[mythtv-users] new rig ... help with specs

Mark Garland mythtvusers at markgarland.co.uk
Mon Sep 21 20:35:36 UTC 2009


Hi Mary,

I'm reasonably new to the Myth game, but from my limited experience I'd like
to agree with a lot of what had been said before.

I went for a motherboard with the 780g (ATI) chip on it, and was really
disappointed.  The Linux support just isn't there - the open source drivers
are limited and even the proprietary ones would cause Myth to lock up.  In
the end I bought a really cheap Nvidia card (no VDPAU) and it's a different
machine.  So, either buy a motherboard with the NVidia onboard, or buy a
separate card.  As said before, it's a shame that you have to use a closed
source driver, but it's a small compromise.

I bought a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-US2H with a AMD Athlon 64 X2 5050e.
Well worth looking at the energy efficient group of processors - the entire
machine (not just cpu) idles at 1Ghz and about 60watts, and ramps up to
2.6Ghz and 90watts when needed.  The lower power is good for your bills and
good for keeping the machine cool/quiet.  I've also tweaked the ondemand cpu
scaling with Ubuntu, so it scales better and if stuck I'll be happy to share
the details with you.
Without using anything funky like VDPAU, I can play HD at 1080p through
mplayer very comfortably (no where near maxing out the system), and Myth
running with the Yadif(x2) deinterlacer (heavy) uses around 40% of the CPU
scaled back to a leisurely 1.8Ghz.

Finally, I'm sure I read somewhere that a 5 degree difference in temperature
can make a giant impact on hard drive life.  As said before, I prepare for
failure, as I imagine that these drives get quite a workout in a myth
system.  I'd personally avoid spinning down the drives cause I also read
that spinning up is very stressful for the drive, though the internet seems
divided as to whether this helps or not.  Having gone for Seagate in the
past, I went for a WD green drive, although I disabled the headparking
feature through uncertainty as to its affect on drive live (especially under
Linux).

Hope that helps,

MG



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