Idea for my ghetto HTPC

Devrij

Devrij

Devrij

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I've just come into posession of an old business workstation (you know the one, Dell compact box with pentium chip) and I was considering replacing my xbox with this as my media hub in the living room (for a 1080p TV). So here are my questions:

1: do I leave XP on it for the sake of compatibility (eg homegroup) with my W8 and W7 PCs upstairs (where most of the media will be stored), or do I put some sort of linux distro on it to get the most out of it and make it more bespoke to my needs? If the latter, what do you suggest? Keep in mind, I'll want to use wireless KB&M/usb remote for web browsing and music and be able to stream from a variety of windows OS's.

2: Currently it has some horrendous onboard gfx with only VGA output. At some point I'll be putting a basic passive card in there (ports pending), but how much grunt would I need for 1080p streaming?

Anything I've missed?

Thanks!
 
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1. I had Windows 8 on my HTPC and replaced it with OpenElec, which actually makes sharing a lot more convenient - there is no faffing about with access rights or sharing folders; anything in the media folder (which is presented as a single folder via Samba but contains all of your sources) can be accessed via the PC's IP address (it doesn't show up automatically on the network in Windows).

Unfortunately OE doesn't have a browser but you can use all sorts of audio and video plugins for XBMC.

2. The ASUS GeForce GT 610 is more than enough for watching 1080p and it works flawlessly with OpenElec. I'd avoid ATI cards for your HTPC - my 6450 gave me nothing but trouble in both Windows and OpenElec.
 
That sounds handy. So XBMC might have a browser plugin? I'm considering putting my bluray drive in there as well (I don't use it on my desktop really), so may need to be able to play bluray. Would XBMC handle that or not? If not, should I stick with windows so I can run the software? Presumably to get updates open-source isn't going to be the way forwards.

E: just opened it up for a dust out and it has en e6600 and a spare pci-e slot, so I may be in good shape here, but because of the little case it'll have to be a slimline card.
 
I'm not too fussed about what brand the card is, as long as it's cheap, fits the case, and does the job. I was considering an NVIDIA 210 passive because it would seem to tick all those boxes and would be quiet.
 
I use an AMD 6450 in mine but this forces me to use Windows as the AMD drivers don't support HD audio under Linux so OpenElec is not an option.

The nVidia cards are certainly the ones to go for if you want HD audio and OpenElec. Mine is running under Xen with PCIE passthrough and the nVidia cards are tougher/impossible to get working otherwise I would get one.
 
A gt210 is fine for 1080p in xbmc.

As said if you plan on using a Linux distribution avoid an amd card as driver support is terrible.

My old htpc before I switched to a raspberry pi was an Athlon x2 235e underclocked with a Gt210 running windows 7 and it handled everything I threw at it.
 
I'm thinking for the sake of flexibility I'm going to use XBMC in windows. I know the performance won't be as good, but I want to be able to use it for other more general PC tasks like web browsing, maybe running some very basic games (eg don't starve) via steam, so having Windows seems to be the best overall option. Part of me is even tempted to put one of my SSDs in there as the boot drive, but am I right in thinking XP doesn't support TRIM natively?
 
monkeyspank said:
You could put openelec on an sd card and push it in to boot from it when you want to
Pop it out to boot windows
Click to expand...

Aha, now that sounds handy! I've just had a play with xbmc and really like it, so I'm guessing openelec is basically xbmc without the cumbersome OS behind it?
 
Yeah OpenElec is a very stripped down version of Linux with XBMC plus some custom plugins to allow you to configure stuff that would otherwise be exposed by the OS on other implementations (such as network settings)

It also allows it to act more like an appliance - the only thing you can do with it is XBMC. There are some things that don't work on Linux-based versions of XBMC, such as Netflix, where you'd need Windows.

I have a couple of old machines at home running XP and XBMC, they act exactly the same as my W7 and W8 devices also running XBMC - plus I have a familar OS to drop out to if I need to do anything else with the machine, plus the wider hardware driver support of Windows compared to Linux.
 
Confused said:
Yeah OpenElec is a very stripped down version of Linux with XBMC plus some custom plugins to allow you to configure stuff that would otherwise be exposed by the OS on other implementations (such as network settings)

It also allows it to act more like an appliance - the only thing you can do with it is XBMC. There are some things that don't work on Linux-based versions of XBMC, such as Netflix, where you'd need Windows.

I have a couple of old machines at home running XP and XBMC, they act exactly the same as my W7 and W8 devices also running XBMC - plus I have a familar OS to drop out to if I need to do anything else with the machine, plus the wider hardware driver support of Windows compared to Linux.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I'm after. I like the idea of booting openelec off of an sd/usb external though, so then I could always reboot if I needed windows, while still reaping the performance benefits the rest of the time.

I'm fiddling with XBMC now and quite liking it. No doubt I'll have to read through the big thread and get ideas for plugins!
 
If you use stuff like netflix and other media services, you really can beat the windows 8 apps.

If its purely for ripped stuff and nothing else then you might as well use xbmc.
 
Small problem: the entire desktop is about 2in off centre, but my TV doesn't seem to have any way to adjust the input. Any ideas to get around that?

E: found auto adjust in hidden menu, sorted.
 
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