HTPC and Ram

[Cogman]

Im thinking of building a cheap HTPC and was wondering, How important is ram? if it is a pure HTPC I really dont see much use for large amounts of ram. Shouldnt 256MB of ram be enough if not more then enough?

 

[imported_Kiwi]

I've started collecting the essentials for such a beastie, myself. But there is quite a bit of conversion going on with some setups, because some of the Capture cards and Tuners don't have onboard conversion hardware. It would be nice if there was some place where HTPC's were not only a prime subject, but also where the message traffic amounted to something.

There are a couple of sites, like HTPCnews, intended for this sort of thing, but where the forums seem mostly dead. I wanted to know the relationship of graphic card DirectX version, ram, bandwidth, and speed to DVR activity and got at best, just vague answers. Anyway, AFAIK, with the Asus Tuner card I have, I will need a fairly decent system with moderately full RAM slots. I'm using an XP 2600+ with 512 Mb of PC 2700 DDR.

😎

 

[Boogak]

Originally posted by: Kiwi
I've started collecting the essentials for such a beastie, myself. But there is quite a bit of conversion going on with some setups, because some of the Capture cards and Tuners don't have onboard conversion hardware. It would be nice if there was some place where HTPC's were not only a prime subject, but also where the message traffic amounted to something.

There are a couple of sites, like HTPCnews, intended for this sort of thing, but where the forums seem mostly dead. I wanted to know the relationship of graphic card DirectX version, ram, bandwidth, and speed to DVR activity and got at best, just vague answers. Anyway, AFAIK, with the Asus Tuner card I have, I will need a fairly decent system with moderately full RAM slots. I'm using an XP 2600+ with 512 Mb of PC 2700 DDR.

😎

AVS Forums is the most popular forum for HTPC stuff. I would recommend 512mb as a minimum just because Windows XP uses about 160mb of RAM or so by itself, 256mb would not leave much for applications. Of course, you could always try 256mb now and if you find that it's not enough, add another 256mb later.

 

[Cogman]

Originally posted by: Boogak

Originally posted by: Kiwi
I've started collecting the essentials for such a beastie, myself. But there is quite a bit of conversion going on with some setups, because some of the Capture cards and Tuners don't have onboard conversion hardware. It would be nice if there was some place where HTPC's were not only a prime subject, but also where the message traffic amounted to something.

There are a couple of sites, like HTPCnews, intended for this sort of thing, but where the forums seem mostly dead. I wanted to know the relationship of graphic card DirectX version, ram, bandwidth, and speed to DVR activity and got at best, just vague answers. Anyway, AFAIK, with the Asus Tuner card I have, I will need a fairly decent system with moderately full RAM slots. I'm using an XP 2600+ with 512 Mb of PC 2700 DDR.

😎

AVS Forums is the most popular forum for HTPC stuff. I would recommend 512mb as a minimum just because Windows XP uses about 160mb of RAM or so by itself, 256mb would not leave much for applications. Of course, you could always try 256mb now and if you find that it's not enough, add another 256mb later.

Well if I go through with this im not going to use Windows. I do know how to use linux and probibly would make a LFS system to do the job. The other thing is the fact that it is not going to be running many other programs other then MythTV

 

[Todd33]

I use 512MB, but 256MB would be fine. I only run the one SAgeTV app most the time, maybe a browser once in a while.