Operating System new motherboard/CPU/RAM... Stick to XP - or go for win7 ... bloat ? (1 Viewer)

[Al_Capone]

MP is *everything* in out living room - no TV or other junk. - needs a stable platform.
until now running on a mobile Intel 1,7ghz CPU.

I purchased a new motherboard + 3-core AMD CPU - XP with MP would not boot - not even in safe mode.
so I tried win7 results:
-got screen flickering when MP suspended/awake monitor/projector.
-got "digital" noise in speakers each time any program that *could* do audio got started, not only MP.

Should I just stick to, and clean install a new XP on the new motherboard, rather than trying to get win7 to work nice ?
I am afraid win7 brings codec trouble, and lots of bloatware.
On the other hand, win7 have better multiprocessing & SSD support (but my XP is SSD tweaked, so I don't think there are any difference really)

 

[CrashUK]

Get windows 7 sp1.. Dont install any codec unless you need to.. use microsoft codec for every thing.. dont install big codec packs they will gve you a lot of trouble.

Windows 7 gives a lot better PQ then windows xp..

 

[Lehmden]

AW: new motherboard/CPU/RAM... Stick to XP - or go for win7 ... bloat ?

Hello.
New Motherboard = new clean Windows install. This is absolutely necessary.
And as CrashUK said. Win7 is lot better fpr MePo than XP. And don't use Codec Packs. Only a Matroska Splitter like Lavf for playback of mkv files you need to install...

 

[mm1352000]

I agree completely with everything said so far. From a team perspective I would also encourage you to go with 7. You'll get better support for the future...

 

[Al_Capone]

after wasting much time on making the win7 work, I installed a new XP SP3. (and that's what we use today)
comparasion proved that XP was much faster and more responsive, win7 appeared to start faster, but was useless and sluggish until much later, recording of more than one program was also (surprisingly) less CPU intensive on XP. (I don't know why, but it may be the spyware/indexing of win7 ??)
f.eks: I expected to record 2 programs and timeshift+watch a third to be better on win7 because better multicore support.
In reality, XP used less CPU, and more important, were more responsive and faster during the same work.

I just wish MP were compiled for Linux.

 

[CrashUK]

after wasting much time on making the win7 work, I installed a new XP SP3. (and that's what we use today)
comparasion proved that XP was much faster and more responsive, win7 appeared to start faster, but was useless and sluggish until much later, recording of more than one program was also (surprisingly) less CPU intensive on XP. (I don't know why, but it may be the spyware/indexing of win7 ??)
f.eks: I expected to record 2 programs and timeshift+watch a third to be better on win7 because better multicore support.
In reality, XP used less CPU, and more important, were more responsive and faster during the same work.

I just wish MP were compiled for Linux.

I think I know why you find windows 7 slower.. must be using a slow gfx card and not using the Aero Theme. On my system Windows XP sp3 playing BBC One HD 80% cpu is being used with coreavc. But on Windows 7 sp1 Same channel on only 14% cpu is being used. using microsoft codec.

 

[mm1352000]

I just wish MP were compiled for Linux.

Heh, you do realise that it is very far from a matter of just compiling for Linux right? MP and TV Server both use Windows specific interfaces. I doubt that running through Mono would work well if at all...

I think I know why you find windows 7 slower.. must be using a slow gfx card and not using the Aero Theme. On my system Windows XP sp3 playing BBC One HD 80% cpu is being used with coreavc. But on Windows 7 sp1 Same channel on only 14% cpu is being used. using microsoft codec.

CoreAVC didn't have hardware acceleration until recently whereas the MS codec has had it all along. That means that your comparison is not really fair unless you were using a recent CoreAVC release when you tested...

 

[CrashUK]

I just wish MP were compiled for Linux.

Heh, you do realise that it is very far from a matter of just compiling for Linux right? MP and TV Server both use Windows specific interfaces. I doubt that running through Mono would work well if at all...

I think I know why you find windows 7 slower.. must be using a slow gfx card and not using the Aero Theme. On my system Windows XP sp3 playing BBC One HD 80% cpu is being used with coreavc. But on Windows 7 sp1 Same channel on only 14% cpu is being used. using microsoft codec.

CoreAVC didn't have hardware acceleration until recently whereas the MS codec has had it all along. That means that your comparison is not really fair unless you were using a recent CoreAVC release when you tested...

MS codec is the only codec with hardware accelration that works on live HD channels. I was using CoreAVC v2.5 but with out hardware accelration as it makes picture jump around. My media center was the last computer to run windows xp now all my computer are on 7.

 

[Al_Capone]

not than it matters now,
-I did not test with 3xHD channels, used "normal" channels, I suspect the SSD HD cannot keep up with 3xHD anyway.
-the difference were not like 80%-14% , more like 40-50% or about there, the only channel that actually got rendered to display, used ffdshow.
-The menus (tested with using Firefly remote) were significantly smoother, and more responsive with XP - than win7.
-Resolution change in win7 were also slower and caused some delay, beybe because of "aero" (a script that closes MP, changes resolution, starts MP - used for switching to projector's native res)
-so old XP will most likely be the last microsoft bloat in our house, as the new windows OS's seems to be increasingly ridiculously big,bloated and ineffective. just my 5cent-findings - at least I did a lot of testing to find the best MP experience platform.

 

[CrashUK]

If you going linux route then they xbmc and I think 2-3 tv servers to pick from.