[superficial]

I've been a longtime user of XBMC on my xbox for over 5 years now, so firstly I'd like to say a huge thanks to all the xbox devs around the world for your work over the years.

On to my problem...

I've recently bought an HDTV (Sony 42" 1080p) and I thought I'd get XBMC running on an old PC so I could watch the HD content I couldn't on the xbox.

Basically, all videos play really jerkily. The interface at high res runs OK. I can't play any content (even standard def) with xbmc running at 1920x1080 - it's too jerky to be watchable. Things are better at 720i but it doesn't really get watchable until as low as 800x600. HD content just won't play at all regardless of res settings.

Dedicated XBMC machine:
Shuttle SN85g4 (v3) with nVidia nForce3 150 chipset
Athlon 64 3200+
1Gb DDR ram
250Gb int HDD (230Gb free space), 1Tb external for content
ATI 4350 card (AGP, 512mb) connected via HDMI, Catalyst driver 8.650
Streamzap remote

WinXP SP3 32bit - fresh install a week ago, nothing else on it except XBMC and associated software (remote etc)
XBMC 10.1
Media Stream redux skin (I've tried plenty, this seems the most stable. I'd like to use Aeon but it's too unstable).
Free RAM 489mb / 1024
CPU usage @ settings screen 78%
This log is with the resolution set to 1920x1080.

When I try and play a standard-def file:
(NB I'm running in Win2k compatibility mode as some posts said that may help. It hasn't made things noticeably any better or worse)

http://pastebin.com/xnUUx6Es

Currently I'm pretty peeved because at the moment I'm not getting anything from this setup that I couldn't get from my 9 year old xbox.

It has to be said that the performance may not be a problem specifically with XBMC - I'm struggling to play the same files in VLC so perhaps there is a deeper issue. I don't know if this is a video driver problem - I can't use the up-to-date catalyst drivers as they don't work properly (resolution reverts to 640x480 4bit), so I'm using the drivers that came on the CD in the box. I've tried loads of files off the ATI website, none of them work besides the one that came with the (HIM brand) card.

Another problem: I can't "exit" XBMC to get back the windows screen. I'm sure this is something to do with switching video modes. Sometimes I'll get the "this program has stopped responding" box and I can force it to quit, other times I can't get it to do anything at all and a hard reset is all I can do. Hibernate works fine, though, and I can alt-tab back and forth between xbmc running and the desktop with no problem.

Someone help, please!

[Vorm]

RAM in neon lights. I reckon if you throw more ram in the machine, it'll run just fine.

No excuse these days when its so cheap - just seen a 4GB deal for £35.

[superficial]

...and now look at the prices for DDR1. Your suggestion of a 4Gb kit would cost £220 from crucial.com.

Is XBMC particularly memory-intensive? I seem to have free RAM according to the stats...? I've seen posts from people with far lesser specs (and less RAM) than mine saying they can run HD content just fine, makes me think it's a software/driver issue.

I think I perhaps need to get the live version working and take advantage of hardware acceleration (I think this is the case?). The problem is, my knowledge of linux is almost zero and last time I tried the live disk it just went to a black screen.

[superficial]

Anyone?

[Mallet21]

This is an easy one....Upgrade to Windows 7. There is no hardware acceleration using XP and your processor is nowhere near fast enough to handle it alone. Your only other option is to launch an external player (MPC-HC) to get hardware acceleration with XP.

All that said...your system may not still be powerful enough (and it looks like you would have to add another gig of ram to even run win7). First try playing the video files in another player like MPC-HC to see if you get better playback.

[superficial]

I used the Win7 release candidate on this machine when it was free, seemed to work quite acceptably.

Thanks for the advice.