Unsure of media build/usage

Scougar

Scougar

Scougar

Soldato
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EDIT: Revived thread... as will be attempting to play Planetside 2 with it lol.

Due to building a new PC for my nephews recently, I have their old Dell Dimension C521. Now this was rocking an Athlon 3200+, 1GB of 4200U RAM, a shed load of 1/2" thick dust in the front grill, and a very noise Nvidia GT 210 that I will need to sort out.

I've had to replace the DVD ROM and HDD with old IDE versions I had lying around (using converters), and then upgraded the memory to 2GB 6400 so far (aiming for 4GB eventually), and ordered an Athlon 64 X2 2.6Ghz 5000+ and for sound I've just got a low profile Xonar D1.

Now.. I'll be honest and say that I only really upgraded it because I saw a little potential and the case is reasonably small, and I enjoy tinkering.

So please... help me with utilising this system for something!! Media centre + windows + linux? Help me out with what you chaps would recommend for it. (other than the bin ;) )
 
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I think it would work as a media centre for you just about able to play back HD media, probably just tinker with it some more and load windows on it and see what it can play back. Play with the cooling if you can to quieten it down if its good to go.

If it cant do it then ?Server, I got nothing else for ya other than bin :)

Hawker
 
Would upgrading the video card to another low profile card be beneficial for HD content? (i.e. if I ripped my DVD's to the HDD for example).

Is a 5450 able to play HD content well better than a GT 210?
 
I'll give it a shot. Hopefully my 64 X2 5600+ (2.6Ghz) should arrive by fri/sat so I'll be able to give it a reasonable test run in Ubuntu (or an alternative) and either XP Pro or Vista Ultimate.
 
I would imagine that system will be fine.

My Media centre is just about to be rebuilt with new components but up until now it comprised:

Windows 7 Home premium
Mediabrowser

AMD Athlon 64 X2 (running at 1.6Ghz)
AsRock mATX motherboard
Ati Radeon 4550 1Gb
4Gb Geil RAM
1x 160Gb Sata HDD
3 x 1Tb Sata HDD's

It has ran flawlessly for the last 2 years and has never stuttered or complained about anything, i rip all my content into it and and as i said playback has been great.

I am so happy with its performance that im going to put it into my sons bedroom.
 
zootfloot > Given me hope :-)

My 5600+ x2 arrived today and it's in. Vista Ultimate was a nightmare to install, kept bailing on me.. but it's on now. (Vista, as it has media centre on it).

I was about to install Ubuntu as well.. but I had this nagging this thing in the back of my mind that I should be trying XMCBuntu or whatever the heck it's called???
 
Well I can't remember if I have an activation left for Win7 so I'd prefer not to use it.

I'm trying XMBC, and it 'looks' excellent... but I'm having real trouble with the audio. It first would play the music, but sounded like it had electronic noise in it. I restarted, and now it won't play anything at all, even though it recognises that I have a Xonar D1. Very weird. It tells me to check the audio settings when I try to play an audio file.. but no matter what I try I can't get the darn thing to play anything.
 
I hadn't realised that XBMC was 32Bit! lol. I wondered why it was only seeing 3024MB when I plugged in 2GB extra hehe. Initially I thought something was wrong.. then I realised that it must be a 32bit distro.. and BING BING BING... I was right (not exactly a eureka moment ;-) ) (Note there is no inherent 64 bit release, you would have to manually install 32 bit XBMC into 64 Linux distro if this is what you wanted (A real shame))

Anyway... After the sound issues in XBMCUbuntu I decided to give it a shot on Vista. I have to save it doesn't seem as slick/smooth as Linux version but at least I can see if it's worthwhile me pursuing XBMC :-) Quite like it tbh. Sound worked perfectly as well lol.

Another odd thing... UPnP is MASSIVELY faster in Vista than Ubuntu for my NAS drive. It's almost instant in Vista where as Ubuntu can take upto a minute to sort out the folders, find files/navigate when looking at the NAS.
 
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If your just using XBMC then use openelec 2.0 beta (they are very stable mind), it has many advantages, it's 64-bit for a start, auto updates, and so light that its as slick as anything and will boot literally in seconds. Plus has things like hdmi audio working (usually) out the box which can be tricky on linux systems.
 
I'll look that up, and give it a shot. I do like the look and feel of XBMC however.

I'm not using the HTPC on a TV at present so don't need HDMI sound. (just yet)
 
Thread revival... I am going to try and get a 5570 or 6570 and try and use this as my main PC, to run Planetside 2. Quite a step down from my Sandybridge 2500K and GTX 480 lol. Will let you know how I get on!

EDIT: I may also try and get another Xonar D1 depending on budget, to make sure I can use it for it's original purpose as a media PC.

Concern: I may have to use an external power supply, which would suck.
 
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