[Dale1990]

Up to this point I've been running XBMC on an xbox and it has been working flawlessly but I just bought a newer spiffy 1080p TV to replace my old SD set and would like to start jumping into the wonderful world of HD. My goal is to be able to play 1080p/digital audio source material w/o skipping or significant loss of quality (assuming the source files are good).

Here is my plan:
ASUS P5N7A-VM MoBo
Pentium E5200 2.5G Dual core
OCZ 4GB Memory
Plus a hard drive, optical drive, case, etc.

My question is: running the latest Ubuntu (my preferred distro) will these parts work well enough together to get me 1080p and digital audio out with the current crop of drivers and XBMC software? Is there decent driver support for these components?

From what I've see here, the VDPAU stuff should work with that on-board GPU, right? According to Asus, it can only grab up do 512MB of memory - is that adequate?

I've seen that some folks have been able to get the audio to pass over the HDMI out. Should that work with this setup?

I know these are some off-the wall questions but I was hoping some people here have experience with this hardware. If this stuff won't work or isn't supported I'm open to suggestions. I'd like to get this ironed out before I buy all the parts.

Thanks!

[fasteddy]

VDPAU is great, but it's still in its infancy. If you're willing to deal with occasional headaches, then that setup should be more than adequate (and 512mb is the recommended igp memory - though the latest nvidia beta drivers are supposed to be able to use system memory in any case).

However, if you want to be sure that you can play every file now then you might want to significantly upgrade the cpu to an E8400. However, that'll add a c-note to your total bill.

[edit: As a point of reference, I built my system on the cheap, using an AMD solution with onboard 8200. Currently using VDPAU and very satisfied with it. But if I had to do it again, I would've spent the extra $100 and gone for the intel platform.]

[Dale1990]

Thanks for quick reply!

I was trying to keep this build on the cheap - spent a little more than I wanted to on the TV. I don't mind having to dink around with system settings as long as I know that the hardware should be able to handle the task.

I may just go w/ the lesser CPU for the time being and then if i have to I can upgrade to a Quad later - the mobo says it will support it. I can always sell the other CPU for a few bucks or use it in another cheap box if I have to.

[bobb0]

mobo looks good,
ram is overkill. i run it on ubuntu w/1gb (512 system/512 igp) and its just dandy.
considering you're using vdpau, you can get away with a slower cpu as well...

i'm almost tempted to try xbmc + nvidia/vdpau on an atom board... but i just built a mini-itx pc so i don't think that will be happening anytime too soon...

i'm running:
Jetway NC62K
1GB RAM (1 stick from a 2x1GB pair I had lying around...
AMD Athlon64 x2 5400+ (65W) (2.8GHz)
Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) 32-bit (64-bit versions seem to run xbmc less stable)
Xbox360 Wired Contoller w/Grumbel's Userspace Driver & StolenNotebook's Keymap.xml
LCD native res: 1360x768

b

ps. the dvi port does audio via the supplied dvi->hdmi adapter. YAY!
i bought the system before knowing about vdpau ... so i attempted to get something that could handle 1080p source material via software+hw assist
now with vdpau, i would focus on ultra-quiet and low energy consumption... (which infers slower, cooler hardware)

[pantherman007]

You should be absolutely fine. I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 with an E5200, 4GB RAM, and a Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H (NVidia 9400). I've had no problems with VDPAU in the recent builds, and the impact is dramatic. With the Artbeats demo clip floating around:

w/o VDPAU - roughly 50% of total CPU (cores read 24+70, 86+17, 82+20, etc.)
w VDPAU - roughly 5% of total CPU

I drop about 15-20 frames when the clip starts, but that's because I'm streaming it across a LAN - once its buffered I don't see any more drops.

I'm debating whether to add Myth or VDR to the same box which would use some of those extra CPU cycles. For now and thanks to VDPAU, the E5200 is overkill.

FYI, since all of my media is on a NAS unit, I put a single 60GB SSD drive in the box for the OS, XBMC, and 1080p backdrops for Aeon. Fast boot time, low heat, and very quiet. After 10 years of playing with 4 builds (plus a modded Xbox), I'm now getting very close to finally having the perfect HTPC.

[Dale1990]

This is good to hear!

I figured the RAM is a little much but with the rebate it was only a few bucks more than a 2GB stick. I plan to task this machine with some other stuff too when it is not acting as an HTPC so I may need it... altho I doubt it.

Also good to see things working across a network. I already have a Wind desktop I use as a file server and I was hoping it would do for serving the video. It does fine now for serving standard-def video to my Xbox.

Thanks all!

[yee379]

i'm pretty much doing exactly what you're thinking of; but i'm using a E7400 intel (2.8ghz 3mb cache duo core). i think i spent too much on the cpu - my cpu load using hidef atsc/mpeg2 streams using vdpau is around 10-15%. haven't got any 1080 x264 streams to test yet.

i also think 2gb's is a bit of an overkill for a simple frontend; mythweb + xbmc works great (although the over the air information could be better). i just switched my bios to use 512MB ram - there's absolutely no difference to 256MB for xbmc imo.

i also see a few dropped frames from the network streaming; but no biggie.

the only problem from a perfect picture is that picture tearing seems to be a major problem (although i think this happens for most video cards, not just the 9300)

[bertrand]

My own setup is a gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H (no VDPAU support) with 2 GB of DDR and an E4500. I have a few frames dropped on large videos but I've been able to play everything so far (Ubuntu 8.04).

[jowilkin]

I have the same mobo with e5200 and with vdpau it is more than enough power.

The RAM will be more than enough. I have 2gb and don't come close to using it all.

Sound over HDMI is a big headache. I got it working in ubuntu 8.10 after some messing around, but after recently upgrading to 9.04 I can't get it to work again. I decided to just give up and use the separate audio out and I'm happy with the quality.

[Dale1990]

I finally got enough parts to put this machine together and run a few simple tests so I figured I should report back.

I am using all of the same parts as I listed above except I went to Corsair memory (little cheaper) but the same amount (4GB). I am still missing one SATA power cable for the HD but I was able to get the 9.04 LiveCD to work.

Simply put: It's awesome.

My test file was an unmolested M2TS of Quantum of Solace (H264/AC3) residing on an SMB share across a GigE network. It played at 1080p w/o a hitch. According to the info bar, it did drop a few frames at the start but nothing noticeable. Apparently, it was decoding with the CPU only by default. Both cores were at about 50-60%. Not a big deal as the quality was wonderful.

I found the player settings and switched it to VDPAU. There were still a few dropped frames right at the start but the CPU usage dropped to 5-8% . Quality was the same.

As a side note, streaming this file from the SMB share required about 5-7MB/s bandwidth so this would still work on a 100Mb network as long as there wasn't much other traffic. Wireless-G would be pushing it but N might work well.

This was all done over VGA to my LCD TV and a crummy stereo out cable to my old-as-dirt receiver. I have not played w/ HDMI or digital audio yet. My current receiver does not support digital audio in any form but it will be replaced very soon.

Overall, I'd say the XBMC folks did one hell of a job making this system work right out of the box er... CD. I'll probably by installing XBMC on a standard Jaunty install, however. I plan to use this PC for other tasks outside of XBMC.

I also want to say thanks for helping me get the parts in order!

[Peevy]

I'm glad your happy with your setup Dale1990. Its pretty much what Im considering going for myself, except im gonna stick with 2GB RAM.
I was gonna overclock the E5200 but with VDPAU I don't think there's any need to.

The HTPC I have at the minute is quite noisy mainly due to the Pentium 4 CPU which runs pretty hot. To keep everything cool Iv'e got two 120mm & two 80mm case fans running in a noname Media centre case. These fans aren't that noisy though considering the amount of them but CPU fans very noisy.

I'm hoping to just go with the two 120mm fans in the new build with the above mentioned parts. Could you tell me what the noise is like from the E5200? And are you using the stock heatsink?
I have a Q600 CPU with the stock heatsink in my Studio PC & its nowhere near as noisy.

[Dale1990]

Could you tell me what the noise is like from the E5200? And are you using the stock heatsink?
I have a Q600 CPU with the stock heatsink in my Studio PC & its nowhere near as noisy.

I'm running the stock fan and heatsink at the moment. The temps are at 38*ish under average load so I don't feel I need to upgrade. The case has 2 small-ish rear fans, a power supply fan and then the CPU fan. Overall, I would say it is pretty quiet. I can hear it when I am not playing anything but can't hear it when playing any movies/music at low-normal volume.

My only other machines to compare it to are a MSI Wind desktop which is virtually silent (only one rear exhaust fan) unless heavily loaded and my old G4 Mac that sounds like a jet engine at any load.

[DeanM3]

I think the E5200 is the sweet spot for a small XBMC HTPC build.

It is the perfect price/performance ratio while still running cool and quiet. I was even impressed with the stock cooler with this chip.

Going with a single core Celeron or ION platform is just too much of a drop off in performance with very little decrease in cost.

[xnappo]

I think the E5200 is the sweet spot for a small XBMC HTPC build.

It is the perfect price/performance ratio while still running cool and quiet. I was even impressed with the stock cooler with this chip.

AMD 5050e, cheaper and lower power. Using VDPAU of course.

xnappo

[DeanM3]

AMD 5050e, cheaper and lower power. Using VDPAU of course.

xnappo

Unfortunately there are no 9300 boards for AMD yet. That's why I give the edge to intel right now.