[tha_lode]

I have an ageing Dell i9300. I have considered pulling off the screen and using it for DVR and mediaplayback.

XBMC seems like a great system, but from what I understand it does not support using the GPU for videoplayback.

My problem is that the computer CPU is to slow to pull 720p video, unlike the GPU which does this job just fine.

What do you guys suggest?

[tha_lode]

Okay. So no one will answer my noob question. I get it. ;-)

Now how about this:
This little charming thing popped up on my radar.
Acer Aspire L5100
http://www.acer.co.uk/public/page4.do?li...3076482723

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400
Ram: 2048 MB
HDD: 320 GB
GPU: ATI Radeon™ XPRESS 1250

Is this something that would work well with XBMC? Should I get XP for it instead of the preinstalled Vista?

[dpassent]

XBMC for linux isn't even in the alpha stage. So XBMC Win32 is also very little girl. She grows up very quickly, and you can see that she's turning into a very nice teen that would be kick ass, sexy, and badass chick. But for now - it's to early to set proper HW reqs. People have trouble with ATI cards now, nvidia working without tweaking. There is no HW accel for x264, but we have our fingers crossed.

With this Athlon you should have enough horsepower to decode at least 720p x264. Would it run smooth? I don't know. People with enough horsepower report different behaviours. Both win32 and linux. So to sum it up. This acer could be good machine, but on the other hand - it just don't have to

DP

[marlboroman1]

as far as your first question goes the lack of response is probable due to us not knowing the system spec of a dell i9300, it maybe good enough for 720p the easiest way to find out is to start testing it your self. I just downloaded 2 hd trailers a 720 a and 1080p to test on my desk top which is

AMD 64 3000+ = 2.0 GHz

1.00 GB ram

ATI Aadeon all in wonder 9200se directX 8.1 open GL 1.3


the 720p played fine and I got little bit of lag on 1080p

I think if your old laptop has with 2.0 GHz or more prosceser 720p be fine as long as the bit rate is not to high. As for graphics card as long as it can render GUI and you don't get a black or green screen when you try to play videos then its job done.

dpassent said people have had problems with ati and that graphics card dusent support directX 9c which is the recommend minimum spec. if your going to start spending money I would get some thing with a modern graphics card. The nivida 8500GT seems to work well, isn't to pricey and MAY get video hardware acceleration for H.264 though DXVA I hope