Media PC Speeds (1 Viewer)

[yogiman_uk]

HI everyone

It seems to me that there is a bit of a problem arising here. MP is of course the best thing since Apple pushed WISYWIG but there seems to be a fundamental issue here with regards to speed.

We all want to put MP in the living room (Yes?) but we don't want a noisy pc in the living room (True?) so would it not be better to optimise MP for processors as slow as possible thus reducing the cooling problems thus reducing the fans in the computer?

For example, I remember playing back DVD's on a Celeron 500 so why does MP require 1.4 or better, I had a 32mb Matrox video card in the computer at the time so why does MP want a DirectX 8/9 video card & 64/128 MB ram?

This is not a critisisum it's just an observation I think MP is fantastic but how good would it be if I could run it on a Fanless ITX VIA Main Board without the need for a dinosaur of a video card?

Keep up the good work all you programmers! You really are #1 in my book and deserve every compliment you get!

Cheers

Yogiman!

 

[idioteque]

for just music and playing 700 MB Xvids a Celeron 900 with 386 MB RAM and DX9 videocard is the absolute minimum

 

[fathead]

The reason for DX9 is due to the basis of media portal being .net as far as I am aware - though I could be wrong?

In terms of small PC's though this is still possible, but not always practical. A handleful of manufacturers produce ITX sized motherboards with integrated Radeon X300 graphics - this means DX9 capabilites in a small foot print. When I say not practical, this comes down noramlly to tuners & soundcards - most serious HTPC users require 1 or 2 tuners + a decent soundcard (thats 3 PCI slots).

So then what? Well go for a micro atx board. You can easily find a number of ATI RS482 motherboards with integrated x300 graphics. Add to this a cheap Sempron 3000+ 35W 64bit CPU (with CnQ technology) & you've got a small quite system.

Keep an eye out for ATI's new RS690 chipset! Looks like ATI plan to bring out this chipset across multiple platforms, from mobile through to ATX. The RS690 features integrated X700 graphics.

I run a fanless RS482 system with my 3000+ downclocked - Silent & mediaportal friendly.

 

[yogiman_uk]

Well thanks guys! nice bit of information there!

I will look into your suggestions!

Yogiman!

 

[DonBogo]

MySolution

See my specs on the left, it's a "standard" PC so no compatibility problem at all, the sempron EE it's really cool & quite and in my case its combined with a asus nvidia based board.
All the other components are passively cooled, power supply included.

More than enough to watch sdtv -> encode / decode / record.
MediaPortal friendly
Look into HTPC hardware selection help about this argument.