Mar
15
HTPC Pointers
Filed Under Media Servers (HTPC)
I’m stepping just a wee bit out of my comfort zone here today with some HTPC tips, but I feel as if I’ve learned enough in the process of building two of them that I might have some worthwhile pointers. First off no matter how powerful you thought/think a HTPC should be; if you haven’t factored in 1080p you’re probably way off in the amount of raw horsepower needed for “Full HD” video processing.
In my experience you’re going to want at a dual-core CPU in the 2.3 GHz region or faster and or a video card with full MPEG-2/4 hardware acceleration, (the ATI 2400, 2600 or NVIDIA 8600/8500 come to mind) to get smooth playback with a variety of sources at 1080p.
Ok so with CPU and GPU considerations addressed the other big area I see mistakes being made is with the operating system itself. Think of your HTPC’s operating system as a petri dish you want to run a controlled experiment with, any contaminants (unnecessary updates, malware, etc.) that enter that dish raise the chance of hang-ups and crashes exponentially. Simple things like turning off automatic updates and removing unnecessary startup programs via msconfig; can go a long-ways toward a stable, trouble-free HTPC.
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