Recommended Specs For An HTPC

[NinjaEwok]

Hey Forum!

I was wondering what your idea's on are for a an HTPC specifications wise. At the moment I am running my HTPC off a Gigbit LAN connection to a 2 RAID-1 WD Red drives. But I'm getting frame drop when watching 1080p movies. So basically what would be the least I would need hardware wise for my HTPC.

Thanks in advance.

[Kilmer02]

Let me start by asking what hardware you have now!

[Tigerbomb8]

What software are you using on the HTPC

[ajo518]

What transfer speed do you get from your raid array.I would be more concerned with that before i would suspect the pc itself.

[mvk]

Anything with enough decent CPU power and gigabit connections on both ends, any modern iGPU works fine, and all other hardware don't really matter now a days

I have an i5-3450s reading 1080 files, from an old extranl usb2 drive on another OLD computer with gigabit connection, no frame drops.

Had an i3-330UM (laptop) too, work pertty well, however would drop frame with scenes with high digital gran/particle effect/flare (basically low compression videos/frames, with a different color every other pixel), and certain subtitle renders. (cpu maxed at 100% after buffer ran out)

Also have a APU, seems to work fine, but haven't tested to much of that

for context, and to prove that most hardware don't matter, these are the kinds of speed i get form that drive us2 external drive

local transfer: max ~45 mb/s

transfer over Ethernet : ~ 15mb/s

download/upload speed while play video over Ethernet: probably less then 2mb/s <--- even at that speed there's no frame drop, because that about all you need.

high fragmentation could also play a factor, my video archives had close to 0% fragmentation as well

might want to check your codec set up as well

[onionring]

If a raspberry pi can be an htpc, anything can be...

The problem might not be with the htpc...

[Huntsman]

agree with onionring. anything decent can be used as a htpc. even a tablet. maybe you have a driver problem? or an overheating issue?

[BenHTBDT]

If a raspberry pi can be an htpc' date=' anything can be... The problem might not be with the htpc...[/quote']

While it can be an HTPC, it's not going to run 1080p. Sorry.

agree with onionring. anything decent can be used as a htpc. even a tablet. maybe you have a driver problem? or an overheating issue?

Not all tablets can output 1080p video either.

Tell us your current specs. If its a really old pc with a really crappy video card, then there's the problem. If its at least an A4.i3 or better, then it could be your software or something to do with your storage. I've also seen certain media players not work well with certain video formats.

[Jrjy3]

I was actually putting together a parts list for a Media Center PC for myself. I was planning on having this be a media center PC as well as having it as a server for my house. Here is the link for that one: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DmdT

If you want it cheaper, you could use a less powerful processor with a less expensive motherboard. Here is an example build you could do with a less powerful CPU and motherboard: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DVad

EDIT: If you could tell us your current specs, then we might be able to help you better if you don't want to buy a whole new system.

For both of these, you could use the on board graphics instead of buying a graphics card. Also, you mentioned that you currently have a RAID setup. I don't think that you can use more than 1 drive internally with the case that I chose, but I'm sure you could find some sort of alternative way to mount it on the outside or something. You could also use a TV tuner and use software like XBMC for the interface. Here is the link to that: http://xbmc.org

[Electronics Wizardy]

check to make shure that all you network items are gigabit and then try a raid 0 to see if improves. if no difference then you stuck with that unless you go for 10 gigabit

[Huntsman]

If a raspberry pi can be an htpc' date=' anything can be... The problem might not be with the htpc...[/quote']

While it can be an HTPC, it's not going to run 1080p. Sorry.

agree with onionring. anything decent can be used as a htpc. even a tablet. maybe you have a driver problem? or an overheating issue?

Not all tablets can output 1080p video either.

Tell us your current specs. If its a really old pc with a really crappy video card, then there's the problem. If its at least an A4.i3 or better, then it could be your software or something to do with your storage. I've also seen certain media players not work well with certain video formats.

my raspberry pi running raspbmc plays 1080p just fine over samba share.

[Huntsman]

I have a htpc running off a pentium G680(underclocked to 2.1GHz) playing media over gigabit local samba share and it plays 1080p no problem. It's running off the internal graphics too fyi. Also, a raid 1 array has almost no performance impact so I wouldn't worry about that. Driver issues maybe?

p.s. I just built a htpc for my client powered by celeron g540, works fine too..