[knatsch]

I never bought *new* hardware for linux, so is there a way to determine if there are drivers for the mainboard I am going to buy?
Currently I am thinking about an Intel DG33TLM board with X3100 graphics and SPDIF onboard. Link to the Board is here
(sorry German only)

[Gamester17]

the board is 'linux compatible' but the built-in Intel GMA graphic chip on it does only seem to support OpenGL 1.5 (and XBMC for Linux requires OpenGL 2.0)?

[knatsch]

Oh really? Where do you got that information from? In the Linux wiki stands the following:

Graphic adapters that support DirectX version 9.0c or later usually meet all of those mentioned requirements, (Team-XBMC recommends NVIDIA GeForce 6150 or later alternatively Intel GMA X3000 (G965/GM965) or later graphics-controllers as those two manufacturers currently offer the best device-drivers for Linux than other graphic-adapter manufacturers

[Gamester17]

sorry that is wrong, (no Intel GMA supports OpenGL 2.0 according to this, but OpenGL 2.0 is currently a XBMC requirement), I will change it in the wiki

[knatsch]

Thank you for clarifying. I looked earlier in the german wiki and they obviously made a mistake there too. I just searched the Intel Datasheets and it is indeed only OpenGL 1.5

[Gamester17]

I read somewhere that next version of Intel GMA that is comming out this fall/winter will feature OpenGL 2.0

[knatsch]

I won't wait until then because the new TV Season starts next month and I want to watch in 720p
Sorry Intel :p

[keito]

I've got an Intel 945GM, and it's running XBMC and videos in 720p without any problems!!

[d4rk]

Although Intel 945GM* might support OpenGL 2.0 in hardware and therefore under Windows, I don't know if there are any Linux drivers for it that actually expose GL 2.0. If you're building a new box with no restrictions, I would highly recommend getting an Nvidia 7600 or better. You might even be able to find a fanless 7600 or 8600.

*Edit: Actually, I didn't mean the Intel 945GM specifically, I meant any Intel graphics chipsets.

[SneakerElph]

I keep hearing that XBMC needs OpenGL 2.0 and things like that, but i had no problems at all running 1080p content off of a GeForce 4 MX 440. AFAIK GF4's weren't OGL2.0, so what's the deal there?

[Gamester17]

Currently it's some GUI (Graphical User Interface) features such as animations and transitions in XBMC GUI that require OpenGL 2.0 to run smooth. Also the GUI framework in XBMC is designed so that if there is no hardware support for OpenGL 2.0 in the GPU (Graphic Processor Unit) then it will utilize software to emulate those rutines, meaning they will run on the CPU (Central Processor Unit) instead of the GPU, and thus might make the GUI seem slugish and not so smooth (especially with animation and transitions).

To clearify, the video playback function in XBMC does not yet require OpenGL 2.0 so you will not notice any difference there.

[pike]

atleast the de-interlacers d4rk has added needs OpenGL2.0

[Gamester17]

In the future there will probably other video post-processing filters to improve quality and possible also hardware accelerated video decoding that will require OpenGL 2.0 support in the GPU.

[d4rk]

Currently OpenGL 2.0 is needed for

• Any deinterlacing that isn't linear blending that ffmpeg does
  
• Video filtering (bicubic upscaling, etc)
  
• Non-power of two textures for the GUI (using NPOT saves a lot of texture memory)
  
• Hardware accelerated YUV 2 RGB conversion (actually GLSL is needed for this, and some OpenGL 1.5 implementations provide GLSL as an extension. OpenGL 2.0 guarantees availability of GLSL).
  

That's all I can think of right now, but anyhow, OpenGL 2.0 will be the eventual minimum requirement for XBMC (at least for using all its functionality).