Good media front-end for HTPC/Media PC?

[Ramma2]

I'm putting together a basic HTPC mainly for toying around purposes. I don't think I can run Media Center since it will only be a P3 1GHz. Can anyone recommend a good media front end? I don't need PVR functionality as I'm running a Series 3 as well.

Thanks for the input!

 

[EvilYoda]

I'm not up to date on this kind of stuff anymore, sadly, but have you looked into Myth and Sage?

 

[howdysir]

i haven't used it in a very long time, but i remember GB-PVR being pretty functional on minimal hardware. (I ran it decently on a celeron 333MHz)

i don't know how it performs on older equipment, but GameEx is an emulator 10ft interface which also plays videos and music. but it is also nag-ware.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Ramma2
I'm putting together a basic HTPC mainly for toying around purposes. I don't think I can run Media Center since it will only be a P3 1GHz. Can anyone recommend a good media front end? I don't need PVR functionality as I'm running a Series 3 as well.

Thanks for the input!

What's your graphics card? If it's decent, and you've got 512MB or 1.0GB RAM, you could probably pull off 2005MCE / 2004MCE on the P3/1.0. You said you're only doing viewing on it, not recording, so it should be fine - easily.

If you only do a single tuner, and that tuner has MPEG2 hardware on it, I'd bet that machine could do recording, too.