[mythtv-users] anyone successfully using an AMD APU as a frontend?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 03/17/2014 04:22 PM, Matt W wrote:
> Hi all--until recently I was happily using an Nvidia 8400GS with VDPAU 
> but then the mobo died.  Figured it was time for an upgrade after 5 
> years or so.  I thought AMD APU (AMD A6-6420K APU with an HD8470 
> onboard)  would be the new hotness and a great way to go:  nice 
> graphics for HD playback, low power usage, good cpu speed!
>
> Well of course things didn't work out as smoothly as I'd hoped. 
>  Between jumping around with Debian 7.4, and backports, and the 
> drm/nouveau drivers, and AMD Catalyst drivers, getting playback 
> without issues does not seem to be in my immediate future.  In some 
> cases, I can't even enter the Settings menu in mythfrontend (it 
> hangs), let alone playback hw-accelerated video.  not sure what that's 
> about
>
> If this guide is on the right track...: 
>  http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174854   then my guess is 
> what I really need is Mesa version 10 (Debian Wheezy has version 8) 
> (?).  Or I could just pop the old Nvidia card on the new mobo for a 
> year or so until AMD compatibility continues to grow.
>
> Any suggestions?  thanks!

Given that the motherboard has an appropriate expansion bus for the 
video card, you should be able to use it without problems.  (And, 
TTBOMK, if you do so and have your BIOS set to disable the internal 
graphics when a discrete card is in use, it will shut down the onboard 
graphics, gating power to it such that it takes basically no power at all.)

Now, whether "a year or so" is long enough to wait for "AMD 
compatibility" (read "someone to write drivers for the AMD graphics 
cards that are as good as nvidia's when used for video playback") is a 
whole other topic.  I've been waiting "a year or so" since around 
2002...  In the meantime, I use nvidia cards in my MythTV frontend 
systems and all my other systems--that don't do video playback--use AMD.

Mike