[mythtv-users] A8N-VM CSM success

[Paul Bender]

James C. Dastrup wrote:

> My opinion on the Asus A8N-VM CSM. I just purchased it with an AMD 64 X2
> 3800+.
> I'm running Gentoo 64-bit and Myth 0.19. I was hoping to get an
> all-in-one mobo for
> a frontend, and I believe this is (or will be) it.
> 
> Until the drivers get better, I'm using a PCI Turtle Beach audio card,
> and a
> PCI Realtek 8169 Gigabit NIC. I already had those, and eventually I'm
> sure I'll
> be able to ditch those once linux drivers catch up.
> 
> But, the on-board video is working *GREAT* for HDTV. I mapped 128 MB to
> it in the
> BIOS (up from the default 64), and I can watch anything - without XVMC.
> The highest
> I'll see the CPU go up to is about 50% (combined cores). I'm using the
> latest
> nvidia drivers - 8756 I think. Perfect picture quality. With XVMC on, I
> get the 
> occasional prebuffering pauses during the OSD, although barely
> noticeable while
> watching, and a CPU of maybe 25%.

I use the Asus A8N-VM CSM as a MythTV frontend as well. However, I have 
an AMD Athlon64 3200+. Also, I am running a custom distribution that I 
tailored for the motherboard.

I have found that with the 2.6.15.7 kernel, the onboard NIC works fine. 
In addition, I have found that with the 1.0.11 alsa-driver, the onboard 
audio works fine. Previous versions of the alsa-driver required a patch 
to stop an annoying analog audio problem. However, the 1.0.11 alsa-lib 
has problems with MythTV and MPlayer when playing non-48kHz audio 
through the SPDIF output, so I am using 1.0.11rc4 alsa-lib with 1.0.11 
alsa-driver.

I am using the 8178 nvidia drivers, which do not support XvMC on this 
motherboard. I tried the 8756 drivers, but they had some problems with 
Xine OSD, so I reverted. As you point out, without XvMC the CPU load is 
still fine.