AMD e-350 For client and server (2 Viewers)

gambler

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March 7, 2011
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Hi!
I was planing to build my HTPC based on AMD e-350. And have some questions.

HTPC Hardware:
MB - ASROCK E350M1
RAM - 4Gb

HTPC Soft:
Windows 7 (Maybe XP?)
Mediaportal Server adn Client + StreamedMP Skin; ~1.5tb media library;
Deluge torrent daemon + client.

Purpose:
Watch TV(Also HDTV channels),
Watch movies using Moving Pictures Plugin, and series using MPtvSeries plugin.

Is the hardware Ok for this?
 

SIT

New Member
March 10, 2010
2
0
Hi gambler!

I am using a configuration with a AMD E-350M1-Pro including the E-350 APU and 2GB RAM.
With MP1.2 and MP1.1.3 watching HDTV sucks... There i got a 100% CPU usage, at all time. SDTV is with a CPU usage of 60% useable.
Additionally i must say Videos with 1080p and 720p resolution works verry good.

So all i can say is: Do not use this configuration!
 

darro

Portal Pro
July 20, 2006
35
8
Sydney, Australia
I have a pretty similar setup with a ASUS E350 (E35M1-M Pro) and it works fine. I put 8gb of RAM in, because I could (running win7 64bit obviously)

I can play Blu-ray and HD stuff with no issues.

I did need to tweak the codecs a little to ensure I was getting the hardware acceleration, but it all works fine.

As I was going for the lowest power consumption I could, I went with a low power HDD that is only 5400RPM. So when recording multiple channels and watching a recording I think the HDD may be having a little trouble keeping up.

I have about 2-3 TB of media.

I can confirm it is working OK for me

Cheers
 

JoseK

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November 2, 2008
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I have Asus E350M1-PRO with 4gb of RAM and Asus Xonar Essence stx(digital coax to amplifier(DD/DTS decoder)). I'm experiencing difficulties to view 720p(AVC) videos stored from my camera to HDD, through Mediaportal and also MKV files with 1080p resolution. Also the system doesn't seem to handle flash 720p/1080p videos from etc. youtube. Bluray discs played through Cyberlink Powerdvd Ultra 10 works perfectly.

i'm using Windows Vista 64bit and the TV is Samsung F86. Can someone tell me the best way to configure/install a working mediaportal system codecs/software and all.
 

gambler

Portal Member
March 7, 2011
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I have a pretty similar setup with a ASUS E350 (E35M1-M Pro) and it works fine. I put 8gb of RAM in, because I could (running win7 64bit obviously)

I can play Blu-ray and HD stuff with no issues.

I did need to tweak the codecs a little to ensure I was getting the hardware acceleration, but it all works fine.

As I was going for the lowest power consumption I could, I went with a low power HDD that is only 5400RPM. So when recording multiple channels and watching a recording I think the HDD may be having a little trouble keeping up.

I have about 2-3 TB of media.

I can confirm it is working OK for me

Cheers

Hmm, interesting.
What CPU utilization you have, watching HDTV? 720p/1080p
Maybe you have made some special configuration in the OS?
What drivers and codecs you are using?
 

bizarro101

Portal Member
November 6, 2010
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AW: AMD e-350 For client and server

I am interested in that Hardware too. I am looking for a replacement for my Atom 330 ION platform.
 

BlueMax1916

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    AW: AMD e-350 For client and server

    If you optimize the setup you can well run every HD resolution on this board. The most intensive part is running FullHD 1080i with Vector Adaptive De-Interlacing. But this will run also smoothly if you fine tune the system. You need to install SAF 6.00 and use DXVAChecker to switch on VA De-Interlacing. My GPU usage was around 98% and my CPU usage only 14% watching a 1080i video with VA De-Interlacing. No stutter there.

    Other tweaks:
    1.) One of the most important tweak on an ASUS E350 board would be to run the RAM with 1333 MHz instead of 1066 MHZ which can be done by a simple BIOS setting. As the E350 platform only uses one single RAM channel and as CPU and GPU use the same RAM running it on 1333 MHz will boost performance of data transfers from and to RAM by theoretically roughly 33%.
    2.) The other important tweak is to set Video RAM for the graphics adapter to at least 512 GB in BIOS. This option is not recognizable at first in the BIOS. You have to play with the BIOS VGA settings to see the option in BIOS.
    3.) To reduce data transfers from and to drives (SSD or HDD) if you have 8 GB of RAM use a 2 - 4 GB RAMDisk for the timebuffer of the TVServer.

    Beware if you have a Philips TV. The ATI Catalyst driver will not read the TV's EDID data correctly and you may end up with psychedelic colors on your TV. There is no remedy right now as ATI driver team did not fix this for a long time and I presume this will not happen for another long period. I notified them when Catalyst 11.5 came out but they did not react.

    Other than that it is a good platform and I would still use it if I had not encountered the troubles with ATI <-> Philips TV.


    Hope this helps.
     

    bizarro101

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    November 6, 2010
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    AW: AMD e-350 For client and server

    Thanks BlueMax1916 for the advice. That is very detailed. I hoped that this hardware doesn need to be optimized. Guess not.
    May I should go for a Intel Clarksdale i3 instead.

    Besides, why is it important to OC the RAM? I understand performance boost increase but I don´t see why that is of importance?

    I was planning to use 4 GB of RAM and a 1GB RAMDISK for TS. And since I am using my Mitsubishi Beamer I hope I don't have the Philips TV Problems you have encountered. Price is really good for this hardware...
     

    BlueMax1916

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    AW: AMD e-350 For client and server

    It is not RAM overclocking if you buy an ASUS E350 board and 1333Mhz RAM instead of 1066MHz. Then you can simply switch from 1066Mhz to 1333MHz in the BIOS. The ASUS design allows for that. That provides a performance boost because the E350 is a single channel RAM design versus other systems which are dual or triple channel. That means data transfer performance is already halved versus dual channel designs. Also CPU and GPU share the same channel wich leads to another bottleneck. Therefore running the RAM a third faster helps a lot.
     

    Ragametal

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    @ BlueMax1916
    I tried your solution since i have a zotac zbox ad03BR which have the AMD E350 and i'm having the hardest time to get it use the hardware acceleration. I looked for the VA De-interlacing option in the DXVA checker tool of SAF, but i couldn't find it anywhere.

    Do you mind providing a little more detailed information on how you got this processor to use hardware acceleration? (this is starting to get frustrating)
     

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