Motherboard with HDMI?

[Matthew]

OK, how about the MSI K9NGM3-FIH, which uses nVidia GeForce7150? Starting at $80. Or the $95 eVGA 112-CK-NF77-A1, GeForce 7150, or $96 eVGA 112-CK-NF77-A1, GeForce 7100?

[1audio]

The 7050 requires the new drivers which are still buggy and unstable. Life just isn't easy for Linux users.

[totallymaxed]

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=BA24125
Just ordered this one won't be here till next week hopefully we'll have 0710 to install it.

Tim

Well I am not sure that 7050 support is still that stable... let us know how you get on.

[rmwlaw]

Hi Colin,

We are testing the MSI MS-7329 motherboard (see link to manual below) this has on-board 6150 graphics and an HDMI port;

http://217.110.237.67/Manuals/7329-engl%20v1.0%20-%20MS-7329%20(G52-73291X1).pdf

We're running this board at 720p over component & HDMI and it performs beautifully. The board supports 1080p too but we have not tested that yet... will give feedback when we do ;-)

We've tested it with UI2 + Overlay and it works great... but I don't think we've tested UI2 + transparency. I'll take a look at that on Monday and post an update here then.

Andrew

Have you had an opportunity to test it with UI2 + transparency yet? If so, any success?

Just curious as I (and sure others) were waiting for your next post.

rmwlaw

[colinjones]

Agreed, totallymaxed, any updates?  especially on the 1080p and alphablending...

[hoboghost]

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch.hmx?SCriteria=BA24125
Just ordered this one won't be here till next week hopefully we'll have 0710 to install it.

Tim

Well I am not sure that 7050 support is still that stable... let us know how you get on.

I also got the Abit AN-M2HD--came in the mail today.  I'm sad to hear that there are problems with 7050--I am a newb trying out Linux and LinuxMCE and I thought I'd be fine as long as i stuck with nvida chipsets and nvidia onboard graphics.  I hope it all works.

[totallymaxed]

Hi Colin,

We are testing the MSI MS-7329 motherboard (see link to manual below) this has on-board 6150 graphics and an HDMI port;

http://217.110.237.67/Manuals/7329-engl%20v1.0%20-%20MS-7329%20(G52-73291X1).pdf

We're running this board at 720p over component & HDMI and it performs beautifully. The board supports 1080p too but we have not tested that yet... will give feedback when we do ;-)

We've tested it with UI2 + Overlay and it works great... but I don't think we've tested UI2 + transparency. I'll take a look at that on Monday and post an update here then.

Andrew

Have you had an opportunity to test it with UI2 + transparency yet? If so, any success?

Just curious as I (and sure others) were waiting for your next post.

rmwlaw

Oops!.. Sorry I will run a test myself with UI2 + Alphablending turned on later this morning and provide some feedback.

[totallymaxed]

Hi Colin,

We are testing the MSI MS-7329 motherboard (see link to manual below) this has on-board 6150 graphics and an HDMI port;

http://217.110.237.67/Manuals/7329-engl%20v1.0%20-%20MS-7329%20(G52-73291X1).pdf

We're running this board at 720p over component & HDMI and it performs beautifully. The board supports 1080p too but we have not tested that yet... will give feedback when we do ;-)

We've tested it with UI2 + Overlay and it works great... but I don't think we've tested UI2 + transparency. I'll take a look at that on Monday and post an update here then.

Andrew

Have you had an opportunity to test it with UI2 + transparency yet? If so, any success?

Just curious as I (and sure others) were waiting for your next post.

rmwlaw

Ok I have taken some time to do some tests this morning and I can confirm that the MSI MS-7329 MB supports UI2 + Overlay & UI2 + Alpha blending using the standard lmce-0704 nVidia drivers at 720p over Component & HDMI (I did not have a 1080p screens at hand to test that resolution against).

Performance is inline with all nVidia graphics hardware we have tested todate in that with UI2 + Alpha Blending selected we see a very slight amount of 'tearing' in the video when there is medium to fast horizontal motion of the camera. I personally find this quite distracting when watching TV/DVD's. Setting UI2 + Overlay removes this "tearing' completely and gives silky smooth video @ 720p.

Andrew

[colinjones]

Andrew - do you have any idea whether this tearing is due to drivers, or simply a performance thing? I'm assuming that a driver bug with the sync could be ironed out over time, whereas a performance issue is more likely to be with us to stay, unless there is a tuning issue in the driver??

[totallymaxed]

Andrew - do you have any idea whether this tearing is due to drivers, or simply a performance thing? I'm assuming that a driver bug with the sync could be ironed out over time, whereas a performance issue is more likely to be with us to stay, unless there is a tuning issue in the driver??

My thinking is that it is performance related and not a bug as such. I think running UI2 with Alpha Blending just means there is whole lot more computation going on and this stresses the hardware/driver to the point where it can't quite keep up and the "tearing" occurs because whole video frames cannot be draw into the video buffer fast enough. I might be wrong... but it seems like a logical possibility especially since turning Alpha Blending off fixes it 100%.

[colinjones]

Do we know whether one of the higher chipsets have the extra grunt? Sounds like only a marginal thing... I haven't looked at the specs, but I'm presuming there are pretty significant performance capability differences between the various members of the 6xxx, 7xxx and 8xxx series. If this is happening on the 6.....

[tkmedia]

http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2719.msg16953#msg16953

It seems to have the same problem with the 7050
see my above post.

[totallymaxed]

Do we know whether one of the higher chipsets have the extra grunt? Sounds like only a marginal thing... I haven't looked at the specs, but I'm presuming there are pretty significant performance capability differences between the various members of the 6xxx, 7xxx and 8xxx series. If this is happening on the 6.....

Over time we have tested pretty much all the nVidia cards and onboard chipsets... none could handle UI2 + Alpha Blending without suffering some tearing in video playback. I am sure this to do with the drivers still not delivering the full performance that the nVidia hardware is capable of.

[tzinternet]

Anymore updates on the MSI MS-7329?  Also, how easy was the MCE install and would it be a good board to user a both a core and MDE if you only had one machine?  Thanks for your input.

[totallymaxed]

Anymore updates on the MSI MS-7329?  Also, how easy was the MCE install and would it be a good board to user a both a core and MDE if you only had one machine?  Thanks for your input.

The MS-7329 is on longterm test with us now and has proved to be very stable and reliable with an excellent set of features. We are mainly testing it as a Hybrid/Core, a role which it performs very well, and in tests it has supported 5 MD's quite happily.