[jaydash]

I'm new to the whole scene, but tremendously excited about the possibilities of an HTPC loaded with XBMC in my den! So thanks in advance to anyone who chips in some advice!

My primary concern is the responsiveness of the system... I have a large-ish music collection (10,000 albums or so) and an ever-expanding movie library (350 now). My concern is will XBMC be sluggish loading and scrolling through large media collections? What about with fancy skins with lots of eye candy and turned on? Will something like the ASRockCore 100HT-BD (I think I can talk my wife into letting me spring for one...) be powerful enough to ensure that there's no lag when navigating through the UI? Other recommendations?

I apologize if this is a stupid question, but I can't seem to find posts here or elsewhere dealing directly with such a question -which leads me to believe it's a stupid one!

Pretty much all that remains is building or purchasing the HTPC (I'd rather purchase due to time constraints -first kiddo!). I've purchased an HP MediaSmart Server, and I've ripped most of my movies and TV collection to the hard drives, used Media Companion to scrape fanart, etc., and I'm running cat6 cables through out the house to distribute the media. I plan on being able to stream 1080p video and HD audio bitstream from the server to the HTPC/receiver in the den...

[pecinko]

I apologize if this is a stupid question, but I can't seem to find posts here or elsewhere dealing directly with such a question -which leads me to believe it's a stupid one!
.

Welcome to the community. May I ask a counter question? Why don't you just try it? Do you think that other's measure of responsiveness is equal to yours?

In short it would massively depend on skin and view you choose. You are more than well equipped so just give it a spin.

[branlr]

My experience has been this:

My I7 machine has no trouble with anything, even 1080p WITHOUT acceleration.

My Asrock needs 1080p acceleration for HD video, but navigation of the skin Transparency! (which has lots of art to load with every button push) has not had any problems since the maker of Transparency! (ronie) changed how the art loads.

That being said, Aeon Stark on my old pentium 4 machine was VERY slow to load almost everything, but I've only ever experienced it with that skin.

I think that with the recent changes to XBMC and the skins themselves, they've really managed to make the experience a lot "snappier"--somehow.

In conclusion, it might be wise to do something a LITTLE more powerful for your "main" media center (living room with a huge hd screen, for example) if you want to run a fancy skin.

If you have trouble loading art quickly enough in a fancy skin in the bedroom, whats wrong with a lighter, minimalistic skin? I don't EVEN think that will be a problem, but if it is, so what? Personally, I prefer something cleaner and more simplistic on a smaller screen--and also, bigger letters.

EDIT: Also, I've heard that a solidstate hard drive really speeds up the asrock ions. Search the forum for SSD.

[steve.lorimer]

If I may jump in on this thread, since I'm looking for advice too...

Why don't you just try it?

For me, the reason for not trying it is that I haven't yet bought the hardware - and I don't want to buy the hardware until I know what I'm looking for.

The user experience is very important to me - so it must be responsive. Unfortunately I'm not rolling in cash, so price is important too - hence looking for the right balance between price and performance.

I'm looking to play films and music from it, that's all I want it to be able to do, but it must be able to do it well. Full 1080p. No lagging. Much like you'd expect a retail system to work.

Something I've been looking at is the ASRock ION 330Pro. It has the Atom Dual Core (330) 1.6GHz processor, and 2GB RAM.

Is this powerful enough to do as the OP requested? Will it be able to play 1080p and navigate the menus/database without lagging?

My I7 machine has no trouble with anything, even 1080p WITHOUT acceleration.

My Asrock needs 1080p acceleration for HD video, but navigation of the skin Transparency! (which has lots of art to load with every button push) has not had any problems since the maker of Transparency! (ronie) changed how the art loads.

Please can you elaborate on this? I'm not sure if I fully understand. You have 2 machines - one running an I7 processor, and another Asrock machine? While the I7 doesn't need, the Asrock does need acceleration to be able to playback 1080p? What acceleration do you use? Do you have a link to a page detailing the specs of your system?

TIA
Steve

[poofyhairguy]

An i7 has enough CPU power to rip through anything on just the CPU. Heck, so does an i3.

But for most of us, we don't want to use CPU power- we want GPU power.

The only reason to go the CPU route is if you are doing something other than XBMC, such as Netflix streaming or whatever.

If your goal is just XBMC - in short to make an XBMC appliance - then an ION box plus XBMC Live is perfect.

I will confirm right here and now that in XBMC live (with 2GB, Atom 330, ION) I can play my Avatar Blu Ray rip perfectly. Avatar basically maxes the Blu Ray standard so I feel safe saying its pretty future proof for the simple playback of local 1080p files.

But if you look at my sig, you will find the secret to a fast interface with a XBMC box: get a SSD drive to put the OS on.

Most of XBMC's interface is loading small things like images and config files. A SSD's exponentially faster seek speeds makes all the difference. Add in a faster booting time and a SSD is a really good addition.

My quad core with a normal HD (but a pretty fast WD black drive) is slower interface-wise with XBMC than my ION box with a SSD. Get a SSD and you are set.

[steve.lorimer]

Thanks for the response poofyhairguy!

The only reason to go the CPU route is if you are doing something other than XBMC, such as Netflix streaming or whatever.

Hmmm... that does give one pause for thought... It is very conceivable that streaming media will become a large part of the user experience in the very near future (I'm in the UK where streaming media isn't as big as it is in the states yet) - although that said, I guess it's conceivable that flash processing will move into the GPU hey?

Get a SSD and you are set.

What size SSD do you have? If I want to install XBMC Live that would be a minimum of 600MB I guess? (1 CD) - do you need swap space etc?

[poofyhairguy]

Thanks for the response poofyhairguy!


Hmmm... that does give one pause for thought... It is very conceivable that streaming media will become a large part of the user experience in the very near future (I'm in the UK where streaming media isn't as big as it is in the states yet) - although that said, I guess it's conceivable that flash processing will move into the GPU hey?

I expect a move to GPU decoding for all platforms within a year. Two are already there, and Linux is very close.

What size SSD do you have? If I want to install XBMC Live that would be a minimum of 600MB I guess? (1 CD) - do you need swap space etc?

For single boot (XBMC Live) the smallest 30GB drives work. I just use the default install options.

[steve.lorimer]

Thanks for the response again!

Is there space inside the ASRock chassis to take the SSD or do I have to remove the HDD that's already in there?

[bossanova808]

You take out the one in there and swap it for an SSD. If you're streaming, you only need a tiny boot drive - mine is 32 GB and it's ample - would even be enough for a dual boot win7 and Live setup if I could be bothered with Windows.

The only thing I would say is I feel ION acceleration isn't quite perfect yet - I have yet to see a completely stutter free experience and there are a lot of threads about stutter - a lot of people don't even see it, as it's very minor, but it's definitely there on some files....that's one advantage of CPU decoding (in theory, I haven't really tried it). It may be that with different setups you will won't get it - hence I am little jealous of the above comment about Avatar palying perfectly because I am yet to see it!

[steve.lorimer]

Man this is difficult - just when I think I've made a decision, curveball!

The only thing I would say is I feel ION acceleration isn't quite perfect yet - I have yet to see a completely stutter free experience and there are a lot of threads about stutter

Any way to solve this?
Would you suggest more powerful hardware?
Is there a Mini-ITX / quiet (fanless?) system that would be up to the task?

TIA
Steve

[bossanova808]

It's not really the power of the hardware as such - it's more an issue of drivers/implementation I think. I am rtying a nwe system (Shuttle XS35GT) next week as an alternative to my current ASRock Ion 330. But it might be something peculiar about my system/setup (and based on the no. of messages in the Live/Linux section - quite a few others too). Apart from this ION is unquestionably the way to go and the Shuttle looks great - fanless, so with an SSD, totally silent.

[compcentral]

If you look at my setup in my signature, it was rather inexpensive and works great. I bought a cheap used emachine ES-1200 series and upgraded the CPU/RAM to the specs below. It handles all 1080p content without a hiccup... this is largely due to enabling DXVA video acceleration (which is not available in a Linux build... not sure how OpenGL acceleration in Linux compares).

[steve.lorimer]

I'm not a windows fan - what hardware would I need to achieve seamless 1080p playback on Linux?

[prostuff1]

You will want something based around nVidia graphics.

The ION systems are great for XBMC. Pair the system with an SSD and you should be good to go.

I am in the process of setting up a JetWay Mini-Top ION2 based system and from my prelim tests it is working great.

[steve.lorimer]

The ION systems are great for XBMC.

So as suggested, I'll get the SSD and run Linux or XBMC Live on it. From what I can gather - the 330 Atom with ION GPU will provide full 1080p playback with no stutter. Has anyone experienced stutter with a setup like this?

Can anyone suggest a good base nettop system to go for? At the moment I'm getting confused with the myriad options available between ASRock, Shuttle, Jetway, etc etc etc

Are there any that have ION2 rather than ION v1 GPU? I guess this is a good future-proof way to go.

On that note, are there any fanless nettop systems that run larger/more powerful processors than the Atom?

TIA
Steve