alternative to xbmc

M cebee

is there any alternative to xbmc for a lower specced machine

i have it on a core 2 duo pc and it's great but i have 2 other slower machines that i want something similar on

PogMoThoin

http://www.openelec.tv/

M cebee

sounds good but i want something to run on xp

PogMoThoin

M cebee wrote: »

sounds good but i want something to run on xp

Optimise Xp by uninstalling stuff you don't need, stop stuff starting at startup and get more ram (Xp needs 1GB these days with service pack 3).

chin_grin

ps3 media server (no really!). Works for streaming media to xbox.

M cebee

im looking for a media organizer for my windows xp computers

xbmc wont run on the slower machines

Voodu Child

What part of XBMC is too slow? The skins or the actual movie playback?

M cebee

Voodu Child wrote: »

What part of XBMC is too slow? The skins or the actual movie playback?

cant recall but it didnt work properly

some of the machines would have 32MB graphics and i play divx files on them no problem

2.5ghz amd barton
756MB ram
32MB graphics would be the spec on one machine

PogMoThoin

Like I said, You need more ram. To run anything on top of XP these days you need 1GB. The minimum requirements for Xp has gone up with each service pack.

Do you need XP? Why not try a light linux distro like Xubuntu

M cebee

ive got them on a wired network so i want to keep it simple for myself and stick with xp

what i might do is upgrade the ram and graphics

which is more important for xbmc -the ram or the graphics?

i've tried the geebox and linux on slow machines before and i do apppreciate their worth

PogMoThoin

M cebee wrote: »

ive got them on a wired network so i want to keep it simple for myself and stick with xp

what i might do is upgrade the ram and graphics

which is more important for xbmc -the ram or the graphics?

i've tried the geebox and linux on slow machines before and i do apppreciate their worth

Ram, with only 756MB it would be paging continuously.

Linux would be far more usable on a pc like than with no need to upgrade. Legacy ram is expensive. Leave your shares as windows shares, linux will see windows shares (samba) without needing to install anything.

unkel

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Ram, with only 756MB it would be paging continuously.

I don't think RAM is going to be the problem. On a fresh, fully patched XP SP3 install, only just over 200MB RAM is used, so 768MB (I presume 756 is a typo?) should be plenty if that's all the PC is used for.

I suspect the graphics card and probably also the CPU are the bottlenecks here...

M cebee wrote: »

is there any alternative to xbmc for a lower specced machine

i have it on a core 2 duo pc and it's great but i have 2 other slower machines that i want something similar on

Did you try it on the barton machine?

PogMoThoin

unkel wrote: »

I don't think RAM is going to be the problem. On a fresh, fully patched XP SP3 install, only just over 200MB RAM is used, so 768MB (I presume 756 is a typo?) should be plenty if that's all the PC is used for.

But chances are the Xp isn't a fresh install, most likely barely ticking over on that 756MB

M cebee

unkel wrote: »

I don't think RAM is going to be the problem. On a fresh, fully patched XP SP3 install, only just over 200MB RAM is used, so 768MB (I presume 756 is a typo?) should be plenty if that's all the PC is used for.

I suspect the graphics card and probably also the CPU are the bottlenecks here...



Did you try it on the barton machine?

yes
if i recall it didnt work properly

machine has an old dual matrox g550 32mb card