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What software would you run on this HTPC?

R

Regk

Senior member
Hi, I curently run xp sp3 on this rig, but I am looking to do a format and want to optimize it for HTPC duties. here are the specs

P4 @ 2.4GHZ
1GB ram
AGP radeon 3450
Auzentech X-Plosion
wireless G network card
40GB HDD Networked to my 1TB in office
Wireless mouse/keyboard

I have this hooked up to a pioneer elite reciever via optical cable, and for a display I am connected to a HP Md 5820 58" DLP tv.

My main areas of use or need would be flawless playback of 720P content, streaming video, and music.

What software/codecs would enable me to get the mot out of this setup? I have heard that XBMC is pretty nifty. I am looking for something with a classy looking GUI 🙂

thanks!

What software/codecs
 
xbmc is pretty slick, esp. with the new default skin. however, it's optimized for remote controls, not kb+m. they work but it's clunky. iirc, no codecs are required for xbmc, as it uses its own player.

having said all that, i use...nothing. win 7, windows explorer, foobar and mpc for me.
 
i'm not sure a 2.4ghz p4 will be able to play back 720p video. my 3.0 could do it, barely.
you could try the coreavc decoder...that's what i had to use to get it to work on my 3.0.

in terms of software, i like xbmc the best.
 
Regk said:
will XBMC offload anything to the radeon 3450? I know mpc hc does
Click to expand...

no, i don't think so. the only gpu acceleration xbmc supports currently is in the linux version, which can offload to certain nvidia cards.
 
I agree with what others have said. I doubt that system will be able to handle what you want. It's too slow of a processor and doesn't have enough RAM.
 
man it sucks to be poor 🙁 I guess I will stick with MPC HC as I can still watch 720P content that offloads to the video card.
 
The development builds of XBMC are capable of DXVA. External players can also be launched from XBMC such as DSPlayer or MPC-HC, which in turn include DXVA and/or can use whatever filters are installed. The 3450 provides DXVA. Full bitrate MPEG-2 may still overwhelm the system (due to hardware decoder design) but AVC and VC-1 should be fine. Certainly, the typical low-bitrate AVC re-encodes will be no problemo.
 
I just switched to boxee which I believe will offload to the GPU.

If you are just going for 720p I think you might be fine.

Otherwise Media Player classic has always worked really well for me with the low end ATI cards. I have used it with both a 3450 and a 4350.
 
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