Hi,
I used a E-350 (MSI MB) for 2 years as a single-seat system.
You have to set up your system right, especially the codecs have to be right configured.
When MP 1.3 came up, with inbuild LAV, its the best MP setup I ever had.
Playback Full HD MKV, both SD and HD TV with fast channel switching.
Few weeks ago i replaced the server with a ASUS E-450 MB and use the "old" E-350 as a second client.
It all works fine with MP 1.3 RC!
I have an htpc with A8 APU and a client with the E2-1800 (ZBOX AD06). Can recommend it, works fine even with a heavier skin (avallonis). Scrolling is a bit slow with full artwork in Coverflow, but otherwise it works fine.
Currently I'm running MP Single Seat on my old Laptop I'm using as HTPC (Core 2 Duo @ 2.53GHz, GeForce 9600M GT).
As i have a spare 20" Monitor I'd like to make another client.
So I was thinking why not get a low power board as Client/Server and run the Laptop as additional client (It's pretty power hungry for a laptop oO)
Do you think, that an AMD C-60 based board would be enough for Client + Server (specifically an ASUS C60M1-I)?
Would it even be enough for a client? It basically uses 2 cores of AMD E-450 at 1 GHz. The GPU seems to be decent (80 Radeon 6 series shaders), when running enough RAM at 1333 MHz.
I have a single seat setup (Client and Server sitting both on the same computer) based on an AMD E-450 integrated in an ASUS E45M1-M PRO motherboard (see my system specs for more details). It is my living room pc (HTPC) and I use it for SDTV and HDTV via DVB-C tuner card as well as DVD/Blu-Ray disc and mkv player.
In order to get the things around Live TV really working, some sort of tweaking was necessary:
Advanced BIOS settings: allocated 512 MB of shared memory to the Radeon GPU
Advanced BIOS settings: Run your RAM with 1333 MHz or better with 1600 MHz
Change timeshift buffer file size in MediaPortal to 128 MB in order to to cut down channel switching times to ca. 2 seconds
AMD Catalyst driver: Vector Adaptive De-interlacing activated (hidden feature, needs to be activated with DXVA checker) and set as default in AMD Catalyst Control Center (=CCC)
SAF 6.x, unlocked version is installed and working properly
TV-Codecs: Use Windows 7 built in Windows DTV-DVD Video-Decoder for MPEG-2 and H.264 video decoders *or* PowerDVD 12 codecs for MPEG-2 and H.264 video. DXVA (= hardware acceleration) needs to be activated in the PowerDVD decoder settings.
Use an SSD for the Windows 7 System
Time shift buffer files location need to be on a SSD, too. Alternatively, a RAM disk could be installed and used for this purpose.
Exclude the the timeshift buffer files locations and the TV recordings directory from the scanning engine of any anti virus/anti malware software installed on the system
.. any more tweaks I missed?
I hope that I remembered the most points I tweaked correctly. Most of the knowledge I pulled out of the postings of forum member bluemax1916 .So credits deserved to him.
Besides that, the HTPC system should not be used for much more purposes then the typical Windows desktop operations are rather slow or lets say less responsive. But this does not matter I think as long as you use the system as MediaPortal HTPC more or less solely.
I would advice against using E-350 or E-450 for a HTPC, if you are using a card to receive HDTV and other things. As people have explained it does take a lot of tweaking and so on to get it working right. But using it for a HTPC, where you intend to playback blu-ray, other media files, surfing the web on your TV and son on. It is great, a bit slow on applications but not to bad that you can not accept it.
But for all that to work on the cpus you need DXVA, so the applications can use the graphics card to accelerate the video. I have played back 720p 1080p and other videos on a dual core amd C-60 cpu without any problems, cpu load about 30-40% on 1080p with "media player classic - home cinema" the best part is that it is DXVA out of the box, no need to configure nothing. Oh, and forget using Intels Atom or nvidia ION, they are both limited in lots of ways.
The problem is some stuff, like VMA and other more "odd" formats don't use DXVA or sometimes can't use it, then you will not be able to play that back. Thats where CPU power comes into play. My older cpus where to slow, but my skt775 3.0Ghz dual core can playback these files anyway, even though the cpu load is high. So now you know, it all depends on what you will use the HTPC for.
Just as a comparision: I use the Zotac-System with E-350 and 2 GB memory only as a client (but runs with XBMC). FullHD doesn't load the CPU too much. Only the menus sometimes take their time...
Thinking of my next update for the e350. Any suggestions? Been running this as a single seat (e350, 4gbs ram, ssd, and hdd) for getting close to two years. The thing is pretty solid and plays everything but I must admit i removed all HD dvb-t channels as they seemed to slow it down. I run this thing silent, no fans and use a laptop power brick with a converter to ATX (80W).
Anyone seen anything in the near future that looks to have the same power usage but would give more of a boost than the e450.. ? Thinking amd must have a new fusion board ready or even a new atom soon but a few searches i did last month didnt pull anything up of note.
Hi fyx,
I work with the E-450 platform including DVB-C HDTV, Blu-Ray and a PicoPSU plus external power brick. However, I also wait on the "next Step" especially in terms of CPU-power. As of today, AMD made their new lines of low energy consumption processors, the A & E-Series Kabini and Temash APUs available. Perhaps the A4-5000 (TDP 15W) or the A6-5200 (TDP 25W) may bring a boost in combination with an energy efficient motherboard.
If using an integrated GPU, it's best to use faster memory (eg. 1600 or 1866) if possible
There is no significant difference between cheaper + expensive memory of the same speed
There is not much price difference in 1333 vs 1600 speed memory
The iGPU also runs faster if you can run dual channel memory
(ie. two modules of same make + size + speed, doesn't have to be from a "dual channel kit")