Greets all,
as a long time linux user, I'm interested in giving xmbc a whirl. I'm looking for advice on hardware which a) will work well with xmbc linux, b) is cheap and c) will do what I need (ability to view avi's/ divx/ vobs/ bbc iplayer/ youtube/ light web-browsing etc.)
Any pointers? I thought the new acer revo thing looked like it might hit the spot, but there are a number of pointers to it being underpowered..
please don't flame if you feel this is more a hardware advice question than a linux one!
I suppose it depends a lot on the form factor you're after. I can only speak from experience of my current build, which is:
M3N78-VM with 8200 onboard, AMD 5050e, 4Gb RAM, 1TB 3.5" hdd for media, 20Gb 2.5" hdd for OS.
Everything works pretty much perfectly at 1080. CPU is 5-10% per core with VPDAU.
The only thing I still haven't got working is optical spdif, so I can't wholeheartedly recommend that mobo. Apart from that, this has plenty of power for anything I can chuck at it. Even without VPDAU, it handled 1080p almost perfectly.
lens Wrote:I suppose it depends a lot on the form factor you're after. I can only speak from experience of my current build, which is:
M3N78-VM with 8200 onboard, AMD 5050e, 4Gb RAM, 1TB 3.5" hdd for media, 20Gb 2.5" hdd for OS.
Everything works pretty much perfectly at 1080. CPU is 5-10% per core with VPDAU.
The only thing I still haven't got working is optical spdif, so I can't wholeheartedly recommend that mobo. Apart from that, this has plenty of power for anything I can chuck at it. Even without VPDAU, it handled 1080p almost perfectly.
I have a similar setup (M3N78-EM, has 8300, with a 4850e) and I had alot of issues with fullscreen 1080p and VDPAU (Its a known issue on 8200 series, if you check the forum) There are some work arounds, but i ended up just getting a cheap 9400 PCIe card.
Do you not have any of these problems?
For the original poster, from my experience id recommend getting a 9400 series card (or IGP) for VDPAU. (not that other cards arnt working)
EDIT: also on my mobo I had no problem getting HDMI audio/optical out working fine. Just required the latest alsa and some config settings (again, many posts around here on the subject)
If price isn't an issue, the new mac mini is pretty much best in class for XBMC. Can't beat that form factor, and it supports VDPAU also.
It's funny but I don't seem to have any of the issues some others have experienced with the 8200 - just seems to work ok. Since suitable graphics hardware is so cheap these days, it's not too much of a worry either way.
I'm thinking of getting a sound card to solve my spdif output issue as I'm missing dts decoding through my amp, but other than that I'm pretty happy.
rodalpho Wrote:If price isn't an issue, the new mac mini is pretty much best in class for XBMC. Can't beat that form factor, and it supports VDPAU also.
thanks, looks nice, but as you hint it's not cheap, well over £500 on amazon.co.uk.
If I have a budget of £200 (I'm willing to build stuff myself, and have a 500Gb sata drive sitting around waiting to do something), is that unrealistic for something just to play vobs/ divx/ iplayer/ youtube? No need to do 1080p as my tv can only go up to 720p/1080i.
lens Wrote:I suppose it depends a lot on the form factor you're after. I can only speak from experience of my current build, which is:
M3N78-VM with 8200 onboard, AMD 5050e, 4Gb RAM, 1TB 3.5" hdd for media, 20Gb 2.5" hdd for OS.
Everything works pretty much perfectly at 1080. CPU is 5-10% per core with VPDAU.
The only thing I still haven't got working is optical spdif, so I can't wholeheartedly recommend that mobo. Apart from that, this has plenty of power for anything I can chuck at it. Even without VPDAU, it handled 1080p almost perfectly.
in terms of form factor, I'm after something small and importantly quiet. I had a look at the M3N78-VM m/board, looks great, but I suspect I'm after something lower-end/ cheaper.
if your just looking for something cheap to get a taste of xbmc, why not find a used xbox1 or wait for nvidia ion systems with the atom 330 cpu, they should be right around the corner
supergrapeman Wrote:in terms of form factor, I'm after something small and importantly quiet. I had a look at the M3N78-VM m/board, looks great, but I suspect I'm after something lower-end/ cheaper.
If you want VDPAU (for 720p/1080p) the M3N78-VM/EM is around the price thats gonna run. Otherwise you could buy cheaper mobo, and a faster cpu to use software decoding, but i still suspect itll be around the same price.
Either use a xbox like suggested above or wait for the aspire revo (im hoping to pick one up for my 720p tv, or wait for more of the similar ION platforms)
mcfreiz Wrote:if your just looking for something cheap to get a taste of xbmc, why not find a used xbox1 or wait for nvidia ion systems with the atom 330 cpu, they should be right around the corner
I'll probably do the latter. Cheers
What would you guys consider to be the baseline CPU speed for 1080p playback now with VDPAU? The CPU usage levels I've seen people reporting with VDPAU are really low which makes me think pretty much any recent CPU with 2+ GHz should be more than fine.
AMD is supposed to have some 45W Phenom-based CPUs coming out later this quarter:
http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?s...05&catid=2
I'm going to hold out for that since I think the Athlon II X3 405e and 400e look like they'd be perfect for an XBMC box (along with an appropriate VDPAU capable card...).
If you can use VDPAU, the CPU isn't really a factor. Any mass market CPU from the past 10 years will work fine for 1080p.