Advice on buildup... (1 Viewer)

[TheDane]

Hi fellow MP'ers,

I just recently discovered MediaPortal, and I totally love it. It's just what I needed.

But now I'm building up HTPC for running MP, and thought I would run it by you guys, as you probably will have much more experience with parts and MP then me.

Case:
Antec fusion 430 black w/IR M$ controller - GOT IT
Link: Antec Fusion 430 HTPC Case : Antec Creates The Fusion HTPC Case

Motherboard:
MSI 785GM-E45 mATX 785G HD4200 HDMI/DVI/VGA GOT IT
Link: Newegg.com - MSI 785GTM-E45 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU:
Athlon 64 X2 6400+ BE GOT IT

Memory:
4GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-8500 GOT IT

PSU: GOT IT
430W from the case

Tv-Tuner card:
Haven't decide on that yet, but will need one at some point, so I can try that out too. (For danish readers I have viasat)

HDD:
Haven't decided yet, but thinking of some 5400RPM HDD's, wouldn't that be the best choice? Or would 7200RPM's be fine too?

OS:
Windows 7


I will then be using the onboard HD4200 GFX on the motherboard, and the onboard sound, and it will be set up to a LG 42" LD450N through the HDMI I think.

So what do you guys think of that setup?

And what kind of recommendations do you have for choice of HDD And tuner cards?

Kind regards

The MP-virgin

The Dane

 

[globaldonkey]

The HD 4200 on the 785G is really borderline for HTPC. You may find difficulties with Live HDTV or other interlaced content, as the de-interlacing requirement will stretch this GPU. You can probably get it working ok with the right codec choices. There would be plenty of people on here who have got them going ok - even the 780G with the older HD3200, but as I recall, that needed to be paired with a Phenom for adequate performance. Not sure if this would be the case with the 785G. If it all goes pear shaped, you can always easily drop in a dedicated GPU.

I'm starting to think 5400rpm drives are a good choice for HTPC as in theory they should generate less noise and heat and consume less power, and you don't need a super fast drive for playing media. You may want to consider a separate SSD for the boot drive for awesome boot speeds.

 

[flintstone99]

AW: Advice on buildup...

Hi,

on HDD as written by thedane 5400rpm models are pretty fine. I am rnning a 2TB Caviar Green frm WD in my system without any troule. And not much noise too....
I am now even starting with a client/server setup and have my recordings on a Atom330 in the cellar with the client accessing via Gig Erthernet and this is for sure much slower than any built in HD in a integratd setup.

On size: take a big one! Consider that 1hour of recording takes ~2GB. So if you want to keep records on your disc.....and you will probably want to do so, because it is so much more conveniant than burning to DVD's etc....

on gfx, I ran on a 780G integrated HD3200 for more than a year and it worked fine with SD TV and DVD's and all the stuff. So a 4200 should be fine for starters. You can always add a discrete gfx card later on.

regards
flintstone

 

[pilehave]

The HD 4200 on the 785G is really borderline for HTPC. You may find difficulties with Live HDTV or other interlaced content, as the de-interlacing requirement will stretch this GPU. You can probably get it working ok with the right codec choices. There would be plenty of people on here who have got them going ok - even the 780G with the older HD3200, but as I recall, that needed to be paired with a Phenom for adequate performance. Not sure if this would be the case with the 785G. If it all goes pear shaped, you can always easily drop in a dedicated GPU.

I'm starting to think 5400rpm drives are a good choice for HTPC as in theory they should generate less noise and heat and consume less power, and you don't need a super fast drive for playing media. You may want to consider a separate SSD for the boot drive for awesome boot speeds.

I have VA deinterlacing running on PAL TV with integrated Radeon 3200 + Athlon II X2 235e, so a Phenom is not needed, as the bus on the Athlon II also supports the needed HT speed.

You won't get VA on 1080i content, but 720p and 1080p will work really well.

And yes, get an SSD for OS. If you can afford 8 GB of RAM, you can create a ramdisk and use this for buffering live TV. Works really well!

 

[TheDane]

I have VA deinterlacing running on PAL TV with integrated Radeon 3200 + Athlon II X2 235e, so a Phenom is not needed, as the bus on the Athlon II also supports the needed HT speed.

You won't get VA on 1080i content, but 720p and 1080p will work really well.

And yes, get an SSD for OS. If you can afford 8 GB of RAM, you can create a ramdisk and use this for buffering live TV. Works really well!

What do you mean by VA / VA deinterlacing? Shouldn't it demand more to play 1080p then 1080i, or is it just me that's a bit confused with all this tv-talk. Still running old 28" philips CRT tv

And ramdisk, like swapfiles, or?

If I thought I could justify the bigger pay for the SSD, I would go for a "cheap-ish" 40gb, but it just all adds up, so would like to keep it on the cheap side for now. And this is my first go at a HTPC, and when it's fully functional it will be sold to my sister and brother-in-law, so they can enjoy it. And then I will use the experience it gave me, to build a new/better/more advanced/more expensive/etc HTPC for my self. Think I can justify 4gb more, but in the end they will cost almost as much as a 30gb SSD... So I will probably gonna end up with a $1000 HTPC... Oh boy, don't think sis is gonna like that

Think I will probably gonna buy a 5400RPM 1.5TB Western Digital green, maybe just 1TB to save a bit, untill I get tv-tuner card and it set up for recording. Probably gonna start out with basic HTPC, just for movies, music, and TV-series. Then afterwards get tv-card setup, DVB-S I believe is what's needed for Viasat, and heard they should be pretty expensive...

EDIT:

BTW, wouldn't you choose 2.5" HDD's to save on the power consumption, and lower the heat?

 

[globaldonkey]

What do you mean by VA / VA deinterlacing? Shouldn't it demand more to play 1080p then 1080i, or is it just me that's a bit confused with all this tv-talk. Still running old 28" philips CRT tv

VA (Vector Adaptive) de-interlacing is the term ATI uses to describe the best quality de-interlacing they implement. Interlaced content (1080i) requires de-interlacing and the process of de-interlacing is one of the more CPU/GPU intensive processes, and usually pushes most low end GPU's to the limit (or over it). 1080p is much less GPU/CPU intensive. This is why I always question the marketing hype around "smooth 1080p playback" that GPU and iGPU makers like to push. The real hype should be around smooth 1080i playback.

Here is an example of a good analysis based on HTPC requirements.

The Final Word on the Best Radeon HTPC Card - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

The 5450 is only just able to handle 1080i playback. Turn on any other post processing, and it starts to drop frames. The 5570 has enough grunt to do it all. I think there may be similar performance difference between the Nvidia 220 / 240 and the 430. It's really hard to find articles that benchmark GPU's for HTPC properly, and fully test 1080i playback. Most articles focus on 1080p playback and benchmarking for gaming.

You also need to consider h.264 vs MPEG 2. H.264 takes a lot more grunt to decode than MPEG 2. So h.264 + 1080i is the peak performance requirement of a HTPC.

All of this discussion assumes the use of a DXVA (GPU accelerated codec), and of course, codec choice can make a big difference to results as well. Turning on DXVA on a low end GPU vs using CoreAVC (without CUDA - no acceleration) will move de-interlacing and decoding from hardware accelerated to software based based (CPU), and CoreAVC is one of the better software based h.264 decoders. So if you don't mind running your CPU hot and not using your GPU, you can still achieve good results on a low end GPU. When people tell you they have 1080i working ok on their low end GPU, you need to check that they are using DXVA or CUDA too (eg ffdshow DXVA, MPC-HC etc). No point spending $80 on a video card if your CPU is going to do all the work.

 

[TheDane]

#Globaldonkey

Thanks for your input, much appreciated. Will probably have to read up on it a couple of times, to totally understand it. Allthese technical things just pile up in my head *LOL*

So I take it you would recommend me using coreAVC, or get a 5570/240 gfx?

 

[globaldonkey]

I'd start by trying to use a DXVA codec (Win 7 I'm pretty sure has it built in already - don't know for sure as I'm still on XP here) on the 785G first and see how it goes. I personally don't have any experience with the 785G, and can't find any detailed info on HTPC performance specific to 1080i playback, however, over on the AVS forum, all the builds that renethx recommends using the 880G (which has the same HD4200 GPU) include a dedicated GPU and don't make use of the iGPU. I'm interested in your results here, because I'm probably going to buy an 880G based board myself shortly, and am curious to see if it can handle everything..... but suspect not because of the stuff on the AVS forum.

Guide to Building a HD HTPC - Page 472 - AVS Forum

Again, stress it with 1080i H.264 (the sort of material that comes off HD Handycams or some HDTV channels). It will do 1080p for sure. Make sure you check CPU vs GPU utilisation during playback to confirm DXVA is actually working and the CPU is not doing all the work. CPU should be pretty close to 0% during playback if DXVA is working. The other thing to mention is that de-interlacing in hardware is generally much better, as it is the only way to do complicated (ie vector adaptive) de-interlacing. CoreAVC and software de-interlacing is generally much simpler and not motion based. In simple terms, DXVA (or CUDA on Nvidia) will generally produce much better picture quality, and that's the other reason you want to get it working, and not resort to software decoding / de-interlacing. So if the iGPU doesn't work, I'd personally skip the CoreAVC option and bite the bullet and get the dedicated GPU. I just included that option in case you'd already spent enough money

PS thanks pilehave for the update on the 3200. My info on that was at least 12 months old.

PPS the other important thing you won't get with the 785G is bitstreaming HD audio over HDMI. So you won't get any audio from blu ray sources over HDMI and will need to use SPDIF.

 

[TheDane]

Well if the 880G chipset can't handle it with the same iGPU, I don't suppose the 785G will do it... But what do I know, I still learnig new stuff all the time

But I will get the MSI 785G board tuesday, so I will get it all mocked up then. Will probably have to fiddle with a re-install of Win7, MP, SAF 4.0, etc. And then I will have to get down to my brother-in-law for testing, as I still only have a 28" CRT at the moment But then I will try it out, and see if it can handle 1080i without lagging. I'm probably gonna ask you have to get it set up properly, so I/we know it's using dxva as it should, but I'll get back to you on that one.

First of HD audio won't be necessary, as it will be plugged straight in to the TV, but home with me, It'll later on be plugged into a receiver setup etc.

Thanks for all your input, will make sure to get back to you and all later on.

BTW, got a link to a 1080i file I can test with?

 

[globaldonkey]

Here you go:

HD 1080i Test Pattern to determine Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing others icl. Ticker Home Theater Computers Question

This is a purpose test file that will tell you how well de-interlacing is working.