[mythtv-users] Best front-end machine?

[Ian Clark]

On 5 September 2011 11:36, Rob Verduijn <rob.verduijn at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mmmmm,
>
> I'm still wary about ATI in combination with linux.
>
> Forgive me for not taking your word for it, but I do need more than just
> your opinion to be convinced to dump nvidia cards that do everything I want
> them to do.
>
I was also curious about this, so last night I setup a netbootable
myth install so I could play with the ATI drivers on my desktop
machine, a quad core core2, with an ATI4890 gpu.

I built the latest myth from source, installed catalyst 11.8 and
compiled in the VA-API support

Unfortunatly it's still not up there with the nVidia quality level.

Don't get me wrong, it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be,
but I still experienced tearing, and BBC HD played very green and
distorted, which isn't quite what I was after. Standard def stuff was
pretty watchable though. If I could eliminate the tearing i'd be happy
with it.

I may have better luck with the opensource drivers and opengl
acceleration, but I've not tried yet.

So, it's definitely better, but I'd still not consider building a
frontend on ATI kit. Also, you'd have to build 0.25pre to get any
benefits of VA-API.

> Could you post a link to some proper 3d tests and/or video accelerated video
> running ati under linux with foss drivers.
>
> Cause I'm still avoiding ati based on previous experiences (admitted more
> than a year) because I already wasted money on an ati card only to see it
> malfunction under linux (tried it with mythtv).

Yeah, it's still not there yet.

> Even if you are right and the drivers are working fine for more than vesa I
> still won't buy one unless I have seen one work in the situations that I
> wish to deploy it in.
>

The only way I'd have one at the moment is integrated if I bought an
AMD based system, the 780G is a good (if a little old) chipset, and I
wouldn't turn down the integrated graphics if it was the only choice
of motherboard. One day the drivers may be good enough. :)

I suspect we'll see a gentle improvement over time, especially with
the APU stuff coming up from AMD and intel, it'll be very hard to buy
a CPU without integrated graphics very shortly, hopefully that'll spur
on developments enough.

Cheers,

Ian