AGP HTPC

[KowDot]

Hi,

Please help me, I'm very confused...

I've been thinking of building a HTPC for a while and was deciding on a bunch of components (thread) however I've got an old PC lying about gathering dust with following bits in:

Abit IC7-G AGP Slot
P4 3.2Ghz
2GB RAM
500GB Spinpoint
Vantec Stealth PSU 470W

I was thinking of buying:
Asus ATI Radeon HD 3650 Vcool Silent 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (AGP)

I've got one of the original Philips Ambilight 32" LCDs which has a DVI input and should display 720p.

Would this setup be ok for a HTPC? Would it cope with displaying 1080 if I ever upgrade my LCD?

Any comments please would be very helpful, thanks.

 

[Grimley]

Should be OK for 720p with the card, doubt it with 1080p unless the motherboard can take a Dual core CPU.

 

[kazakore]

Should do 720P no matter what the card as long as it supports the resolution, which pretty much any card will do these days. I can get 720P using a 128MB Matrox P750 without official support for DirectX9 and slower processor if I use CoreAVC.

You may be able to get 1080P with hardware acceleration with the HD3650 but only certain software supports it and I am yet to try using it with my P4 3.0GHz.

 

[KowDot]

Thanks for the replies guys.

The Asus ATI Radeon HD 3650 Vcool has hardware acceleration but are you saying that this has to be supported by software?

Incidentally I've already got a GeForce 6200 256M DDR2 + DVI card lying about somewhere, should I just use this if I only want to achieve 720p?

Vista is a no go with this CPU but I was thinking about using either MediaPortal (on XP) or LinuxMCE. Any thoughts on these please?

Thanks.

 

[alex24]

Have a similar machine with P4 3.0Ghz and a radeon 9800pro. It plays 1080p files over the network without much of a problem, though can't speak for BR as it doesn't have a drive. It's more than powerful enough for vista, but it's on XP atm. If you have vista, VMC is the way to go, it's just really easy. On XP however, mediaportal is a great choice if you love the customisability. I have a version with the black skin and tvseries plugin going and it's just grand. Still not as polished as VMC though unfortunately.

 

[kazakore]

Thanks for the replies guys.

The asus ati radeon hd 3650 vcool has hardware acceleration but are you saying that this has to be supported by software?

yeah needs to be supported by the software, generally via dxva (virectx video acceleration.) only two products i know for certain are:

freeware: media player classic - home cinema
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpc-hc/

payware: powerdvd
http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_1.html&lang=en_GB


Haven't yet tried either so can't comment on how much change they make. Am hoping that the HD3650 coupled with MPC-HC will enable me to play 1080P personally. Can just about manage 720P without...

 

[KowDot]

Thanks guys. Done loads of reading. I've been putting the machine together and reckon I'll put XP back on it tomorrow since I have it and give mediaportal a go. I've put my GeForce 6200 back in so we'll see if it copes with 720p.