Hi guys - great forum you have here, I've found it very useful so far, reading up in the last day or two.
A mate of mine recently recommended XBMC to me for streaming and I commented that I used to use it on my original Xbox, but I realise now its not quite the same thing. Having installed on my main pc the other day, I love the interface and want to make it my mainstay for media streaming, not least of all, because of the apps for controlling it via iPhone/ipad etc. It's all ideal for what I've been after for ages.
Having built a small HTPC though from stuff that I already had here (from a previous Car PC build) I've got a bit of an issue that I could use some tips with.
The machine I've got is pretty low spec, and I'm aware that in it's current setup as built yesterday it's not really got the cahones for doing any justice to XBMC. But I'm not quite clear on the best means of working around this, so am after advice & suggestions in respect of this if possible.
The machine is as follows:
ASRock A330GC board (Atom 330 1.6 dual core) - http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/A330GC/
1GB (yeah I know but it's all I currently have in this format/spec) DDR2 533 4200 ram
OCZ Vertex2 30gb SSD
Win7 Ultimate
Basically all that's installed is AVG free, klite codec pack, and the ASRock drivers for the board, plus I've tried Eden and Frodo on it to see if one worked better than the other.
Now here's the sticking point. The videos I've got on my nas box for streaming, all seem to play perfectly well on this setup using the installation of mediaplayer classic, which is bundled with the Klite codec pack. In XBMC however, videos play smoothly for maybe the first 10 seconds then hang (Eden), or in Frodo they just play extremely slowly and stuttery and make the mouse unresponsive.
According to task manager the memory isn't maxed out, nor the CPU when this is happening.
My understanding is that the onboard graphics abilities of this board/cpu are pitiful, and that generally you need a standalone GPU/card to get around this. That's fine but for the fact they play well in windows, but just not in XBMC. Everything I've tried so far in varying formats has worked - generally films that are maybe 720 rips and maybe around 700-900mb files of .wmv .mp4 .mpg .avi
So I realise this machine spec is pushing its limits in trying to do this task, but I'm puzzled why it is fine in windows, but fails in XBMC when there doesn't appear to be any resource maxed out that I can see, or any notable extra load added by xbmc being run. Am I missing something obvious that would cause this?
I've tried messing with the video options based on what I've seen in other threads here about wimpy hardware spec builds, and it hasn't helped.
Would love to know how to get round this.
Brings me on to my second question. Which is that this board only has an old school PCI slot for expansion. If I really just need a dedicated GPU/card to get round the problem above, is there anything which will go in an old PCI slot which will be up to the job (and ideally dirt cheap!)?
I know nothing about video handling or graphics cards etc so I'm not sure if that provides a cheap & easy solution, or if I'll basically need to build a new rig with the likes of a sandybridge cpu/board, or the AMD equivalent (I read in the wiki that the AMD ones have better integral video abilities).
Many thanks in advance. Ideally I'm looking for a way of making the video work as well in XBMC as it does in media player, without having to buy any more kit, but if a cheap gfx card (no idea what) will solve this, then that's fine.
Cheers!
Jim
A mate of mine recently recommended XBMC to me for streaming and I commented that I used to use it on my original Xbox, but I realise now its not quite the same thing. Having installed on my main pc the other day, I love the interface and want to make it my mainstay for media streaming, not least of all, because of the apps for controlling it via iPhone/ipad etc. It's all ideal for what I've been after for ages.
Having built a small HTPC though from stuff that I already had here (from a previous Car PC build) I've got a bit of an issue that I could use some tips with.
The machine I've got is pretty low spec, and I'm aware that in it's current setup as built yesterday it's not really got the cahones for doing any justice to XBMC. But I'm not quite clear on the best means of working around this, so am after advice & suggestions in respect of this if possible.
The machine is as follows:
ASRock A330GC board (Atom 330 1.6 dual core) - http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/A330GC/
1GB (yeah I know but it's all I currently have in this format/spec) DDR2 533 4200 ram
OCZ Vertex2 30gb SSD
Win7 Ultimate
Basically all that's installed is AVG free, klite codec pack, and the ASRock drivers for the board, plus I've tried Eden and Frodo on it to see if one worked better than the other.
Now here's the sticking point. The videos I've got on my nas box for streaming, all seem to play perfectly well on this setup using the installation of mediaplayer classic, which is bundled with the Klite codec pack. In XBMC however, videos play smoothly for maybe the first 10 seconds then hang (Eden), or in Frodo they just play extremely slowly and stuttery and make the mouse unresponsive.
According to task manager the memory isn't maxed out, nor the CPU when this is happening.
My understanding is that the onboard graphics abilities of this board/cpu are pitiful, and that generally you need a standalone GPU/card to get around this. That's fine but for the fact they play well in windows, but just not in XBMC. Everything I've tried so far in varying formats has worked - generally films that are maybe 720 rips and maybe around 700-900mb files of .wmv .mp4 .mpg .avi
So I realise this machine spec is pushing its limits in trying to do this task, but I'm puzzled why it is fine in windows, but fails in XBMC when there doesn't appear to be any resource maxed out that I can see, or any notable extra load added by xbmc being run. Am I missing something obvious that would cause this?
I've tried messing with the video options based on what I've seen in other threads here about wimpy hardware spec builds, and it hasn't helped.
Would love to know how to get round this.
Brings me on to my second question. Which is that this board only has an old school PCI slot for expansion. If I really just need a dedicated GPU/card to get round the problem above, is there anything which will go in an old PCI slot which will be up to the job (and ideally dirt cheap!)?
I know nothing about video handling or graphics cards etc so I'm not sure if that provides a cheap & easy solution, or if I'll basically need to build a new rig with the likes of a sandybridge cpu/board, or the AMD equivalent (I read in the wiki that the AMD ones have better integral video abilities).
Many thanks in advance. Ideally I'm looking for a way of making the video work as well in XBMC as it does in media player, without having to buy any more kit, but if a cheap gfx card (no idea what) will solve this, then that's fine.
Cheers!
Jim