2013-07-15, 00:38
Greetings all,
I've worked in IT for years but I'm just now getting into the HTPC stuff. My original plan was to build a lightweight small box for my HT but a few guru friends of mine as well as online sources were telling me that was overkill for my needs. Movie and music playback, no gaming, no 3D. 1080p at most. I stream this still over my LAN to two different bluray players in the house and it works fine, but the player interfaces are awful, hence Xmbc
.
So, I found this little Shuttle at the store and picked it up. 4 gigs, DDR3, SSD, etc. I wasn't familiar with the GPU (GMA 3650) and I think therein may lie the problem.
I'm having all sorts of trouble getting this set up. Linux drivers for that GPU are mediocre at best so Ubuntu, OpenElec and Xmbcbuntu haven't worked. Win 64bit (my OS of choice) won't work either because no 64 bit video drivers exist. I'm running on win7 32bit currently.
I've managed to get playback that's watchable by tweaking various settings and reading up on what others have done with the other Shuttle model I see used, the XS35GS. After turning off the run fullscreen vs. in a window things seem to be OK, BUT...
I'm really questioning if I want to keep something this poorly supported. I believe the store had another Shuttle with an ATI GPU so I'm tempted to trade it out. I've read nothing good about the GMA 3650 and putting all my HT eggs in that basket makes me very nervous.
Opinions? Again, it "seems" to be usable right now but I have a feeling I'm right on the limits of performance here. Any others running Xbmc on the GMA 3650 with success?
Thanks!
I've worked in IT for years but I'm just now getting into the HTPC stuff. My original plan was to build a lightweight small box for my HT but a few guru friends of mine as well as online sources were telling me that was overkill for my needs. Movie and music playback, no gaming, no 3D. 1080p at most. I stream this still over my LAN to two different bluray players in the house and it works fine, but the player interfaces are awful, hence Xmbc
.So, I found this little Shuttle at the store and picked it up. 4 gigs, DDR3, SSD, etc. I wasn't familiar with the GPU (GMA 3650) and I think therein may lie the problem.
I'm having all sorts of trouble getting this set up. Linux drivers for that GPU are mediocre at best so Ubuntu, OpenElec and Xmbcbuntu haven't worked. Win 64bit (my OS of choice) won't work either because no 64 bit video drivers exist. I'm running on win7 32bit currently.
I've managed to get playback that's watchable by tweaking various settings and reading up on what others have done with the other Shuttle model I see used, the XS35GS. After turning off the run fullscreen vs. in a window things seem to be OK, BUT...
I'm really questioning if I want to keep something this poorly supported. I believe the store had another Shuttle with an ATI GPU so I'm tempted to trade it out. I've read nothing good about the GMA 3650 and putting all my HT eggs in that basket makes me very nervous.
Opinions? Again, it "seems" to be usable right now but I have a feeling I'm right on the limits of performance here. Any others running Xbmc on the GMA 3650 with success?
Thanks!
