2010-12-28, 04:03
I don't know how much praise the XBMC team gets, but I have to give some.
Over the summer I started a project to create a HTPC. At first, I was using my old laptop. It was a single-core 2GHZ massive monster that was extremely sluggish with XBMC. It ran 480p nicely, and chugged a little with HD. It was loud, and configuring skins and add-ons (and getting a X360 controller to work on Linux) was a pain in the ass.
This past 6 months, I had my final semester of college. I put the project aside, and decided that for Christmas I should get a nettop. Low and behold, I got myself a bare bones computer with the Atom processor and nVidia ION GPU. Not to mention, XBMC updated to Dharma.
Let me just say, the experience I had this time around was spectacular! You guys are a very, very talented group of people. From the way it's coded for multi-threading and to make use of the GPU blows me away. The menu is extremely fast and snappy, and even though I run a pretty good (from what I understand) graphics card, the processor is slower (but dual-core, so there's that) and I'm using less RAM (although it's DDR2, not DDR). I tested it out running Iron Man 2 in 720p (the highest my TV has), which was stored on an external hard drive, and I was able to scrub through with no problem. No lag, no mismatched sound. And Iron Man 2 was about 4GBs!
I wasn't able to test out the Add-On functionality because my Internet has been screwy what with the blizzard, but I'm extremely impressed with what I'm seeing so far.
I'm so glad I opted for a nettop instead of a Boxee box; XBMC is simply beautiful.
If I had more free time (not making any promises, but I might in a few months) I'd love to contribute my talents (and my shiny new degree) to the project.
Hope this brightens up someone's day, and keep up the good work!
Over the summer I started a project to create a HTPC. At first, I was using my old laptop. It was a single-core 2GHZ massive monster that was extremely sluggish with XBMC. It ran 480p nicely, and chugged a little with HD. It was loud, and configuring skins and add-ons (and getting a X360 controller to work on Linux) was a pain in the ass.
This past 6 months, I had my final semester of college. I put the project aside, and decided that for Christmas I should get a nettop. Low and behold, I got myself a bare bones computer with the Atom processor and nVidia ION GPU. Not to mention, XBMC updated to Dharma.
Let me just say, the experience I had this time around was spectacular! You guys are a very, very talented group of people. From the way it's coded for multi-threading and to make use of the GPU blows me away. The menu is extremely fast and snappy, and even though I run a pretty good (from what I understand) graphics card, the processor is slower (but dual-core, so there's that) and I'm using less RAM (although it's DDR2, not DDR). I tested it out running Iron Man 2 in 720p (the highest my TV has), which was stored on an external hard drive, and I was able to scrub through with no problem. No lag, no mismatched sound. And Iron Man 2 was about 4GBs!
I wasn't able to test out the Add-On functionality because my Internet has been screwy what with the blizzard, but I'm extremely impressed with what I'm seeing so far.
I'm so glad I opted for a nettop instead of a Boxee box; XBMC is simply beautiful.
If I had more free time (not making any promises, but I might in a few months) I'd love to contribute my talents (and my shiny new degree) to the project.
Hope this brightens up someone's day, and keep up the good work!