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[LINUX] ASRock IONSTAR 330 (NVIDIA ION) with XBMC for Linux performance and setup?
#1
Question 
I thought it was about time that we put together a thread to discuss any problems that people are having with the ASRock IONSTAR and XBMC Linux. This has been discussed in bits and bobs around this forum but we should really have this information in one central place.

If you are having issues or know of any brilliant solutions please share Nod

Issues that we need help with

* S/PDIF Digital In - At the moment I have Digital in working but the connection between my IONSTAR and AMP seems to be constantly opening and closing. Basically after any audio starts playing it takes about one-two second before I can hear it from my speakers. This isn't a massive problem but it does mean that I can not hear any menu navigation sounds as the're shorter then the 1 second needed for the AMP register audio. This is a problem with either the drivers or the OS because this didn't happen in windows 7.

Solutions

* Update XBMC Live 9.04.01 Nvidia driver - thanks l.capriotti

Get hold of some ISO editing software (on Windows use MagicISO)

Download the newer Nvidia driver package from here.

Load the XBMC Live 9.04.01 ISO into your ISO editor and replace the restrictedDrivers.nvidia.img with the one you downloaded.

Save the ISO to a new file and burn to CD.

When you install XBMC Live you will have the newer driver installed.

Alternatively extract XBMC Live iso to USB drive then replace nvidia driver with newer version and boot from USB drive to install (didn't work for me though maybe down to software issue on my end)

Tested on my unit and it now reads Ion GPU instead of unknown.

medicineuk - could you alter your first post to link to this one perhaps.

* Enable 1080p @ 24Hz for XBMC Live

Thanks to boba23 for the solution
If you have limited linux experience I suggest downloading Ubuntu CD and boot from it. It will give you the option to boot a “live” version called try without changing… so go with that.

Once Ubuntu is up & running click Places and look for a hard drive there should be two listed and one is about 4GB in size so click on that one so it mounts it, now close the file browser window it opened.

Now start terminal found under Applications->Accessories

Type in what’s below and it should open a new file browser window
gksudo nautilus

Browse to /etc/x11 folder and look for xorg.conf and open it in the text editor

Look through the file and you will see a section called Screen, add the following line into this section with quotes intact,

Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"

Click save if all goes well it should, if it won’t let you close the window and repeat the terminal step.

Now boot back into XBMC Live & go to settings->video->player and enable "adjust refresh rate". Now to to settings->appearance->screen and change resolution to 1920x1080@24Hz

To confirm its working you can press z on keyboard and it will display refresh rate.
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#2
One more to add if using XBMC Live 9.04.01 installed onto the hard drive of the Asrock Ion 330.

When coming out of sleep via wake on USB an X cursor is shown on screen and remains until the system is rebooted.

[Thanks to >>X<< for the solution]
If you put your unit to sleep and then wake it up you are left with a cursor on screen that will not go away nor can be moved. To fix it if you have limited linux experience I suggest downloading Ubuntu CD and boot from it. It will give you the option to boot a “live” version called try without changing… so go with that.

Once Ubuntu is up & running click Places and look for a hard drive there should be two listed and one is about 4GB in size so click on that one so it mounts it, now close the file browser window it opened.

Now start terminal found under Applications->Accessories

Type in what’s below and it should open a new file browser window
gksudo nautilus

Browse to /etc/x11 folder and look for xorg.conf and open it in the text editor

Look through the file and you will see a section called Device, add the following line into this section with quotes intact, see picture below to get the idea.
Option "HWCursor" "false"

Image

Click save if all goes well it should, if it won’t let you close the window and repeat the terminal step. Now all you have to do is reboot the machine and test out sleep the X should be gone when coming out of it.
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#3
Any news about installation of new Nvidia Ion Drivers?

Bye!
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#4
vercingetorige Wrote:Any news about installation of new Nvidia Ion Drivers?

Bye!

There's a couple of thread you might find interesting, although I haven't installed the drivers in XBMC Live myself so I can't confirm they work.

one of the XBMC team have put together a replacement file with the new drivers included.
http://www.xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=52605

The command that Starstream was looking for to shutdown Xserver is
Code:
sudo pkill X
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#5
XBMC live is fine when it's running out-of-the-box, but when you need to do customization e.g. updating the nvidia drivers manually including kernel compiling or have to edit important config files, I strongly suggest going for the XBMCbuntu guide that's sticky on top of the forum.

on a side note, where exactly is the HDMI audio problem on the zotac and asrock hardware? I'd presume that it's exactly the same ION audio hardware that the Acer Revo is using, and I got fully working HDMI audio with multichannel passthrough just by typing "HDMI" manually in the corresponding fields in XBMC audio hardware settings. no need to fiddle around with alsa upgrades etc. Cool
OpenElec Standalone --> Asus Chromebox 'Panther' --> Onkyo TX-NR709 --> Sony 55" X85C Android TV (also with Kodi!)
Asus Chromebox EZ Script
Kodi on Sony Bravia Android TVs
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#6
Update XBMC Live 9.04.01 Nvidia driver - thanks l.capriotti

Get hold of some ISO editing software (on Windows use MagicISO)

Download the newer Nvidia driver package from here.

Load the XBMC Live 9.04.01 ISO into your ISO editor and replace the restrictedDrivers.nvidia.img with the one you downloaded.

Save the ISO to a new file and burn to CD.

When you install XBMC Live you will have the newer driver installed.

Alternatively extract XBMC Live iso to USB drive then replace nvidia driver with newer version and boot from USB drive to install (didn't work for me though maybe down to software issue on my end)

Tested on my unit and it now reads Ion GPU instead of unknown.

Edit: I've uploaded a copy of XBMC Live 9.04.1 with the updated Nvidia drivers onto rapidshare download links below;

http://rapidshare.com/files/245618681/ne....part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245618686/ne....part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245629346/ne....part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/245629348/ne....part4.rar
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#7
Hannes The Hun - the audio is weird one I managed to update the alsadriver everything still worked however there was still no HDMI audio.

Really don't know what the problem is for it, I'm not sure the audio is the same as the Acer Revo maybe someone else can confirm but when I had ubuntu installed I think it showed a Via audio chip present on the system along with an Nvidia HDMI HDA driver.

medicineuk - you could probably remove the link in the HDMI audio problem description in your first post tried it and didn't work.
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#8
Starstream Wrote:but when I had ubuntu installed I think it showed a Via audio chip present on the system along with an Nvidia HDMI HDA driver.

the Revo has a realtek HDA chip, but the HDA chips are irrelevant as the nvidia HDMI audio device integrated in the Ion GPU is doing all the HDMI audio by itself. you should do an lspci to see what hardware exactly gets recognized and why alsa is not working with the HDMI audio.
OpenElec Standalone --> Asus Chromebox 'Panther' --> Onkyo TX-NR709 --> Sony 55" X85C Android TV (also with Kodi!)
Asus Chromebox EZ Script
Kodi on Sony Bravia Android TVs
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#9
Hannes The Hun Wrote:the Revo has a realtek HDA chip, but the HDA chips are irrelevant as the nvidia HDMI audio device integrated in the Ion GPU is doing all the HDMI audio by itself. you should do an lspci to see what hardware exactly gets recognized and why alsa is not working with the HDMI audio.

Tried out lspci and gave back as audio "NVIDIA MCP79 High Definition Audio (Revb1)" which I'm guessing isn't terribly helpful. I put in the CD that came with it and checked its contents are there are present on the disc
VIA audio driver
NVIDIA audio driver
NVIDIA HDMI audio driver

I'll open up the unit later and take a look inside to see what VIA chip is in it.
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#10
I just setup my zotac ion board and had the same problem with getting audio over hdmi to work. All I did was type in "hdmi" into the audio settings and that made it work.
Reply
#11
medicineuk - could you add this one to the first post as well

Enable 1080p @ 24Hz for XBMC Live

Thanks to boba23 for the solution
If you have limited linux experience I suggest downloading Ubuntu CD and boot from it. It will give you the option to boot a “live” version called try without changing… so go with that.

Once Ubuntu is up & running click Places and look for a hard drive there should be two listed and one is about 4GB in size so click on that one so it mounts it, now close the file browser window it opened.

Now start terminal found under Applications->Accessories

Type in what’s below and it should open a new file browser window
gksudo nautilus

Browse to /etc/x11 folder and look for xorg.conf and open it in the text editor

Look through the file and you will see a section called Screen, add the following line into this section with quotes intact,

Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"

Click save if all goes well it should, if it won’t let you close the window and repeat the terminal step.

Now boot back into XBMC Live & go to settings->video->player and enable "adjust refresh rate". Now to to settings->appearance->screen and change resolution to 1920x1080@24Hz

To confirm its working you can press z on keyboard and it will display refresh rate.
Reply
#12
Qroach Wrote:I just setup my zotac ion board and had the same problem with getting audio over hdmi to work. All I did was type in "hdmi" into the audio settings and that made it work.

I did try that but stubbornness gave in and I tired again with hdmi + iec958 and still no audio but then found an error in my testing.

Instead of my movies I tried something else a tv show with mp3 audio and suddenly I could hear the audio over HDMI ??

But I dont get any audio in the XBMC interface and I dont get any audio in videos with AC3 tracks (I do get all the audio over SPDIF into the same sound system).

Mystified now as to what it could be.

Edit: okay I just set both audio sections to lowercase hdmi and I now have working audio on everything bar the XBMC UI, I was certain I tried out this combo before maybe it was the lack of audio in XBMC interface which threw me off but its seems to working fine now, thanks to all who helped.
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#13
@Starstream do you have the problem with SPDIF that I described on the first page?

Quote:My Issue is that the sounds takes about 1 second before it starts playing. This is fine when watching a movie or listening to music but it means that I can't not hear any audio from menus or any UI's as they're normally under one second.

When I press enough buttons in quick concession DLOBYPLN is displayed on my AMP but so soon as I stop it goes back to DI. It's seems as though the sound channel is constantly opening and closing and will only stay open if the sound continues for more then 1 second. Is there a way that I can keep it open all the time?
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#14
Yes I had the same problem when connected over SPDIF with my AMP. If I used the remote to cycle through the menus quickly I could hear the audio of the menu.

However over HDMI I get no audio in the XBMC UI at all however the audio cut off in first second or two that was present over SPDIF seems to be gone (I think) when playing videos.
Reply
#15
I'm glad it finally worked out for you. it's completely normal that there are no XBMC sounds at all, I think nobody got them to work via HDMI. and remember, as long as you uncheck the "downmix to stereo" option, XBMC will passthrough all audio unchanged to your receiver, if he's capable of decoding it or not (AAC is often problematic)

also, because of the HDCP handshake, there *should* be a pause of around 1 to 2 sec when you start playing a movie before you hear any sound
OpenElec Standalone --> Asus Chromebox 'Panther' --> Onkyo TX-NR709 --> Sony 55" X85C Android TV (also with Kodi!)
Asus Chromebox EZ Script
Kodi on Sony Bravia Android TVs
Reply
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[LINUX] ASRock IONSTAR 330 (NVIDIA ION) with XBMC for Linux performance and setup?0