Hello all,
So I want to play with setting up a HTPC. Here's my plan, I want to purchase a graphics card with HDMI and DVI port. I want to be able to do my normal web surfing, streaming videos, watching dvds, no gaming, etc. I also want to buy one of those HDMI to fiber converter boxes and run windows media center in the room next door, and control it with a RF WMC remote. In this case I won't have to buy a seperate computer. My questions are:
1. Is a E4400 and a radeon 4830 (or whatever is suitable, the 4830 seems to be best bang for buck) powerful enough to multitask WMC and web surfing/streaming/ watching DVD's while watching/recording tv in WMC?
2. I currently have a razer barracuda AC-1. Is there anyway to couple digital audio with the HDMI out on a radeon 4830 (or a suitable graphics card for my situation)? Or do I have to buy one of those HDMI sound cards?
3. In windows vista (or 7) is it possible to designate which program gets output to which sound card output? For example, let's say I have my home theater in the other room, can I say only sound from Windows Media Center gets output on the SPDIF (or HDMI) and all the other sound gets put out over my analog 5.1? Or if this is not possible, if I have 2 sound cards can I choose to output WMC sound on one and the rest goes to my other sound card?
Thanks
So I want to play with setting up a HTPC. Here's my plan, I want to purchase a graphics card with HDMI and DVI port. I want to be able to do my normal web surfing, streaming videos, watching dvds, no gaming, etc. I also want to buy one of those HDMI to fiber converter boxes and run windows media center in the room next door, and control it with a RF WMC remote. In this case I won't have to buy a seperate computer. My questions are:
1. Is a E4400 and a radeon 4830 (or whatever is suitable, the 4830 seems to be best bang for buck) powerful enough to multitask WMC and web surfing/streaming/ watching DVD's while watching/recording tv in WMC?
2. I currently have a razer barracuda AC-1. Is there anyway to couple digital audio with the HDMI out on a radeon 4830 (or a suitable graphics card for my situation)? Or do I have to buy one of those HDMI sound cards?
3. In windows vista (or 7) is it possible to designate which program gets output to which sound card output? For example, let's say I have my home theater in the other room, can I say only sound from Windows Media Center gets output on the SPDIF (or HDMI) and all the other sound gets put out over my analog 5.1? Or if this is not possible, if I have 2 sound cards can I choose to output WMC sound on one and the rest goes to my other sound card?
Thanks