XBMC stutter/tearing/frame drops

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bencorn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 17, 2009
Messages
230
I'm using windows XP professional 32bit with XBMC. The PC is an AMD x2 5200, 2 gigs of ram, and an 8800gt. The issue that I'm having is that when XBMC is running I get occasional tearing or frame drops (I'm not sure the term) in the video. What appears to happen is almost like the video gets stuck and then jumps ahead to catch up. Audio tends to stay in sync when this happens. It happens most often when the camera has a lot of motion, when there is a lot of action on the screen, or during long camera pans across non-moving objects. It may happen more often but these are the situations when I notice it. Does anyone know of any tweaks that I can do to get this running more efficiently? I have considered switching the box to a linux based XBMC Live boot but I would like to avoid that if at all possible. I read a couple places that this is a problem with the AMD chip but I'm not really sure. Any help would be greatly appreciated, let me know if you need any more information.
 
XBMC doesn't support hardware acceleration yet (and you're video card doesn't either so that's no help), that's why your system is choking.
 
Actually the 8800GT does support hardware acceleration. I know it isn't being utilized because I'm using XBMC with windows but I assumed my machine would be strong enough to not need it. The thing I don't understand is when watching these videos, the ram is running normal levels, and the cpu is well below 50 percent utilization so it shouldn't be skipping like this right? I thought it would only do that if you were pushing close to 100 percent and it couldn't keep up.
 
I tried XBMC because the sleek interface but switched back to Media Center because the video would show groups of little horizontal lines on fast moving objects while playing a 720p dvd rip.

My Htpc has
X2 4400 & 2 gigs ram 8600gt
 
Yea that's why I really want to stay with XBMC is because it organizes my stuff so well and the interface is really sleek and I can change it whenever I want. Plus being able to control it completely from my phone is pretty nice too. If I keep having problems I'll have to switch it out to something different until a new version comes out but I'd like to avoid it if possible. I may go into it and trim out everything I don't need with codecs and programs and see if that helps any.
 
Wait, are you using the version of XBMC that uses ffdshow for codec support? If not, you should look into it. That processor should play a 720p MKV with the ffdshow codecs. 1080p, maybe not. I haven't messed with it in a long time, but I know it exists.
 
bencorn said:
Yea that's why I really want to stay with XBMC is because it organizes my stuff so well and the interface is really sleek and I can change it whenever I want. Plus being able to control it completely from my phone is pretty nice too. If I keep having problems I'll have to switch it out to something different until a new version comes out but I'd like to avoid it if possible. I may go into it and trim out everything I don't need with codecs and programs and see if that helps any.
Click to expand...

Personally, I always had issues with XMBC. It's controls are way too "mouse and keyboard" oriented that everything felt rushed and moves way too fast... perfect if I was using a mouse but totally sucks and disorienting for me with a remote.

Anyways, check out these two. One works with Media Center, the other is a media center replacement.

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/
Some Cool MP skins:
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/files/Download/Skins/16:9/StreamedMP/
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/files/Download/Skins/16:9/Titaniumv0.5/
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/files/Download/Skins/16:9/KIS-SkyTheme/
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/files/Download/Skins/16:9/Butcher216:9/
http://www.team-mediaportal.com/files/Download/Skins/16:9/XfaceSkin/

http://www.mediabrowser.tv/
MediaBrowser Skins:
http://community.mediabrowser.tv/permalinks/1637/which-themes-exist
 
I'm using whatever the newest Windows version of the program is. I'll have to look into the ffdshow support. I know it played everything fine for the longest time but seems like the problems started after I reformatted my HTPC. Maybe I messed up one of the settings in a codec or have something outdated. I think I just need to uninstall all the media software and go back through and install the most updated versions of everything and pay attention to the settings I choose. This hardware should be plenty to play these files. I mean I'm not even going over 50 percent cpu or ram usage on any of the files, they just don't play smoothly anymore.
 
Remember XBMC was built at first to run on hacked Xboxes. HD video was not a priority back then and even tho it is now. The Windows XBMC is more to give older PCs a good looking interface to run various programs and web videos in my opinion. They have said they are improving it and even apparently have 2 trunks with differing types of Hardware accel video playback (beta stuff BTW). But linux and linux live CD support is so much more important because they have to compete with some serious names these days.

I would suggest trying live give it a whirl and see if its worth changing over perhaps.
 
Wow media portal has come a LONG way since I last used it. I may have to look into using that, at least until I can get XBMC figured out. Another option would be to dual boot XBMC Live linux on one partition and XP on another partition for games.
 
I would suggest the XBMC Live part idea. That way you have max of the limited resources of that CPU for games you play. Also it ought to be fun to learn and tinker the XBMC build settings. I dont know if the drivers it runs will give you 3D access but you may even be able to install and use a few Linux games running from the XBMC interface.
 
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