Zotac Ion board

[rndinokc]

Thank you Andrew,
When I get off work tonight I will try connecting a usb DVD drive up and seeing if that makes a differenct.  I have gigabit cards and switch so band width should not be a problem but the core might be.  Thanks for  your suggestions.
Randy

[rperre]

Krys, have you done any more testing on these boards?

Can you update the wiki if so..... (so I don't have to re-invent the wheel)

I have 2 of these Zotac's coming in this week and will try to set them up and update my findings.

Richard

[rndinokc]

Sorry that it took so long.  I put a hard drive in the media director with a movie on it.  Unfortunately for me there is still some studdering on the video.  I have a 230 Zotac Ion with 2 gigs of memory.  The only thing I can think of that is weird is that I could only get the AV Wizard to install using component and 720P like Krys.  Is it possible that I am doing something wrong with the installation?  Any help would be appreciated.
Randy

[colinjones]

If the movie is using a high bit-rate and/or a heavy duty codec such as h.264/x.264 and you haven't done the necessary work to integrate VDPAU with Xine, then yes video will stutter.

Even 720p using x264 codecs will be beyond the capability of the Atom CPU to process unless the bitrate is extremely low (to the point of being unwatchable quality, probably!).

You would need hardware acceleration from the nVidia chipset of the video decode, to get smooth video. And that mean integration of VDPAU.... which is not currently there yet with LMCE.

Whilst you are waiting for that, you can use lower codecs (MPEG1,2 and some 4, some WMV, Divx, etc) which form the bulk of media in the SD range.

[kyfalcon]

I just purchased this board and followed the wiki to load the avenard repos but when I go and try to set UI2 I just get a blank screen after boot up. UI1 worked but the device in xorg.conf was set to vesa. I changed this to nvidia with no luck. I have the Zotac 230. Am I missing a step?

Thx

[krys]

did you reboot after you changed vesa to nvidia?

I usually change the vesa to nvidia, and then reboot into the AV wizard
-Krys

[kyfalcon]

Got it working. The problem I ran into was that since the Zotac has both a DVI and HDMI you need to choose HDMI2 in the Wizard. For some reason when the xorg is set to vesa output works with hdmi1 in the wizard but as soon as you set it to nvidia you must tell the wizard to use HDMI2.

Krys you might want to add this to your wiki.

Also, how do I allocate the right amount of system memory to the gpu.

Thanks,
Kevin

[totallymaxed]

Got it working. The problem I ran into was that since the Zotac has both a DVI and HDMI you need to choose HDMI2 in the Wizard. For some reason when the xorg is set to vesa output works with hdmi1 in the wizard but as soon as you set it to nvidia you must tell the wizard to use HDMI2.

Krys you might want to add this to your wiki.

Also, how do I allocate the right amount of system memory to the gpu.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin,

Just leave the Bios setting for GPU memory on 'auto' (its default)... no need to change it manually.

All the best

Andrew

[niz23]

jyfalcon,

Got it working. The problem I ran into was that since the Zotac has both a DVI and HDMI you need to choose HDMI2 in the Wizard. For some reason when the xorg is set to vesa output works with hdmi1 in the wizard but as soon as you set it to nvidia you must tell the wizard to use HDMI2.

Krys you might want to add this to your wiki.

Also, how do I allocate the right amount of system memory to the gpu.

Thanks,
Kevin

If you find something in a wiki page that can be corrected, extended, modified or...
Please update it with your findings.
It´s not like, in this case, that krys own the page an noone else is allowed to modify.

The whole wiki concept it built around the concept that everyone can modify a page.
If you do something wrong. No problem. We can revert the page to it´s previous version.

Feel free to extend all wiki pages you have something to contribute to.

/niz23

[kyfalcon]

totallymaxed  thx.

niz, I understand didn't want to step on any toes.

[totallymaxed]

totallymaxed  thx.

niz, I understand didn't want to step on any toes.

kyfalcon,

As Niz says the wiki is everyones to edit/update/improve... we need everyone to get involved in enriching it. So you dont need permission to change it ;-)

All the best

Andrew

[thezfunk]

I will be ordering one soon to join in the fun.  I will be getting the 3xx in hopes that the extra core will help with things?

[totallymaxed]

I will be ordering one soon to join in the fun.  I will be getting the 3xx in hopes that the extra core will help with things?

Well an N330 based board will certainly do no harm and will work as well as the N230/270 based boards.

Andrew

[Vincent]

I tried to install LinuxMCE but it won't install. It says cannot detect the Hdisk. I have a 320Gb hdisk connected.

I was able to install XBMC and Ubuntu 9 without a glitch.

Also tried KnoppMyth and that failed to install. I tried to boot from a knoppix live Cd also and that also failed.

Really keen to try out LinuxMCE. Any ideas?

regards

[rperre]

you mean you are trying to install the core/hybrid on one of these Zotac boards?

I think these are more suitable for an MD.

I have no problems with this Zotac board as an MD with linuxmce.

Richard