My perfect XBMC Configuration + mouse/keyboard free HTPC
#16
I'm glad to see another AsRock zacate owner. I built a similar mini-htpc as you, but I use Windows 7 MCE as my main media player. I selected MCE because I like the integration of the Media Browser, TMT5 and cool skin/mce remote. I installed XBMC as my second media player. To my suprise, this mini-htpc can playback 1080P BD (m2ts, ISO and MKV) files with DTS-HD and TrueHD audio codecs ( and all other audio codecs) flawless. I can do multi-task with it too.

As for the ATI settings, I didn't have to do much on the 56" HDTV. I installed everything using the 27" HDTV at first. With the 27" HDTV, I have to manually adjusted the screen to 1216x688 in ATI Catalyst Control Center to fill in the entire 16x9 screen.

1. APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX
2. ASRock E350M1/USB3
3. Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV125-S2/30GB
4. Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500)
5. SilenX IXP-74-09 120mm Case Fan
6. HP MCE Remote Control
7. LG Black 10X BD-ROM
8. Buffalo Technology MiniStation Stealth 1 TB USB 3.0
9. Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit
10. Windows 7 MCE
11. Windows 7 Codecs Pack
12. Shark007
13. Media Browser
14. RealTek HD audio codecs
15. Arcsoft TotallMedia 5
16. MPC-HC

If anyone interesting in Windows 7 MCE fancy skins, you can download: Media Center Studio (it is below the instructions). I used StarTrek as my background. It is cool!

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#17
Very complete post, excellent details. Going to save many hours on new configs for a lot of new htpc builds, thanks for sharing.
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#18
What emulators do you use?
Is this HTPC powerfull enough to run the more recent (3D fighters/Racing games) mame games? What is your experience?

Cheers,
Grave
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#19
st graveyard Wrote:What emulators do you use?
Is this HTPC powerfull enough to run the more recent (3D fighters/Racing games) mame games? What is your experience?

Cheers,
Grave
since you're planning to use your htpc to play games, this might be a good fit for you:

1. MSI 880GM-E41 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
2. AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz
3. SILVERSTONE Black GRANDIA GD04B Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
4. Antec EarthWatts Green EA-430D
5. Axle3D GeForce GT 520 2GB DDR3 PCI Express
6. Corsair Force CSSD-F40GB2-A
7. Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066
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#20
Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking of going the Sandy Core route for Mame emulation. Seems to be the best candidate. A bit more expensive, but ok. Still have my doubts regarding the 3D cart. Everybody says G-Force 520, but it is only 64bit. Don't know yet. Don't wanna go overkill as well ...

Cheers,
Grave
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#21
st graveyard Wrote:Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I'm thinking of going the Sandy Core route for Mame emulation. Seems to be the best candidate. A bit more expensive, but ok. Still have my doubts regarding the 3D cart. Everybody says G-Force 520, but it is only 64bit. Don't know yet. Don't wanna go overkill as well ...

Cheers,
Grave
if you prefer the 128-bit card, you can go with this- DIAMOND 6450PE31G Radeon HD 6450 1GB 128-bit
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#22
I'm running emulators for MAME and N64 as the higher level emulators.

Also, I installed Resident Evil 4 PC and it works great to show you something newer. My integrated video card is taking the brunt of the work, so the processor isn't a problem.
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#23
lightshow12, could you post me screen caps of tv/movies with timestamps for me. im still have abit of quality. Do you have the ATI CCC startup disable or enable?
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#24
Hey Bluray,

I started this thread : http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=106368
please have a look if you have some time.
The 3D card you propose seems ok to me, and it is so cheap compared to the things I propose ... Don't understand why yet ...

Lightshow, thanks for the reply. What bothers me is that MAME does not use 3D cards, it's pure processing power which is needed there ...
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#25
stabu,

I can get you a screen shot of one of the 720p shows with the info bar (frame rate, etc.) and filename of the file.

I'll also show you my msconfig and version # of ATI Control Center and the name of all the drivers I've installed
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#26
lightshow12 Wrote:stabu,

I can get you a screen shot of one of the 720p shows with the info bar (frame rate, etc.) and filename of the file.

I'll also show you my msconfig and version # of ATI Control Center and the name of all the drivers I've installed

can you send to me as well?
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#27
lightshow12 Wrote:stabu,

I can get you a screen shot of one of the 720p shows with the info bar (frame rate, etc.) and filename of the file.

I'll also show you my msconfig and version # of ATI Control Center and the name of all the drivers I've installed

That will help thanks
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#28
Question 
Hello XBMC-people (and to all interested),

A while ago I bought a Philips 42PFL7676H TV and love the image-quality and the TV itself.

The TV can play 3D Half-SBS movies from MKV and using an USB-HDD that works quite well. But, there's also a downside: it's very picky when it comes to video and audio formats. For instance, it does not play MKV's with DTS Sad It is possible to stream the MKV to the TV, but then there's not way you can get subtitles (and my 12 year old daughters still like that).

Another issue: when the sound in the MKV isn't PCM, it will not pass through the converter that I use to convert the optical out of the TV to the stereo in of my amplifier... again: Sad

But, also a while ago, I bought a small ITX-board for one of my daughters to build her a small PC. She does not use that, so now I have embraced the idea to turn it into a media-player. The specs are quite similar to those posted by lightshow:
  • MSi mobo (didn't know that was short for motherboard at first...) with 2 core AMD E-350.
  • AMD Radeon HD6310
  • WDC 500GB HDD
  • 2GB DDR
  • Windows XP SP3
  • Spire casing

I have messed with it a bit, updated all drivers (incl. bios, ati etc.) and installed XBMC 10.1. That's all looking very good: I like the way XBMC looks and I see that it recognizes all MKV's, regardless of the format(s) in it.

Now comes the question/problem: when I play a Half-SBS movie (even the TV knows how to use that!), it's very choppy Confused The audio and video stop very frequently and everything is out of sync. Now I wonder: do I have to install something else too? It looks like XBMC is not using the power of the GPU? Lightshow mentioned something about setting DIVXA somewhere?

Any help is appreciated. I would really love to see this thing work Rofl
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#29
Windows XP does not support the hardware acceleration API required by XBMC. You need to upgrade to windows 7.

JR
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#30
jhsrennie Wrote:Windows XP does not support the hardware acceleration API required by XBMC. You need to upgrade to windows 7.

JR
Hi JR,

Thanks for your answer! Actually I was just brainstorming with my colleague about this and we kinda had this idea too Rolleyes

Now I'll just have to find an upgrade from XP to W7....
I'll let you know my findings when I'm ready Cool
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My perfect XBMC Configuration + mouse/keyboard free HTPC1