[Joris]

Hi everyone,

Although I've been using XBMC for Years now, I'm quite new on this forum. After my old xbox started showing it's shortcomings when rendering HD videos, I upgraded it to a brand new HTPC buikt around the core i3, the integrated IGP and an ASRock H55M-GE mainboard. I want to use Linux, as this saves me the money from the windows license.

Now I've been trying to set it up correctly for a few weeks now, but I've stumbled upon a few problems. This is where I've got so far: I've got Ubuntu maverick, XBMC for lucid from pps. Everything runs fine visually, but looking deeper, I've got some problems:

Firstly when I play a x264 video, it only gets rendered on my CPUs (vcpu usage stays around zero). Is there any way to get XBMC to use my intel HD IGP?

Secondly, as I try to play a 5.1 encoded movie, the only sound I get from my HDMI connection is some high pitch noise. I Can fix it by setting a my 'AC3 compatible receiver' setting to disabled, but then I miss my DTS surround sound. Anyone knows how to fix this?

Thank you already for your help!!

[Hannes The Hun]

honestly? get an nvidia GPU.

[dan1son]

You'd be better of running Windows 7 with that box. You'd have to look for sure, but I believe those GPUs can use DXVA which is supported with XBMC Dharma on Windows 7 (and Vista).

You won't get GPU acceleration in Linux any time soon without an NVidia card.

[Joris]

thanks for the info.

I read about the nvidia GPU's and the fact that they seem to solve all the problems. I do have a low profile HTPC case, and can't find a card that supports that. Besides, I'm on a tight budget now, so it will have to do.

Is there any other advantage for GPU rendering beside a lower CPU usage?

[alexpigment]

Is there any other advantage for GPU rendering beside a lower CPU usage?

In answer to your question, decoding the video on the GPU is really the main advantage. But it's not as simple as "render on hardware A as opposed to hardware B". GPUs specifically have the instructions in them to decode H.264 videos and CPUs do not. Therefore your CPU is having to work much harder to do the same thing that the GPU is doing. Imagine the difference of running Windows in a virtual machine (CPU) vs. running Windows natively from an installation (GPU). Luckily, you have an i3 chip which can probably do HD H.264 (I don't know from experience) on the CPU cores alone, but if you're on a budget-level or atom CPU, HD is not going to happen.

Also, if/when budget is no longer an issue, there are lots of low-profile nvidia cards on the market for very reasonable prices. See http://www.newegg.com . Haven't checked in a while, but I'm sure you could get what you need for $50 USD or less.

UPDATE:

HERE is a quick newegg search on Nvidia cards that are low-profile-ready and have an HDMI port on them. Just ignore anything from the 8000 series and you should be good to go: