VIA C3 'Samuel 2' 'man' enough for [linux]xbmc
#1
Question 
Been struggling for a few days on getting [linux]xbmc to work on an old htpc that I got off ebay.

The system is based on an old mATX mobo, a VIA EPIA C800 system.
This appears to be running a 800Mhz Samuel 2 cpu.

After some fiddling, and following this guide (but missing out the nvidea gfx bit and substituting a previous xconf for my chipset ), I've managed to get xbmc to run, and autostart, but its dog slow...

literally, painfully, unusably slow...

can anyone help with...

Is the cpu just not up to the job ?

Is it the skin its running ?
Its the default one that comes with the latest [linux]xbmc release, but this isnt the skin that is in my latest [XBOX]xbmc release, or on my oldish [LIVE]xbmc disk.

both my xbox, and the celeron based laptop that I run the [live] version from literally fly, so I cant see why this Samuel 2 chip should cope..

I've pasted the dmesg data from my htpc at pastebin, in case this helps anyone figure out if the hardware is just past it...
http://paste.ubuntu.com/348611/

cheers.
Nim
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#2
Nimbus_UK Wrote:Is the cpu just not up to the job ?
I wouldn't count on it, a pentium II is faster than that cpu.
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#3
It's more likely the GPU holding you back by offloading GL stuff to the CPU which would already be highly taxed. 800MHz should run OK (for SD content) with a proper GPU, my laptop is scaled down to that most of the time and works fine.
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#4
mm, slower than a pentium 2 !! *%*@~# !!

So basically, I either need a new mobo, or else need to stick a gfx card in the one pci slot... but as its a pci slot, its not likely to be a very fast gfx card...

so maybe a new atom or at least an mATX based mobo is needed.

cheers for the feedback guys Smile
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VIA C3 'Samuel 2' 'man' enough for [linux]xbmc0