XBMC + Alaska revisited = What spec HTPC?
#1
hi guys, i thought i would post this here as i only use the Alaska revisited skin and didnt want to post it in the windows area - as its an Alaska related issue / conversation.

I currently run my system on an ASRock ION 330, with Windows 7, with the content files all streaming from a windows home server box (via 1Gbps network). I havent got around to adding all my movies but am up to about 400 now and i have noticed that the atom cpu is starting to slow down a little when running alaska revisted modes like panel wrap / fixed etc.

I know this can be expected due to the number of movies to display, etc, but I am looking for some recommendations / feedback on HTPC spec(s).

I have noticed in some of Hitcher's you tube videos he has large video collections on display with no "wait" for the thumbnails to display - is this the way Alaska works when you are running a quad core cpu system?

I love the ion chipset, but its the atom CPU where it starts to falls over.

What systems do you guys run your Alaska systems on?
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#2
looks like this should go into the Hardware focused forum as Alaska has no special hardware requirements.
I'm not an expert but I play one at work.
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#3
I also have an ASRock ION330 with windows 7, with my files on a NAS connected through a 1GBPS connection. Most of the time Alaska Revisited behaves very smoothly, but sometimes, and especially in the movie library, there can be some hiccups in the animations.

I believe this has to do with the way thumbnails and fanart are stored, namely as jpg/png. These have to be decoded by the cpu which takes a little time on an Atom. To solve this you could store the images as directX textures, which can be interpreted by the GPU therefore taking less time to extract. I do believe the filesize of these it a lot larger than a jpg. (more info on the wiki)

I have a lot more tv-shows than movies in my library (220 vs 60), yet the tv-show seem to display and animate more smoothly, so there may also be a small difference in there somewhere.

Finally, a SSD might alleviate the issue a little.
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#4
i forgot to mention the ion 330 system already has an ocz vertex turbo 30gb ssd drive in it - read speads are about 200mb/s - its deff to do with the atom cpu...i might check out the wiki u linked to and see if that can help
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#5
you might wish to check this thread
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#6
salival Wrote:you might wish to check this thread

I did the above you just need a recent nightly build add the advancedsettings.xml to the userdata folder in roaming and it converts the jpg files to dds as you BROWSE the movie library. Just need to give it a few seconds before you move onto the next movie to give it chance to convert.

It takes a while if you have hundreds to go through but after that as you add them it will not be noticeable. Remember this only works with the nightly releases and does not require installation of any texture compressors as others think.

It works for me and the fanart is instant using a Acer revo 1gb single core Big Grin
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#7
Ok so I have added an advancedsettings.xml file in the route of the userdata folder, with the XML held in the file.

When this creates the dds files do the JPG / TBN files it had created / cached away get deleted, or do you need to empty the cache directories yourself?
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#8
I believe the thumbnail cache is persistent, meaning XBMC doesn't throw anything away (I believe this is explained somewhere in the thread I linked to.)
So, if you wish to get rid of the old thumbnail files you have to remove them yourself.
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XBMC + Alaska revisited = What spec HTPC?0