair DDR2 800

So Linux actually does a better job with 1080p playback then? I might just look into it then.

[the_alien]

If your looking into Linux for playing 1080p you might wanna have a look into the VDPAU article on Wikipedia. The 8600 just supports feature set a while newer cards support feature set b. Which means: more codecs for hardware acceleration.

The Linux 1080p point me become useless because elupus is currently implementing DXVA2 acceleration for Windows > XP. But it's not done and buggy right now.

[>>X<<]

Definitely go with nvidia its much more versatile and as the_alien said the newer cards GT210/GT220/GT240 etc support hardware decoding on the most popular formats under linux and windows

Windows its early days for hardware decoding (DXVA) in xbmc I'm currently using the DSPlayer branch and its fine for me under XP (no sub support currently though)

nvidia also supports CUDA which can be used with CoreAVC using DSPlayer