Hi,

I'd like to know what are the minimum hardware requirements to display HDTV 1920x1080i without XvMC enabled.

I have been searching the forum and the recommendations vary a lot. Some folks have had luck with P4s 2.6-2.8 GHz and faster. Some folks have had luck with Athlons 3200+ or faster. Obviously since the KRP Dragon is based on Athlon 3200+ it must work but what about slower systems?

Has there been any definitive explanation or survey as to what constitutes minimum hardware for smoothly displaying full blown HDTV without XvMC?

Please post your fully working HDTV systems and what you believe the minimum hardware requirements are.

I'll start.

My combined backend/frontend is a 3.2GHz P4 Prescott 800MHz FSB with an Nvidia MX4000 8X AGP card. No XvMC but had to enable "extra audio buffers" under settings for playback to make it smooth. XvMC sort of works as well IFF I do not ever touch the remote during playback or it will lock up, especially during background disk access (transcoding, etc).

My frontend only is a 2.6 GHz Celeron Northwood 400MHz FSB using a Nvidia GF4 MX400 PCI card. It smoothly displays HDTV using default settings but only with XvMC enabled. Without XvMC the display is choppy.

Thanks in advance

Andrew Lynch

Have you tried libpmeg2? It is purportedly a lot better at 1920x1080. Your gfx card should support it, too. I've never read anything positive about using XvMC for HDTV.

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On the 3.2 GHz P4, libmpeg2 vs ffmpeg do not seem to make a difference. Adding the extra audio buffers helped in both cases. On the 2.6 GHz Celeron it does not make a difference either.

From that, I conclude the 3.2 GHz P4 is more than fast enough but the 2.6 GHz Celeron is too slow. The minimum has to reside between the two somewhere, probably 2.8 GHz or 3.0 GHz.

As for Athlons, I have no idea. Obviously, some people have them working but from what I have seen on the forum they are more difficult to get to work in HD display 1920x1080 smoothly.

The whole P4 D vs Athlon X2 dual core issue will put another dimension on this as well but I suspect that all of them will have enough throughput to easily handle full HDTV display.

I also tried booting my Athlon XP 2500+ Barton with GF2 MX-400 nvidia card off the KnoppMyth CD as a frontend. I could not get it to accept "install-nvidia-7174-debian.sh" and use the proprietary nvidia driver and it defaulted to vesa. Of course, that did not work since I don't think vesa even gets you Xv much less XvMC.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

from what I've gathered here and there 2.8 PIV is the sweet spot. some claim success with slower, but some don't have luck with it. 2.8 PIV or up seems to do fine for everyone.

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Xsecrets

Does an Athlon 64 3000+ outperform an Athlon 3000+ or do the 64 bit extension not matter?

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Currently running: R5.5, HD5000 x 2, PVR150, Athlon 64 3000+, Chaintech VNF4, 1GB RAM, 2 x 250GB in LVM, MSI NX6200TC -> AA 9A60 -> HDTV

yes the 64 is faster though it has nothing to do with it being 64bit it has I think more cache, but the big factor is the cache and memory controler are on die as well as a few other hardware enhancements and it runs cooler.

Last I heard mythtv wouldn't compile 64bit, and there is certainly not a 64bit version of knoppmyth out (yet). Once everything does work 64bit we'll see if it affects anything. I doubt the word length will affect anything for video, however with the A64 you get access to some extra registers once you go 64bit which may help performance some.

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Have a question search the forum and have a look at the KnoppMythWiki.

Xsecrets

welp..I am running mythtv in 64bit environment (gentoo now) so I think it should compile. My AMD64 3500+ avg 90% processing for HD 1080i + quickdnr filter.

I would have thought you would have used a lower % on a 64-3500+.

What is quickdnr? Is that used to speed up video, or to improve quality?

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Currently running: R5.5, HD5000 x 2, PVR150, Athlon 64 3000+, Chaintech VNF4, 1GB RAM, 2 x 250GB in LVM, MSI NX6200TC -> AA 9A60 -> HDTV