Live or Windows
#1
I am already a very happy and think xbmc rocks, I just have one question I already run xbmc through windows but know that there is a Live version. Which would be better to run? Do I keep the windows version running as I've already setup everything in it or do I run the Live version.

What are the advantages / disadvantages of running live over windows?

Cheers in advance for any responses.
Reply
#2
If you have a NVIDIA-card I would run Live since it supports VDPAU, other than that I would stay in Windows.

Edit: If you use hardware acceleration that is, if you don't I would use Live since there is no reason to run Windows, it just use resources for services that you really don't use.

Advantages for live:

Not bloated with unnecessary processes.
Easier installation.
Sleep actually work (never worked for me in Windows 7, XBMC always crash when coming back from sleep)
Very good support for ubuntu if there are any issues outside XBMC.

Disadvantages:

If unfamiliar with Linux, plugin/script/skin-installation may be annoying
Usually not as updated drivers as for Windows which cause issues (usually not)
Reply
#3
ok thanks for that. Im running a AMD with a onboard HDMI card. Yeah I thought removing the need to fire up windows would be a cool option, might still wanna keep windows on it for other purposes but might look into a dual boot senario then.

Cheers
Reply
#4
Thumbs Up 
Handa Wrote:If you have a NVIDIA-card I would run Live since it supports VDPAU

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't VDPAU the X Window System API (using OpenGL) equivalent to Microsoft's DXVA(1/2) API for Windows (using DirectX)?

It would be great if someone who has experienced both Linux/VDPAU and Windows/DXVA configurations on the SAME nvidia system could share with us their results regarding;

- Which system gets the lowest CPU usage
- Which system has the least frame drop (and graphical bug while jumping forward in a video)
- Which system has the most stable framerate
- Which system can cope the best with AVC/MPEG2/VC1 (without glitches)

Thanks Wink
[XBMC-DX r31103 T! r455]
.:LAPTOP:. Dell [C2D E6400] [8G DDR2] [Intel X4500HD] [LED 14'' 1280*800@60p]
.:NAS:. Antec [Ci7 920] [12G DDR3] [Matrox m9148] [19.4 TiB] [Triple Samsung 22'' 5040*1050@60p]
.:HTPC:. Antec [C2 Q9400] [6G DDR2] [nv GT240 VP4] [SB X-FI Ti] [Toshiba 46'' 1920*1080@24p] [Logitech Z5K5]
Reply
#5
I find that Live doesn't always run smoothly for me on my two ASRock ION 330's. I will try Windows 7 when I get a SSD to put in them...

Problem is both in normal movies which begins to skip for a short while and in high bitrate x264 re-encodes of blu-rays which are basically unwatchable.
Reply
#6
i had live, but something to do with the ffmpeg parser causes stuttering for me (spiff pointed me towards the info).

For this reason I went to windows 7 and it's grand. Longer boot up time (under a minute) but works nicely.
Reply
#7
I've just made a system using an ACER 3610 on Windows 7 and it's an awesome little machine, it plays everything I've thrown at it and it's very quite.
Reply
#8
Thomss Wrote:I've just made a system using an ACER 3610 on Windows 7 and it's an awesome little machine, it plays everything I've thrown at it and it's very quite.

And I have the same machine running Live and it runs excellently. I attached a 2TB eSATA drive and all is well. On that particular hardware, Live requires significantly less CPU on a standard install. This allows me to run things like HandBrakeCLI or makemkvcon in the background with no impact on viewing.
Reply
#9
friths_13 Wrote:ok thanks for that. Im running a AMD with a onboard HDMI card.

Then you want Windows.

ATI Linux support is terrible compared to Nvidia currently in XBMCland.
Reply
#10
Based on my homemade ION box. Comparing Windows 7 (with DXVA2) vs XBMC Live.

dondre Wrote:- Which system gets the lowest CPU usage

Linux does, but mostly it is the RAM usage difference that is really noticeable. A XBMC Live machine can probably get by with 1GB of RAM, a Windows 7 machine certainly needs 2gb.

Quote:- Which system has the least frame drop (and graphical bug while jumping forward in a video)
- Which system has the most stable framerate
- Which system can cope the best with AVC/MPEG2/VC1 (without glitches)

Both Windows 7 and XBMC Live have really good video support.

In XBMC Live I can playback (perfectly mind you) the largest (and highest bitrate) media file I have ever seen- my Avatar Blu Ray rip.

I have gotten that file since I gave up on Windows 7, but at the time Windows was able to play the worst file I had then (a 18gb Transformers rips).

If you have an ION box and you are running either XBMC Live or the DXVA2 svn version of XBMC on Windows 7 and you get stuttering with standards compliant content, you are doing something wrong.

Personally I guess (even though I use Linux for my XBMC box) I would advice using Windows, as I get tired of seeing so many Linux newbs crash upon the XBMC Live beach when they want to do something the distro doesn't do out of the box and some command line work is needed...
Reply
#11
poofyhairguy Wrote:In XBMC Live I can playback (perfectly mind you) the largest (and highest bitrate) media file I have ever seen- my Avatar Blu Ray rip.

Thanks for your precise answer it's a great contribution of experimentation, my Avatar Bluray remux is 34GiB 28.2Mbps and it plays sharply smooth with a CPU usage of around 2 to 5% (Core 2 Quad Q9400) under Windows 7 with DXVA2 (nv GT240 VP4),

So I guess I can't really expect a lower CPU usage or any significant improvement under Linux/VDPAU regarding the plaback Wink

It's still kind of unclear to me if the Live version under Linux/VDPAU sticks your framerate to 24FPS during the whole movie playback without going lower (23.9x) or higher (24.x) at ANY TIME... because unfortunately (or is it a normal behavior?) under Windows/DXVA the FPS rapidly switches between 23.x to 24.x (especially during fading between rapid actions scenes and regular slow speech scenes)
[XBMC-DX r31103 T! r455]
.:LAPTOP:. Dell [C2D E6400] [8G DDR2] [Intel X4500HD] [LED 14'' 1280*800@60p]
.:NAS:. Antec [Ci7 920] [12G DDR3] [Matrox m9148] [19.4 TiB] [Triple Samsung 22'' 5040*1050@60p]
.:HTPC:. Antec [C2 Q9400] [6G DDR2] [nv GT240 VP4] [SB X-FI Ti] [Toshiba 46'' 1920*1080@24p] [Logitech Z5K5]
Reply
#12
cool so it looks as if I have set this up correctly and should keep it the same as I have it currently running. Like they say why fix something that isn't broken.
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Live or Windows1