can't get mediaportal to work!? (1 Viewer)

[brydelle]

I'm a complete newb with Mediaportal, but I do have a good bit of computer experience. However, for some reason, I'm having a HECK of a time getting this software up and running. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I tried SesamTV first, and was able to get it working with very little effort, but wasn't very impressed with the software. I saw that Mediaportal had great reviews so I thought I'd give it a go. After pulling my hair out for a couple hours and searching I finally decided to just post here.

I've gotten MP installed with no problems. I've gone through the configuration pages (set Pictures and Music folders). I'm able to get the main MP page to open. The problem arises when I attempt to open up ANY of the other modules. If I click on Music, Pictures, Weather, Settings, etc, etc... all I get is an empty blue screen. If I focus on another window, and come back to MP, the display is totally frozen and screwed up. PLEASE, any help would be GREATLY appreciated. I'm assuming that I must just be missing something here.

I'd like to use MP on an older system but won't be using it for any TV tuner functions (I have a DirecTV dual tuner Tivo that takes care of all that for me). I just want MP for accessing music, video, and DVDs. I'm running Windows XP SP2 Home with all the necessary items mentioned on the MP requirements page. It's running a 1.8GHz processor with 512MB Ram. Video card is an Xabre 200 64MB card. I'll be upgrading the video soon but didn't think it should be an issue for just browsing some picture folders.

THANKS a bunch for ANY help that you might be able to give!!!

 

[Taipan]

Video card is an Xabre 200 64MB card.

I think this will be the problem - you need to have a video card that is DirectX 9 capable. I don't recognise the Xabre 200, but if it doesn't support DirectX 9, then it won't support MediaPortal - you will get blank screens. Do you have another (recent) video card that you can try?

 

[brydelle]

If I do a dxdiag, it shows that I'm currently running with DirectX 9.0c. I do have an Nvida GeForce4 Ti 4200 that I can swap out of another PC (that's not really a "new" card either, but it's much better then the Xabre). I think I've also got another older Nvidia 64MB card (can't remember the model of the top of my head) that I might be able to try. I'll try swapping things around a bit tomorrow. If that's it, then I'll place an order for a new card tomorrow or Wednesday. Again, I use the word "new" loosely, this older Abit motherboard only has AGP, and now that I think about it, I'm not even sure if it has AGP 8X, I'll have to double check that.

Thanks for the insight, I'll post back with what I find out.

 

[brydelle]

Thanks Taipan! That was definitely it. Just to be sure, I tried Mediaportal out at the office today on a new Dell that I've recently gotten (2.2GHz Dual Core, 2Gig Ram, and a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT). Everything worked fine (My Music, My Videos, My Pics, NetFlixManager, Shoutcast, etc). I guess that other card shows that DirectX 9 was installed and working, but it really didn't support it. Ah well...

So, I scrounged around for that old 64MB NVIDA card that I knew I had around (NVIDA GeForce3 Ti 500), and installed that into the computer that I had problems with last night. Everything works great now. Load times are slightly longer on the older PC, but all in all, with what I'm doing with Mediaportal, the difference doesn't seem to be that big between the 2.2Dual Core and the 1.8GHz PC. I'm sure if I wanted to use a TV tuner card it would be a whole different ball game though.

Thanks again!!

 

[Peter2]

If you are using the system as a dedicated mediacenter, you could tweak it to get the most out of it.
I don't think the cpu is a problem, but maybe you have a lot of resident programs running and services that are not necessary for this setup.
You could try the 'SimpleMP' skin which is one of the skins to use on 'underpowered' systems.
On my system, I have only 18 processes running, even though my system has enough ram and cpu power.

 

[brydelle]

Thanks for the info Peter2. I've actually already installed the SimpleMP skin, and like it quite a bit. I've also planned on removing almost all the other software off of the computer as well. That'll have to wait for a little bit though. This computer is actually my wife's old PC, that will soon be replaced with a new laptop. Once we receive the new laptop and get it all set up, I'll start getting rid of all the unnecessary apps from the PC that will become the HTPC.