building my 1st HTPC (1 Viewer)

[Loadeed]

Hi

I am building my first HTPC. My idea is to have two wireless gamepad's - with them I could control MediaPortal and also play games...is this gonna work? Secondly my plugins aren't working...I copy .dll files to Plugins/Windows/ directory (for example web Browser), but then i can't find it under plugins section in MediaPortal..

I am going to connect my PC to a my CRT TV with S-video..it is the only way...I think the picture would be little "scrachy"...

So anyway, my spec are:
AMD Sempron 3000+ ( 1,8 GHz )
1Gb RAM (2x512)
NVidia GeForce 6600GT
connected to a wireless network ...

Should I use WinXP SP2 or Vista? Primary i'm gonna use this computer for games...and movies+internet+..other exiting stuff...

Please help me, because I am really new to this kind of things...

 

[druffski]

Firstly, welcome to Media Portal! Building a HTPC is exciting, and you'll find that you are never truly finished. there are always new things to try out.

I can answer some of your questions:
I would stick with WinXP SP2. Vista is quite memory hungry, and you may find some of your games don't work well under Vista. A lot of game forums have reported this.

Plugins - the plugins I've installed have all been self installing. There should be an exe/msi file in the plugins you've downloaded? If you open MediaPortal setup, click Plugins. they should appear somewhere in here.

Wireless networking - My HTPC sits in the loungeroom connected to the internet by wireless network card (my wife wont let me drill holes in the floors for network cables). If the signal strength is good, you wont have any issues here.

S-Video for the TV connection - I'm running the same in my setup, I've not noticed a big difference. When watching video it is still good. Having said that, it can be difficult to read the writing, though I think this is due to tv resolution.

Wireless Gamepads - best way to check this is to see if you can control the menu functions in WinXP normally. If so, then you should be ok with it. I ended up getting the Media Center Remote which works brilliantly.

All the best, and the forum is always here if you run into problems.

 

[Loadeed]

Thank you for your information....I have just one more question..
Can I launch games I have installed on my computer with MediaPortal?
Something like My Games in the root menu, and then a list of all games...can this be done?

 

[druffski]

In MediaPortal Setup, look at the Plugins section. In here there is a plugin called "my programs". Rightclick, untick "Disable". You can launch your games this way.

Also, check out https://www.team-mediaportal.com/files/
This lists all the different plugins etc for MediaPortal. There is bound to be something in that.

 

[Loadeed]

I have configured My Programs and add new Gamebase Importer...and add an .exe file to launch. Everything works great except after I go out of the game, I only see a black screen and a windows taskbar. When I click on the black screen I re-enter the game. I can do this continuosly...
my configuration:
for Gamebase importer

Title: title
Launching application: path to the .exe file
Startup using ShellExcecute and Wait for exit both ticked (I tried differend variations).
Startup Directory: directory, where the .exe file is contained.
Source: .exe file
File dorectory: directory, where the .exe file is contained.

Files
I add new, typed title and filepath to the .exe dorectory and that's it!

Is that OK, or should I change something or should I use the filelauncher instead?

Thanks