View Full Version : Live or Windows?
EarnheadJ
2008-10-20, 02:40
Have been experimenting with both the windows version and live beta2 off of thumb drive. Both seem to work on my HP computer with amd athlon 64x2 5200+ with ge- force 8500 gt video card. Display is a Acer 24' monitor at 1900x1200 res. Playing the Killa sample with windows is watchable and drops about 86 frames but when booting off of thumb drive with same settings it drops 211 frames and is very noticable. Is this because it is not directly running off of the hard drive. Sorry if this is a dumb question but I am a linux noobie. I would like to use xbmc on whatever operating system is best for my computer. Would installing the linux version directly on the hard drive help? Some settings on the usb version I am missing?
Have been experimenting with both the windows version and live beta2 off of thumb drive. Both seem to work on my HP computer with amd athlon 64x2 5200+ with ge- force 8500 gt video card. Display is a Acer 24' monitor at 1900x1200 res. Playing the Killa sample with windows is watchable and drops about 86 frames but when booting off of thumb drive with same settings it drops 211 frames and is very noticable. Is this because it is not directly running off of the hard drive. Sorry if this is a dumb question but I am a linux noobie. I would like to use xbmc on whatever operating system is best for my computer. Would installing the linux version directly on the hard drive help? Some settings on the usb version I am missing?
If your not running the killa sample from a USB drive but from network then no it shouldnt matter if XBMC is on thumb or not.
XBMC on its on isnt loading very much from the USB, atleast way below the upper limit of a USB drive.
All in all it depends on the hardware your running but for the most time playback *should* be better on Live than any of the other as it has less overhead.
But in the long run its you who will use it and you choose which fits your profile.
XBMC Live btw is a regular linux wich is stripped. And all features found XBMC-side can be initialized in ie ubuntu by starting XBMC with --standalone
xbmc --standalone
EarnheadJ
2008-10-20, 13:14
Ya it seems strange because I am using same hardware for both. I tried another test clip, the Cloverfield one, and same thing lots more dropped frames and the audio was out of sync with usb. Played fine with Windows XP though. Wierd. Thanks anyway
harryzimm
2008-10-20, 14:00
I can also confirm that xbmc for windows can play 1080p x264 content much better than the linux version, the killa sample plays smoothly on my hardware (see sig) since support for dual core video decoding was added in beta2, the cloverfield sample also has no problems on the windows platform. The linux version however has never been able to either samples without dropping frames and juddering like hell. I still prefer the linux port though due to having less overhead.
Maybe this is something the devs could look into?
cheers.
it's most likely driver related if I had to Guess.
that is... Windows Drivers VS. Linux Drivers
slacker666
2008-10-20, 14:27
maybe go with open source drivers then? Cause i also have a problem with streaming 1080p material, it often drops 2-3 frames here and there. sometimes nearly 10fps if lot of action is going on. (using xbmc live here)
harryzimm
2008-10-20, 14:44
it's most likely driver related if I had to Guess.
that is... Windows Drivers VS. Linux Drivers
Yeah thats what i was thinking.
Judging from comments on another thread The killa sample can be played in xbmc linux with a intel c2d @3ghz. So it seems the drivers are capable of 1080p, They just need more grunt to do it. Is this the case or are there other drivers to try?
pumkinut
2008-10-20, 15:00
maybe go with open source drivers then? Cause i also have a problem with streaming 1080p material, it often drops 2-3 frames here and there. sometimes nearly 10fps if lot of action is going on. (using xbmc live here)
For nVidia hardware, there are no fully working open source drivers that provide hardware acceleration i.e. no OpenGL. There is Nouveau (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/), but that's still very much a WIP.
XBMC for Windows doesn't use hw acceleration even if Windows Drivers happen to support it. This is not what I meant with the VS.
With VS. I mean comparing the QUALITY of said drivers.
Either way, ALOT more details about hardware is needed before we can say more about the underlying issues
Ok, I'm experiencing the same as the OP. Only in a Linux (non Live) vs. Windows situation.
My hardware:
Motherboard Gigabyte GA965P-DS3 (rev 3.3)
CPU E2160 clocked at 3.0 GHz
RAM 2GB
Videocard Nvidia 8800GT 512MB (w/ latest drivers from Nvidia website both for XP and Ubuntu environments)
Onboard Sound
Onboard NIC
Display 50" 1366x768 Panasonic plasma, driven at native res through VGA
With the above, playback loses lots of frames under Ubuntu Hardy and is perfect under Windows XP SP2. Furthermore, not only the Killer sample is losing frames, lots of Planet Earth 1080p content has problems.
As I'm investigating judder problems (http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=38530) under Windows, my Ubuntu install is really XBMC dedicated, I have not added anything else (XBMC, Nvidia drivers, LIRC, ALSA... stop).