[toover]

I am buying a brand new PC to run XBMC on, and I have no personal requirements or preferences - I am happy to buy whatever hardware you tell me is most compatible / easiest to use with XBMC.

As a starting point, I am looking at a Dell Optiplex 755 (small form factor - has 2 PCI slots)

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/c...w7sz&s=bsd

The only thing I really care about, other than running XBMC, is the ability to play extremely high bitrate h.264/x264 content @ 1080p. Even very fast core2duo procs are not able to play 30-40 mbps x264 content without skipping and jumping, so I need a video card that has h.264/x264 acceleration on the card that XBMC can use, as well as mpeg acceleration for very high bitrate (40-60 mbps) TS files.

So, my graphics card choices from Dell are:

256MB ATI RADEON HD 2400 Pro (1 DVI/1 TV-out)

256MB ATI Radeon 2400 XT, Dual Monitor DVI or VGA (TV-out)

Is this a graphics card that is very compatible with XBMC _and_ has hardware acceleration for mpeg/264/vc-1 ?

Does this card have a fan on it ?

IF NOT, I will just skip buying a card from Dell and buy whatever card you tell me to - what card would be the perfect (fanless, please) card for XBMC that would do the hardware acceleration so I can play very high bitrate, highly compressed movies ?

Thanks.

[rodalpho]

There is no such thing as GPU offloaded h.264/VC-1 video processing on linux. If you need to play ultra-high bitrate files, get the fastest CPU available. Whatever you do, don't buy ATI.

[toover]

ugh...

I just tested a 2.0 ghz core2duo and it failed miserably at playing 80 mbps 1080p mpeg files and 40 mbps 1080p 264 files...

Are core2quad processors much faster ? I can either get a:

3.0ghz core2duo

or a:

2.6ghz core2quad

any comments on that choice ? I am worried that even these processors will stutter on 80mbps mpegs or 40mbps 264s....

I thought nvidia and ATI opened up their code to linux drivers so that we could get these features in linux ? How far away are we from real hardware decoding (and not just brute force with the CPU ?)

[topfs2]

The linux port is still in a pre-alpha stage and does not support either Multi-core videoprocessing or Video GPU offloading. It probably will in the future but noone can garantue a date for it

None of the GPU have opened up there code, although they both have closed code support for linux. Although nvidia is working much much better than ATI atm.

[toover]

ok, so at this point I am assuming that there is a lot of high bitrate content that just does not play well at all on XBMC, right ?

That is, even if I got the 3.0ghz core2duo, it probably would not play 80mbps mpegs or 40mbps 264s, right ?

Anyone tested / benchmarked these kinds of files ?

[embrion]

All wrong.

1. Bitrate is not everything but shortly: get any C2D or Pentium Dual Core which is overclockable to 2.8-3.0GHz (lowest Pentium Dual Core E2140 should be OK and is cheap as hell) and it will decode well (especially in case of Windows because of CoreAVC/PowerDVD codecs)

2. Forget about HW acceleration of mkv as for today it doesn't work or almost doesn't work even with Windows (this applies to both ATI and NVidia)

Ofcourse if You want to play BD or HD DVD movies than get Ati's 2400/2600 series (XP and Vista) or NVidia's 8500/8600 (Vista only for today as far as I read) but again forget about donloaded movies acceleration (especially in XBMC, especially under Linux)

[embrion]

I wrote my answer as if it was first anwer for toover's post but forum was down and now I see some other answers to You can delete first line of my answer which states "All wrong"

[toover]

ok, thanks for the help.

I know people are having success with high bitrates, but even with a great codecs 80mbps is a tall order, as is 40mbps with h264. I think most people that claim "great success" with "high bitrate" h264 are actually decoding VBR clips with an average rate of 8-12mbps.

OK, so thank you for the help regarding the GPU and CPU - since there is no linux GPU support, I think I will just wait and not get a graphics card _at all_ and just use the onboard Intel GMA3100.

Any comments on the onboard GMA3100 ? Will it "just work" with XBMC and provide good functionality until it is time to buy a real GPU (that is, when there is linux driver support for hardware accel...)

thanks.

[embrion]

Read topics:
XBMC for Linux success stories
Hardware for Linux and XBMC

Wou will find there all answers about graphics and which clips were tested at which hardware and with what results

+ use search + read wiki reagarding Linux port

[siDDis]

I have a Core 2 Duo E2180@ 3.2 ghz
With this I can play any 720 h.264 movie just fine, 1080p is another story, sound gets of of sync within a few seconds.

The E2180 at default speed (2ghz) cannot run 720p at all, its choppy and sound gets instantly out of sync.

Using the Intel GMA3100 which only provide OpenGL hardware support for XBMC GUI interface.

[BLKMGK]

I'm running a C2D E8400 - the 2.6Ghz 65nm one. If I were doing ti again today I'd buy the E8400 for the same price I paid and be able to clock to 4ghz - that is in my desktop now. So far with the exception of a few badly encoded test clips I've found NOTHING that plays badly. I am using an MSI fanless 8500GT, I linked it in another thread a moment ago. Do not do ATI, right now they seem to be nothing but trouble.

That Dell if it just has PCI slots won't fly IMO. I think you'll want a faster bus for the video. I'm using a uATX board and while bigger than I'd like it works fine. The board is an ASUS P5E based board with a pretty new Intel video chipset (HDMI), frustrated with it I used the 8500GT and it's smooth as glass. Consider something like this -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage....otherboard

Do not forget about sound. Coax or SPID/F out onboard is nice IMO. Supposedly some of th esuper high end sound streams are too high a bitrate for these ports but I'm not sweating it. Hope that helps some...

[BLKMGK]

Argh, no edit. Current CPU isn't the 8400 it's the 6750, 8400 is in my desktop.

[xgrep]

I can vouch for this < $300 system.

Abit AN-M2HD (nvidia gf 7050)
2G RAM
Athlon X2 5000+

Currently runs 1080p mkv no problem. (CPU ~45%)

If you can wait, the upcoming nvidia 8xxx hybrid boards look pretty solid. Supposevily launching this month at the ~$100 price mark?

[Razor_109]

xgrep any idea whether the upcomming 8xxx hybrid boards from nvidia will support 45nm CPU and DualChannel RAM? Thats the only thing i dont like about the uATX Nvidia boards with GeForce 7050/7100/7150 onboard now..

[Razor_109]

a just noticed it will be AMD only i guess too bad.. planning on getting an C2D...