Hardware Requirements (1 Viewer)

[SiLenTYL]

Hi all!

This is probably the best time to ask about hardware requirements!

Will MP2 users/developers/skinners require any greater hardware than what is currently needed for MP1?


As discussed in the forums regarding the amazing skinning engine..what..if any hardware will be needed graphics-wise?

 

[Albert]

AW: Hardware Requirements

Well, as the software requirements have been raised to Windows 7, the minimum hardware requirements have been raised too off course. I cannot tell you at the moment which system configuration is the smallest configuration where MP 2 will run smoothly but as HD and Blu-Ray are techniques which will be present in a typical HDPC, you need a PC which is capable of this.
For the graphics side, I cannot give you a detailed specification but you won't need the absolute newest graphics card. Currently, we need DirectX 9 but that might change when we find a chance to switch to DX 10 or 11 with our video player. Currently, it seems as if we would have to stay at DX 9.

 

[claimui]

I am personally more curious about CPU requirements than graphics. As many people notice, XMBC is faster and more responsive than MP1. This is generally attributed to XMBC having a newer skinning engine which is something that is expected in MP2. Will MP2 skins work well on older or slower CPUs?

 

[Albert]

AW: Hardware Requirements

Well, it depends
It depends on the skin being shown. If a skin shows too many animations, the time for rendering the animations might take too long for one frame to be rendered, that the target video framerate cannot be reached. That could lead to videos not showing all frames. Currently, we don't have enough experience with our new SkinEngine to tell any exact limits. We're also optimizing many aspects of the SkinEngine, so the final limits can be assessed in some months, not before next year I think.

But, I personally wouldn't use a CPU which is too small for a HTPC. At the latest when you want to play HD material, you need power.

 

[claimui]

I understand your point, but it seems like we are in an era where HD playback and CPU power are two different things. It is fairly easy to get good HD playback on a slow computer with the use of a GPU (even integrated) with hardware acceleration or the Broadcom Crystal HD mini PCIe card. There are a lot of underpowered mini PCs and netbooks that are being passed off as HTPC-ready devices -- low power and great for media playback, but a little sluggish for skin animations in MP1.

 

[santal123]

It would be nice to have user interface and database browsing plugins to work smoothly on two-core Atom 2Gig memory or slower PCs.

 

[matejdro]

might change when we find a chance to switch to DX 10 or 11 with our video player

If you switch to DX11, will DX10 cards (namely ION) be still compatible?

Are there any plans to make MP2 interface use GPU instead of CPU? I guess it would speed things up.

As claimui says, currently most popular HTPC machines are slow CPU + GPU and MP2 should be counting on GPU to be more future-proof. Up until lately HTPC was expensive and exclusive device. Which regular user would spend 800€+ for a media-playing machine? But now things are changed and you can get 1080p capable machine for less than 300€ with new GPU trick. That means that HTPC may become more and more popular even for mainstream users and you should prepare a platform that will run well on these machines.