Opinions wanted - Should this setup work ok?

[Decker]

Hi.

I'm new here and am just looking for some feedback on my hardware setup for MediaPortal. I have the components listed below.

CPU Type: AMD Athlon 2100+
Motherboard: Asus A7A266e (ALi M1647 Chipset)
Memory: 512Mb SD PC133 Ram
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon 9250 128M DVI
TV Card: Leadtek DTV-1000T
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Value Sound Card 7.1
HDD: Maxtor 300G 7200rpm ATA133 (16MB cache)
DVD: Pioneer DVR-A11XLB
Network: DLink DWL-G520 (Wireless)

Question is, should this give me full SD functionality (Record, timeshift, playback etc)? What about HD, or is that pushing my luck?

If you were looking to tune this setup, what would be the main component you would look at upgrading? My initial reaction is to go for DDR Ram and possibly up the Radeon to 9550. Any thoughts?

I'm currently struggling to get this running happy for SD (viewing TV mostly ok, playback not so ok) and am just wondering if I'm trying the impossible. If people think it's possible, I'll keep putting the time into tuning it. If not, what would you change, either for SD or HD?

Thanks for any feedback.
Brett.

[Efros]

HD is definitely a no go I'm afraid. as to upgrade I would go for DDR, followed by processor followed by gfx card. According to the Wiki your TV card is natively supported. If the CPU is a Thoroughbred rather than a Palamino you may well be able to overclock it quite easily. Try running cpuid to determine if its a thoroughbred. If it is do a google on overclocking a 2100+. But honestly I just dumped a 2500+ with 640 Mb, based system in favour of a AMD64 3000+ with 1G, cost including memory was about 230 dollars.

[gxtracker]

I agree with Efros. HD would be a long shot - you might be able to squeek out 720p content depending on the codec and compression, but I would test that theory before using it as fact.

The system is actually very balanced component wise, but that doesnt necessarily mean its a good thing. it means that there really isnt one component that needs upgradng more than another. I think the biggest reason you're having trouble with SD playback is the 9250 as I dont believe its a DirectX9 card, and MP's playback function does utilize DX9 function calls.

when I first started playing around with MediaPortal, I had a great setup running on an 800Mhz PIII system with 512MB of RDRAM and a Geforce FX5200. Of course, my TV card was an analog hardware encoding card. You can use a low power system, as long as the system can deligate work to other hardware and offload the CPU.

Also, remember that when using MediaPortal that there is an OS also running in the background. I dont know if you have done this yet, but try turning off un-needed background services, or use a program like nlite to install a streamlined version of XP.

[marksasmadasafish]

I agree with efros as well but with the following comments

If you overclock the CPU you will most likely need better cooling and that tends to mean more fans and more noise.

If you upgrade the processor, what will you upgrade to?

If you stick with a socket A, I would also upgrade the motherboard to a newer one to enable you to use faster DDR ram etc. A decent board will have onboard audio so you can dump the sound card and may have SATA/RAID etc that you may find usefull. Nforce2 boards are pretty good in my experience and the dual channel memory should help.

If you upgrade to a dual core system (or any of the new processors) then you will need new Processor, Motherboard, RAM (DDR2), GFX card (PCI-E) and possibly a new PSU too.

Be aware of your upgrade path as theres no point buying DDR ram and an AGP GFX card if you are going to upgrade to a dual core system soon.

----------------------------------------------------

Personally I either would upgrade the ram to 1GB and upgrade the GFX card to a Directx9 card and then save for a complete upgrade, or just go straight to the complete upgrade depending on how much money you have to spend at the minute.

[Foxtrot]

My MediaPortal setup is running relatively well on a following hardware:

CPU Type: AMD Athlon XP 2000+
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Memory: 786MB DDR400
Video Card: Radeon 7200 DDR 64MB
TV Card: Twinhan Cab-CI (Mantis 2033 chip)

Note that my video card is a old DX7 card, even so it works quite well and it has very good tv-out quality. With this hardware I can watch TV, use timeshifting, playback TV and XVIDs, watch DVD etc ..

[Paranoid Delusion]

Note that my video card is a old DX7 card, even so it works quite well

Which version of MediaPortal are you using ?

Quite well, does that mean, as it should.

If useing one of the pre vmr9 MP copys, then a none DX9 card will work ok.

But for full funtionality a DX9 card is a must.

[Decker]

Thanks for all the responses! It's good to sort of confirm some of my ideas, and also get some input I hadn't thought of.

From your input, and the thinking I've been doing, I'm looking at three ways of moving forward.

Option 1 - Swap in the 512Mb of DDR and A7V8X-MX mobo from my main desktop (don't laugh) and see if this makes a difference. Ram first, then mobo. This will remove the PC133 ram from the equasion, but not the DX9 issue. Will also jump up from AGP 4x to 8x, but this probably isn't important.
Pros: It's free
Cons: Memory is easy to swap, but mobo will not be fun, especially if it makes no difference. Will have to buy more DDR for Main desktop to run, and still won't do HD without major work.

Option 2 - Upgrade to DX9 graphics card (Looking at Radeon 9550). Cost of ~$60 (au). Could combine with opt1 as well.
Pros: Fairly easy on the Budget.
Cons: If I upgrade the mobo later, I won't want an AGP card anymore. Also may still not allow me up to HD as CPU/Mobo is bottleneck as well.

Option 3 - Upgrade to Asus M2NPV-VM AM2 with integrated NVIDIA GeForce 6150 + nForce 430, 1gb of DDR2 and AMD Sempron 3000+. Cost of $350 (au).
Pros: Built in Graphics is DX9 and (from readings) is up to running a HDTV system. Mobo supports lots of CPUs up to dual core so future proofing as much as possible. Integrated Sound so less cards. MicroATX, so more case options.
Cons: Budget. Most expensive option, but will be worth it if it will handle HD without breaking a sweat.

Would Option 3 fix everything I need for a full function HD MediaPortal Box? Is the integrated 6150 up to the task? Overclocking the current CPU is out due to cooling. It's already too damn loud I'm obviously leaning towards option 3, and given what gxtracker said about all the components being along the same line, I'm not going to see a significant boost without upgrading all the major components. Plus, the new toy factor

Thanks again for all your input on this. It's really helped me to think about the options and the worth of each.

[Tech Geek]

The integrated graphics has a very high bandwidth even though it's missing other features from more expensive graphics cards. It should be up to the task from the feedback I've gotten on HDTV.
Also consider going to 1MB of RAM since the graphics shares main memory.

[Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by Paranoid Delusion

Which version of MediaPortal are you using ?

0.2.0.2

Quite well, does that mean, as it should.

Everything works, including OSD but GUI isn't blazingly fast when there is live TV on screen. I had to disable DxVA for DVD playing with Intervideo codec but that's about it.

I have no doubts at all that DX9 card would do better, but for now this old Radeon seems to do well.

[Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by Decker

Option 3 - Upgrade to Asus M2NPV-VM AM2 with integrated NVIDIA GeForce 6150 + nForce 430, 1gb of DDR2 and AMD Sempron 3000+. Cost of $350 (au).
Pros: Built in Graphics is DX9 and (from readings) is up to running a HDTV system. Mobo supports lots of CPUs up to dual core so future proofing as much as possible. Integrated Sound so less cards. MicroATX, so more case options.
Cons: Budget. Most expensive option, but will be worth it if it will handle HD without breaking a sweat.

Would Option 3 fix everything I need for a full function HD MediaPortal Box?

Nope, I just updated my system to M2NPV-VM, Sempron 3400+ and 1GB DDR2 RAM and it cannot play HD content from DVB-C smoothly. Salesman said that I need Athlon 64 CPU if I wish to watch HD but I went for Sempron since it runs a bit cooler and there isn't a much HD content available anyway in Finland.

Btw, 6150 chip on M2NPV-VM gets really hot and my new system has crashed couple times in a way which suggest that onboard graphics on this mobo has inadequate cooling, so extra fan for cooling GPU may be needed.