Will LinuxMCE work with my current setup?

[mlb5000]

Here's my setup:

HTPC:
BIOSTAR TForce TF7050-M2 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 7050PV HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Windsor 2.8GHz Socket AM2 89W Dual-Core Processor Model ADA5600CZBOX
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE Personal Video Recorder
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2600XT
XBOX 360 HD-DVD Drive
2GB RAM
1TB HDD (2x500GB)

Home Theater:
Samsung HL-S5087W 50" DLP
Onkyo HT-S780 7.1 Surround Sound System

All other components would likely be built around the box itself since I'm only in an apartment right now and have little need for home automation.  I like my systems to be as expandable as possible and from what I've seen this has some good potential.

My main concern is with HD Content.  My Radeon HD 2600 allows me to fully offload the decoding of VC-1 and H.264 to the hardware cutting down CPU cost by a ton.  From what I've seen so far, ATI doesn't offer this hardware support to Linux users (at least not yet).  Will I still be able to playback my HD-DVD and Blu-ray content (I'm planning on purchasing LG's combo drive as soon as I'm not poor, aka. not in college) or will I have tons of issues?

Thanks ahead of time.

[mlb5000]

I suppose there's only one way to find out, I'm making this my weekend project.  I will be making a small partition on my one 500GB hard drive for this install.  What size partition would you recommend, or do I need to dedicate an entire drive to it?  Also, is it safe to dual-boot this and Vista HP?

[tschak909]

replace the ATI graphics card with an NVIDIA 6200, and you'll be set.

-Thom

[tschak909]

you will also need to make device templates for your TV and reciever.

-Thom

[mlb5000]

replace the ATI graphics card with an NVIDIA 6200, and you'll be set.

-Thom

From what I gathered from the Display Drivers page on the Wiki http://wiki.linuxmce.com/index.php/Display_Drivers), ATI drivers should work so long as they are supported by Ubuntu (I'm assuming since this runs over Kubuntu).  The Ubuntu installation guide for Feisty (http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Feisty_Installation_Guide) says that the Radeon 2600 series chipset is compatible so is it a safe assumption (is there such a thing with Linux?) that it will work providing I get the drivers installed?  Also, isn't an NVIDIA 6200 a little weak, as I'm intending to test the supposed HD-DVD/Blu-Ray compatibility of 710 and I don't think that card will cut it.

[tschak909]

.....

i've answered this again, and again...but here goes....

on Linux, the GPU does NOT do any accelleration for HD. So a faster CPU is needed.

and NO, the 6200 is not weak.. it's the right size for this system, and the drivers that come with even the current release of 0704 will work out of the box with it. AND you'll get UI2 with Alpha composited blending of the UI..something the commercial ATI drivers STILL can't do correctly...

as I said before... swap out the ATI card for an NVIDIA one, preferrably a 6200.

-Thom

[mlb5000]

.....

i've answered this again, and again...but here goes....

on Linux, the GPU does NOT do any accelleration for HD. So a faster CPU is needed.

and NO, the 6200 is not weak.. it's the right size for this system, and the drivers that come with even the current release of 0704 will work out of the box with it. AND you'll get UI2 with Alpha composited blending of the UI..something the commercial ATI drivers STILL can't do correctly...

as I said before... swap out the ATI card for an NVIDIA one, preferrably a 6200.

-Thom

I know hardware acceleration isn't enabled in the current linux drivers but that doesn't mean that the linux drivers for my card won't work.  I have a 2.8GHz dual-core processor which (at least in Windows HP) could not handle 1080p VC-1 smoothly, much less 1080p H.264.  I guess basically what I'm asking is, will the instructions found in the above wikis work for getting the ATI drivers into LinuxMCE and will UI2 work with it since the drivers support OpenGL (the Radeon has 256MB of video memory)?

Also, if the ATI would not work, is it possible to use the integrated graphics chipset in my board, the NVIDIA 7050PV?  If that card doesn't work, then neither will my HDMI audio.  I have a SPDIF bracket on there that I was using before I got that card so I may have to resort to using it, but will it work?

[tschak909]

.....

i've answered this again, and again...but here goes....

on Linux, the GPU does NOT do any accelleration for HD. So a faster CPU is needed.

and NO, the 6200 is not weak.. it's the right size for this system, and the drivers that come with even the current release of 0704 will work out of the box with it. AND you'll get UI2 with Alpha composited blending of the UI..something the commercial ATI drivers STILL can't do correctly...

as I said before... swap out the ATI card for an NVIDIA one, preferrably a 6200.

-Thom

I know hardware acceleration isn't enabled in the current linux drivers but that doesn't mean that the linux drivers for my card won't work.  I have a 2.8GHz dual-core processor which (at least in Windows HP) could not handle 1080p VC-1 smoothly, much less 1080p H.264.  I guess basically what I'm asking is, will the instructions found in the above wikis work for getting the ATI drivers into LinuxMCE and will UI2 work with it since the drivers support OpenGL (the Radeon has 256MB of video memory)?

Also, if the ATI would not work, is it possible to use the integrated graphics chipset in my board, the NVIDIA 7050PV?  If that card doesn't work, then neither will my HDMI audio.  I have a SPDIF bracket on there that I was using before I got that card so I may have to resort to using it, but will it work?

Even with the instructions on the wiki, the best you'll be able to get out of the ATI, is a Masked UI2 (no blending effects on the UI), so if you want to do the work of trying to shoehorn the driver in, go ahead. I'm just trying to get you into something that will work out of the box without problems..

the 7050 should be properly supported by 0710, so it's worth a try, there.

-Thom

[Matthew]

i've answered this again, and again...but here goes....

on Linux, the GPU does NOT do any accelleration for HD. So a faster CPU is needed.

and NO, the 6200 is not weak.. it's the right size for this system, and the drivers that come with even the current release of 0704 will work out of the box with it. AND you'll get UI2 with Alpha composited blending of the UI..something the commercial ATI drivers STILL can't do correctly...

Here's another probable FAQ, but I couldn't find an answer by scouring the forums or the wiki. Is there any HW (CPU/GPU combination) that will deliver 1080p video to a 1080p TV, in UI2/alpha (or any menu mode)? 0710 claims BluRay/HD-DVD support, which would imply 1080p, but I haven't seen HW that such SW could drive.

[mlb5000]

So what's the issue with the ATI, driver limitation?  Also, I've read that UI2 requires a minimum 128MB of video memory to work.  The onboard graphics chipset shares with main memory (or so I believe) so would that be OK or not?

Matt

[tschak909]

the fglrx driver still has nasty bugs when combining openGL and Composite with ARGB visuals. ATI has promised a fix for this, for a very long time.

-Thom

[mlb5000]

the fglrx driver still has nasty bugs when combining openGL and Composite with ARGB visuals. ATI has promised a fix for this, for a very long time.

-Thom

Ok, so what about the integrated graphics chipset and UI2, yes, no, maybe?

[tkmedia]

As Thom says

the 7050 should be properly supported by 0710, so it's worth a try, there.

I have the 7050 running fine under 0710 out of the box

and have a procedure for 0704

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=3368.0

[philippefs35]

I know that this thread hasn't been alive for some time already but I just wanted to be sure if tkmedia was talking about UI2 with alpha blending or without in his last answer.