First off kudo's to all involved in the XBMC project. Been using it for years on my xbox.
I've just picked up a HP/Compaq D530 SFF
Its a P4 2.8ghz
512 mb ram
Intel 865G on board graphics
I've installed ubuntu 7.1 and built the latest XBMC rev.
The GUI runs ok. Have resolution at 720p on desktop and in XBMC.
Tried to play a 720p "release" MKV file. Its not quite there. Getting 20-22 fps with CPU 80-100% load.
What I would like to know is if it will be any better with an Nvidia card put in? I would really like fluid 720p. Not bothered about 1080p though it would be nice
The Graphics card has to be AGP. I bought an 8400gs but its pci-e.
Any suggestions?
Any standalone graphics card, nvidia or ati, would be better over board based video.
You think it will be enough for proper 720p playback considering the fps im getting at the mo?
Oh. Is it possible that future revisions may improve playback or am I just going to have to get a better cpu?
really? wow ... haven't tried it on linux yet but i was actually going to buy an old pc to do so. i always thought anything above 1,5 ghz would be enough for that as the xbox plays 720p xvids at about 21-22 fps ...
hmm.. some funky xbox you got then
well my xbox cant play x264-mkv's 720p at all i thought.. wel at least not at 21-22fps..
Xvid is much easier to decode than h.264, so you're both right. Sure there's a chance that future revisions will improve playback speed, but that's largely up to the ffmpeg developers. I wouldn't count on it in the near future. You really don't need a very fast CPU for 720p h.264 "scene" releases; a $70 1.8Ghz C2D can do it no problem.
I cannot help but wonder what an overclocked dual core Celeron might do. There's a cheap 2Ghz one in the lineup and I'll bet that if it were clocked up it would work pretty well!
There HAVE been some speedups in decoding. The biggest was getting dual core decoding, that was HUGE. There have been some other tweaks along the line too but nothing quite as big as getting both cores working together. The best thing to do is just try it and if it's not fast enough try overclocking it if the BIOS will allow. Can't hurt to try if the hardware is on hand and you have some time. I built XBMC on a laptop, a junky desktop, and then finally on good hardware in a tower case before finally settling it all into a nice case with a laptop HDD and calling it a day. I've probably rebuilt it a dozen times since too so don't be afraid to just try things out!
I can play 720p on a old single core 3gig amd 64bit I had around though I didn't test it fully just a couple of heroes episodes
You're going to have to upgrade to playback 720p h.264 consistently. Although that p4 runs at 2.8GHz, it is a very inefficient chip not even 3 times as fast as the pentium3 based celeron 733 in the xbox. It should play 720p Divx and Xvid fine, but keep in mind the xbox1 can't handle dvd resolution h.264 and how many more pixels there are to decode in a 720p file.
I can play 720p on an AMD Sempron 3000+ (1800mhz) with no problems.
I can play 720p on my celeron 2.6ghz, with fx5600. So I'd imagine 2.8ghz P4 should be enough. I'd say it's your onboard graphics card that is the bottleneck here.
I've only come across one I cannot play fluidly with mine and that is "bird scene" from planet earth in 720p, it's watchable but you feel the dropped frames. (wild guess at 2-3 per second are dropped)
My old HTPC was a P4 2.8. I initially tried using the on-board video but I noticed the same problems as the original poster (70-100% CPU). I installed an old ATI Radeon 9700 I had lying around and it definitely relieved some stress from the CPU (~20-30% less CPU) with 720p mkv sources. The system was adequate for 720p but it could only get 18-20 fps for 1080p so I replaced it. I wouldn't recommend spending much on an AGP card. You're better off replacing the system than spending $100 on a good AGP card (cheap DDR2, low-end MB, cheap dual core CPU...~$150). If you have and AGP card lying around, use it.
Thanks for all the great responses. I think I might go ahead and try a fx5600 as they're only £20 on ebay. I only want fluid 720p so hopefully that will do it! If it doesn't work i'll retire the pc to server use and get a new one.