[andrewtayloruk]

Hi,

I've got an old Dell Optiplex GX260, 2.8Ghz P4, 2GB RAM. I've also got a spare Nvidia GS8400 PCI-E 16x graphics card. I'd like to use these bits, along with a new sound card, and case as linux based media PC. I have a powerful desktop sitting on the network which I want to use a server, and, stream xvid / divx etc to my 50" Panasonic Plasma and Denon AVR-1906 in the living room.

It's been a long time since I've messed around with hardware so I have a few questions:

1) Is a P4 sufficient to handle 720p (the most the tv will go to)
2) Is it possible to get a sound-card to feed out 5.1 to the receiver without overworking the rest of the system
3) I plan to connect the machine to the network using a 85mbs homeplug poe - Will this be sufficient to stream 720p ?

Given this will cost around £100 for the case and the motherboard, should I just buy a WD-TV instead?

Thanks

Andrew

[crazyfool_1]

the p4 with the 8400gs should be sufficient as most of the decoding will be done on the graphics card, setting up 5.1 with almost any sound card should be easy and wont overwork the system at all and the 85mbs homeplug should be more then enough depending on how good the wiring in your house is... hope thats help...

[andrewtayloruk]

That's great news, thanks very much for the prompt response. I'll go find my screwdriver

Andrew

[AnthonyG]

You are touching around the minimum specs for 720p playback.

I would say as you have the parts already its definitely worth the attempt, if you get choppy playback I would recommend you buy CoreAVC to use with it.

It worked wonders for me when I was getting almost unwatchable 1080p playback on my old AMD X2 4200 system.

[Theydon Bois]

An Optiplex 260? Are they not small factor format? Is the card a low profile one? Our old school ones were not only SFF, but AGP as well.

[andrewtayloruk]

Originally Posted by Theydon Bois

An Optiplex 260? Are they not small factor format? Is the card a low profile one? Our old school ones were not only SFF, but AGP as well.

No, this one is a tower case (I'm not sure why, as usually they are SFF); from re-reading my original post I can see I omitted a vital part, I know I need a new motherboard. I was looking to re-use the CPU, RAM, HD along with the spare 8400GS PCI-E and a new mothboard and soundcard.

Whilst I was forraging through my bits and pieces I realised I also have a spare Gigabyte P6NGM and a core 2 Celeron.

I've now got a couple of options; I'm going to need a case and soundcard no matter what, but:

1) Stick with the P4 from the Dell and get a new motherboard
2) Use the newer mothboard and celeron chip

I think I'll probably go with 2, as, I can upgrade the chip later and RAM isn't that expensive. If I buy a motherboard that will support the P4 and PCI-E I'm pretty locked in.

Thanks again

Andrew

[europbaron]

I don't know if your specific components will play 720p, but my system was cobbled together from old components with a few additions ,some new, some 2nd hand. This plays DVDs absolutely fine - and the output is set to 720p through DVI->HDMI adaptor.

Components:

Gigabyte (GA7VA?)
Athlon XP2500
768MB RAM (think it was DDR 333)
Second hand Nvidia FX5200
Second hand Creative sound card with co-ax digital output (CT4130 perhaps)
Second hand Zalman flower CPU heatsink.
Old beige desktop case spray painted.

New components:
SATA card and 1TB Seagate drive.
Xilence Power supply (420W?) - not silent but close enough.
Northbridge passive heatsink
Imon Soundgraph Remote and Sensor.

Software:
XP Pro, ASIO4All, Media Portal RC1 (Indigo skin with MyTV series, Onebutton Music and PureAudio plug ins), Daemon Tools lite and an old version of PowerDVD, the codec for which is used within MP as it seems to deal with DVD menus better than MP's own player.

At one point I was using an Athlon XP1900 and it seemed fine at 720p, but I had the XP2500 lying around so installed it rather than have it go to waste.

Are you looking to play blu-rays at 720p on your system. If so is there any chance you could post a build thread or update us on how successful it is?

[andrewtayloruk]

Okay, I'm up and running.

I still need a case and a soundcard, but as I had the rest of the bits I put it in to a spare tower case and got the software installed.

There's nothing remarkable to be honest, it just worked. I presume I might have some problems getting the resolution right once I connect it to my plasma (TH50PX60) , but, it worked fine whilst connected to my monitor (which will accept 720p over HDMI) so I assume it won't be too difficult.

The final spec looked like this:

• MSI P6NGM with on-board Gigabit NIC
• Intel Core 2 Celeron @ 1.6Ghz (I think, I didn't check and BIOS screen doesn't stay on long enough via HDMI)
• Gainward 8400GS 512MB HDMI out
• 250GB SATA Maxtor (all I had to hand, content will be streamed mostly)
• Samsung DVD-RW, I'm going to pull this when I build in the new case, just made the software install easy (It's bankholiday weekend, I can be lazy!)
• 1GB of RAM

I initially went with Linux Mint, but, I still can't really get away with the Ubuntu way, so, I ditiched it and did an Arch Linux install, I chose the x686 install rather than the x86_64 because I wasn't sure what codec support would be like, and, I doubt I'll ever have more than 2GB RAM in.

/boot 100MB
/swap 2000MB (usually more than I'd configure, but, the system is a bit short on RAM
/ 10GB
/var/media rest ~210GB

I did a basic xorg install then added xbmc straight on-top instead of the window manager, I also installed the Nvidia binary drivers although I'm not really sure if this is needed (my experience is really with servers, not desktops).

I did a quick fiddle with the resolutions and 720p is a standard res, so I opted for it.

I then installed some additional packages;

smbclient, for streaming from my timecapsule
hellanzb (not sure what this is for :)
lighttpd hellaworld (again, less said)

I threw a couple of files at it to test, but, without sound it's not really a good test; a DVD ISO, this played fine from local and streamed, an XVID file from the timecapsule, this played in FFWD, not sure why. I also tried a 720p x264 in MKV, this all seemed to play fine as well.

Once I can find a suitable soundcard with digital-optical out, and, a case with suitable WAF, I'll see what it looks like connected to the TV.

Thanks for everyones help

Andrew

[andrewtayloruk]

Just a quick update, couldn't help but connect the PC to the TV. I had a bit of an issue with the resolution, but, it seems fine now. I thought 720p via HDMI would be fixed signal, I didn't realise I'd have to mess around with overscan etc. I've done this now and all seems fine.

I've also found an SPDIF connection on the video card, so I pushed out sound via HDMI, this works great albeit in stereo, I'm going to try and pickup a 5.1 card tomorrow.

I now need to find some media to test it with, MKV works, as does XVID (it's stopped playing in FFWD).

Andrew

[Theydon Bois]

Very interested in finding out how you get on, and I have added you to the budget list in the sticky as well - a celeron playing 720p mkvs? Whodhavethunkit....

Pics help as well - build, components, case, frontend...the more the merrier.

[andrewtayloruk]

Originally Posted by Theydon Bois

Very interested in finding out how you get on, and I have added you to the budget list in the sticky as well - a celeron playing 720p mkvs? Whodhavethunkit....

Pics help as well - build, components, case, frontend...the more the merrier.

It's interesting that you say that, I hadn't really given much thought as to what was / wasn't possible. My desktop machine is a Quad Core with 8GB of RAM, it's been a while since I've even considered if a machine was sufficiently capable of performing a given task. I also have an Apple TV, that has always played iTunes movies with 5.1 etc. I really didn't think that the system wouldn't have the spec.

I suppose before I case it all up and give it pride of place under my TV I better run some more tests.

I know about XVID / DIVX, playback of these formats seems to be assured? I've got the x264 MKV, which, seems OK. What other formats are popular, what is a good benchmark for capability? I'm really a bit lost off to be honest. DVD ISO, is that a test, or, is that straight forward?

Thanks again

Andrew

[MikeK]

a celeron playing 720p mkvs? Whodhavethunkit....


For 720p, you can get away with a spec quite a bit lower than a 2x1.6GHz Core 2 celeron!

[andrewtayloruk]

After some further research in to this, and the fact that I've managed to get an SPDIF lead from my on-board sound to my graphics card and out through HDMI to my TV, I believe I should be able to get a SPDIF to OPT/COAX header cable. I've found a couple on ebay which I'm going to give a whirl, so I don't need a soundcard now.

The only thing that's really a show stopper is the case. I've checked out a few online and they seem pretty expensive. If I'm going to pay £120+ for a case, I may as well just buy a Popcorn hour or similar.

There's a quite a few cheaper cases discussed on this forum, but, they refer to needing a low-profile graphics card. How can I tell what is low-profile and what isn't?

I've got a passively-cooled Gainward 8400 GS (Gainward

Is there a specific measurement I need to take?

Thanks

Andrew

[Stilojon]

Hi Andrew.

Really intresting thread I have exactly the same desktop the optiplex gx260 and its in a standard form.

I have today upgrated the RAM too 2GB and also updated XP with service pack 3 so it should be running nicely now.

Everything else is standard in the desktop and running the Pentium 4.

I have downloaded the CCP codec and it seems I am allready able to stream 720P through my VGA cable to my TV and the picture looks great.

However I am sure it could be a lot lot better.

Therefore could you give me a list of components that I should add to this Dell to bring it up to scratch.

Ideally I would like it to play 1080P bluerays on my 42" LCD via HDMI and running 5.1 sound so would be keen to know what I should be looking to buy and upgrade.

Thanks

[AnthonyG]

Originally Posted by Stilojon

Ideally I would like it to play 1080P bluerays on my 42" LCD via HDMI and running 5.1 sound so would be keen to know what I should be looking to buy and upgrade.

Thanks

1080p may be stretching it, but one of the absolute minimums if you wanted to give it a go would be a graphics card with onboard hd acceleration.

Which graphics card do you have already?

[Stilojon]

I think the graphics card is absolute bear minimum but it outputs a great 720p picture via vga

[AnthonyG]

Originally Posted by Stilojon

I think the graphics card is absolute bear minimum but it outputs a great 720p picture via vga

As I have said for blu-ray you need onboard HD accelleration.

Download GPU-z and give the info about the card you have

GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility

For HDMI you also need to consider if its HDCP compliant too.

[Stilojon]

So I have this bad boy:


Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller

[Stilojon]

So I have everything sorted out on my media portal now, but the media portal is running very slow. therefore I believe some upgrades are needed for the computer.

When playing blue rays image seems to be a little out of time and slow sometimes.

I pressume this is the graphics card.


Alsoaudio drops of every now and then, would this be my processor.

I hope all the details I have provided will give you enough info for me to buy relevant upgrades.

Any thoughts??

[AnthonyG]

Originally Posted by Stilojon

So I have everything sorted out on my media portal now, but the media portal is running very slow. therefore I believe some upgrades are needed for the computer.

When playing blue rays image seems to be a little out of time and slow sometimes.

I pressume this is the graphics card.

Originally Posted by Stilojon

So I have this bad boy:


Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller

It is, you need a card with onboard HD acceleration, the one you have now doesn't meaning its putting the entire load on the CPU.

Its still going to be seriously touch and go whether you will be able to play 1080p blu-rays when you do get the card so you will need to consider if buying the new card is worth the gamble.

[Stilojon]

ok so what else would I need to support this card,
I can through a few quid at this but no more than £150, as I see that for £350 I could probably buy a whole new up-to-date system.

so is it worth adding a few bits to this Dell to get the performance I want, or shall I just buy a new media centre???

ow will a few upgrades see me through??

[AnthonyG]

If you have around £150 to spend my advice would be to look at the Popcorn Hour / Iobox Network Media Tanks

These are much less hassle than a Media Center PC and you can easily get the hidef audio as bitstream from the Blu-Ray to your AV receiver too.

But regarding the upgrade to your Dell do you have an AGP slot or a PCI express slot for graphics on the motherboard?

If its the former its going to be a bit more expensive for the card as its the old connection type and its somewhat rare now.

Have a look in the classifieds for a cheap second hand card that has onboard HD acceleration.

[Stilojon]

how do i know what the difference between the two slots are???

As for popcorn, i dont want that, I would really like to run mediaportal which i am currently running on the dell.

[Stilojon]

if anything forget 1080P and lets think about 720P as thats just as good, and most of my downloads are 720P at present anyway.

[Theydon Bois]

Originally Posted by Stilojon

if anything forget 1080P and lets think about 720P as thats just as good, and most of my downloads are 720P at present anyway.

If you are talking about films illegally obtained from the internet, this thread will be closed and infractions will occur.

[Stilojon]

Originally Posted by Theydon Bois

If you are talking about films illegally obtained from the internet, this thread will be closed and infractions will occur.

No, I am not relating to films illegally downloaded from the interent.

[paddy01]

Originally Posted by Stilojon

how do i know what the difference between the two slots are???

As for popcorn, i dont want that, I would really like to run mediaportal which i am currently running on the dell.

If you can post the model of the Dell you have then someone will be able to check for you.

A £30 graphics card like the Ati Radeon 3450 is more than capable of Bluray at 1080p.. there's one in my media center doing that just now :D

[Stilojon]

Its an Optiplex GX 260,

I have added 2GB RAm, runnin XP service pack 3 and the graphics card is above.

[paddy01]

Ok, it's an AGP slot which means much less choice but there are still options...

Here's an example although not the cheapest out there :

Sapphire HD 3650 512MB DDR2 DVI HDCP HDTV out AGP Graphics Card - Ebuyer

One thing though, the spec for that machine specified it's a low profile slot. I'm assuming that's because of the case however I think earlier in the thread you mention you've removed it to a tower case.. if so then the above (as a full height card) should be ok (as an example).

[Stilojon]

no thats the original poster, mine is still i its original bo,

I have a feeling its pointless building this box up to spec, and would probably be easier buying a second hand htpc that trying to spec this one up!

What do you think??