2015-05-12, 22:02
I have a question on what people would recommend for hardware for a dedicated OpenELEC box.
Currently I have a box with Asrock Mother Board with a G2020 (Specs) with a 8GB stick of RAM (graphics memory is shared, so system ram is actually about 7GB). I use PVR from a ServerWMC backend. All my cable streams are MPEG-2 with AAC (most are 5.1 although it varies between that and 2.0 depending on the channel). Currently I use the Intel graphics with it doing DTS and Dolby pass through to my sound system on the HDMI. Most of my stuff plays just fine, but I cannot turn on post-processing or it starts getting a bit jerky and interlacing leads to some rather odd behavior. This isn't very evident when watching my PVR streams, but when ever I start any of my 10bit videos it becomes painfully obvious the system just can't handle those. Also some of my normal video sources (anime groups mostly) have started to use HEVC for some of the higher quality encodes, and I would want to make sure the box is capable of handling it with no issues. Note, I'm not attempting to play any 4K content, and probably won't till the 4K TV's are a bit more reasonable.
So, what I want to know, is would be worth upgrading to a dedicated Video Card, more specifically a GT730 (this one)? Personally, I can live without interlacing or post-processing effects, but if it might help with some of the periodic UI sluggishness it would be worth the money for the new card alone even if doesn't help video playback. So what is everyone's thoughts? What would be the pluses of upgrading the video? Would this be a worthwhile upgrade, or should I just stick with the built-in Intel Graphics?
Currently I have a box with Asrock Mother Board with a G2020 (Specs) with a 8GB stick of RAM (graphics memory is shared, so system ram is actually about 7GB). I use PVR from a ServerWMC backend. All my cable streams are MPEG-2 with AAC (most are 5.1 although it varies between that and 2.0 depending on the channel). Currently I use the Intel graphics with it doing DTS and Dolby pass through to my sound system on the HDMI. Most of my stuff plays just fine, but I cannot turn on post-processing or it starts getting a bit jerky and interlacing leads to some rather odd behavior. This isn't very evident when watching my PVR streams, but when ever I start any of my 10bit videos it becomes painfully obvious the system just can't handle those. Also some of my normal video sources (anime groups mostly) have started to use HEVC for some of the higher quality encodes, and I would want to make sure the box is capable of handling it with no issues. Note, I'm not attempting to play any 4K content, and probably won't till the 4K TV's are a bit more reasonable.
So, what I want to know, is would be worth upgrading to a dedicated Video Card, more specifically a GT730 (this one)? Personally, I can live without interlacing or post-processing effects, but if it might help with some of the periodic UI sluggishness it would be worth the money for the new card alone even if doesn't help video playback. So what is everyone's thoughts? What would be the pluses of upgrading the video? Would this be a worthwhile upgrade, or should I just stick with the built-in Intel Graphics?
