What is the absolute minimum spec processor?

[the-warriners]

I already have a Hauppage Nova-T USB running on my main PC but i am trying to put a PVR together ona real budget.

What i want to know is what is the bare minimum spec processor and ram to run GBPVR?

On Ebay i can pick up a P3 700 with 256mb ram for about £40 which is quite tempting.

Any advice?

[erik]

That will work, UI will not be very fast but acceptable.
Software MPEG decoding will work but there will not be any postprocessing and sometimes it may skip a frame.
Be sure you use an efficient MPEG decoder package. If the video card has MPEG HW accelerator that would even be better.
Best is to us a PC without an onboard video card because these share the main ram with the processor which will halve the effective bandwith for the CPU.

One thing I am not sure about is the CPU loading while recording due to the USB traffic. Better test that on your current computer and if that more then (translated) 10% on you 700MHz you may run in trouble.
I use the PVR150MCE (59 Euro) and that generates 2% CPU load during recording on my 400MHz Pentium equivalent.

[sethg]

What do you use for a video card and what is the CPU load during playback? I am interested as I am putting together a 800MHz PIII system and wondering what I can expect.

[erik]

On a DELL Latitude CPxH500 (650 MHz Intel Pentium 3 processor with 256 MByte of memory) and ATI Rage mobility graphics adaptor, connected with a 802.11g (54MBit) to my central file server I can use VLC to playback full MPEG2 D1 resolution with a CPU load of about 60 to 80% and no frame skipping
On the same Laptop using Windows Media Player in windowed mode with ffdshow SSE without any postprocessing I have frame skipping and continues CPU load of above 80%
When switched to full screen mode the load drops to below 80% and no more frame skipping.
All tests are without HW acceleration for MPEG decoding.
I assume DirectX HW support is used for the scaling to fullscreen.

[ddrawley]

Sub has stated in previous threads that he recommends at least a 1GHz machine. I am running a PIII 1GHZ as a dedicated backend, feeding an MVP. The recordings and playback are fine. I have streamed two different videos at one time with no problem. It is a bit sluggish with menus on the MVP as Sub has indicated would happen. GBPVR has a lot of work to do when feeding the menus of an MVP.

[the-warriners]

I have decided to pick up one of these
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...%3AIT&rd=1

as i has the 1ghz processor that is recommended. I need to find a video card as the on board wont have tv out and obviously i need that. I am not using an MVP - just going direct from PC to TV

Does anyone have any recomendations? I am trying to spend as little as possible remember. I can pick up a 64mb pci card with tv out for about £30 but i dont know if it will do the job- like this for example.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Qui...9,40831,11

[ddrawley]

The Nvidia 6200 seems to be a very good value. It will handle HDTV later if you get a tuner card for that as well.

[MarkD]

I have one of these, except at 800Mhz

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Dell-OptiPlex-GX15...dZViewItem

with an ATI Radeon 7000 low profile AGP card. It's taken lots of tweaking and tuning to get it to an acceptable level of performance, but it can be done. Most important on mine was the 512Mb memory.

If you plan to transcode to xvid or wmv, consider that it will take longer with the slower processor. I need 3 hours to transcode a one hour show.

[ddrawley]

I agree with Tipstir on the Sempron 2800. I only use a PIII 1.0GHz because they were getting rid of them at work. Free is the right price. I would never buy anything less than a socket 754 or socket T system. It is not cost effective in the long run.

[sethg]

For the cost you're going to spend on a older PIII you might want to pickup a AMD 64-bit Sempron 2600+ or 2800+.

I'd love to, but I can buy a whole PIII system at the local university surplus for USD$50. Add a second HDD for $75, a DVD-ROM for $35 and I'm good to go for $160. A Sempron MB + processor + 512MB memory + video card + HDD + DVD-ROM drive + case + power supply is around $500 If you know of a way to put together a Sempron system for less, please let me know