AMD - Bulldozer or Bobcat?

So the reviews are in, and it’s not a pretty picture. AMD Bulldozer has hit the street and reviews across the board show the new flagship CPU from AMD barely keeping pace with Intel’s “consumer tier” i5-2500k in performance benchmarks, while having the high end Intel i7 line of processors stomp it is almost every benchmark.

Tom’s Hardware had a retrospective on the AMD Bulldozer release and poised the question, “Did we expect too much from AMD Bulldozer?”. The writer takes the position that AMD marketing set expectations too high for performance and competitiveness in the marketplace by stunts such as the Guinness World Record for a processor hitting 8.4Ghz overclock.

So is it all doom and gloom for AMD? Can nothing positive come from the release of the AMD Bulldozer architecture? In this blog, my goal is to outline a couple important points we should all take from AMD Bulldozer and perhaps a give silver lining to the clouds currently gathering above AMD.

(Anyone looking for an exhaustive review of the new AMD Bulldozer CPU’s to here (Tom’s Hardware) or here (AnandTech))

AMD is redefining what a ‘core’ is in a CPU — And that’s not a bad thing!

Traditional CPU Block Diagram

This is the highlight point from the Bulldozer Architecture, in that the idea of what constitutes a CPU core is now changing. Prior to AMD Bulldozer, a CPU consisted of monolithic cores which were considered a stand-alone, monolithic logic circuits that might have a high level of sharing among other cores on the same die (L3 cache, QPI/HyperTransport). This allowed for fairly easy implementation at the kernel/OS level on how to handle threading within the OS scheduler.

Intel got the ball rolling on putting the independent cores to work by optimizing the workload, with with their Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) implementation, which they call “HyperThreading“. This allows for multiple, independent instructions to be executed in the same core in a single clock cycle. What this means is that previous ‘unused’ gates within the a core are now being utilized, thus squeezing more work per clock out of your CPU.

For years, this is how it has been. Intel has enhanced it’s SMT ipmlementation over the years and worked with software vendors (Microsoft, specifically) to optimize their software to schedule work across cores properly. The example here is that if you have two physical cores Hyper-Threaded with an additional two virtual cores, with two threads of work, you don’t want to cram them into one physical core by assigning the threads to one physical core and that same core’s virtual instance. Windows 7 does a fantastic job demonstrating this implementation with the following screen show I grabbed the other night while doing some work.

Task Manager - Windows 7 SMT Optimizations keeping work across physical cores

So what the AMD design team has done with the Bulldozer architecture is to sit down and re-think what work the CPU does, what parts can be easily shared and where die space/heat savings can be had with little sacrifice to performance. What their engineers came up with was (at least in my mind) nothing short of brilliant, and there’s two ways to look at it:

1. They ‘shared’ FETCH & DECODE stages of the pipeline across two ‘cores’
2. They added a second Integer Scheduler/Pipeline to the core, allowing for true parallel execution within a single core/module

Bulldozer Module Block Diagram

As you can see in the AMD Bulldozer block diagram (right), what the AMD engineers did was add another Integer Scheduler/Pipeline to the core allowing for true parallel execution within a single ‘Bulldozer Module’ (their new definition for what was previously considered a core). This really excites me because it takes the idea of a CPU core and begins abstracting it out much like AMD’s GPGPU strategy with the Radeon HD line of cards.

Where as GPGPU’s have a collection of small Unified Shaders (which are small, simple Floating Point/Integer number crunchers), the Bulldozer CPU architecture is being setup to scale to multiple Bulldozer Modules on a single chip to handle general number crunching tasks.

Where AMD fails here is that obviously their floating point math when compared to monolithic processors is going to fail, but AMD engineers are counting on implementation of the Advanced Vector Extensions and the upcoming AVX2 to help them keep pace (not to be a naysayer, but 3dNow! anyone? )

This modular approach to CPU design is a real step forward, if not the biggest in recent history, for x86 chip design. Is it a eight ‘core’ processor, or a quad ‘core’ processor with SMT? I think that’s a call for marketing. What I can say is that breaking the monolithic design for x86 processors is a step in the right direction, and one that I’m very happy to see!

That being said, does anyone miss EPIC yet?

So all these AMD Bulldozer benchmarks seem to highlight a big issue when it comes to CPU design/architecture: Your pretty new architecture is only as good as the software designed to utilize it.

AMD is currently (and Intel was, previously) mired down in a marketing battle and the SMT technology in their chip IS sound and works beautifully, but that Windows 7 isn’t setup to properly handle how threads can be optimized across Bulldozer Modules. Seriously? It’s 2011 and we’re still fighting this battle? That’s like saying, “Yeah, I’ve got a sweet video card… but I can’t use it until the next version of Windows…” FAIL!

The Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing (EPIC) Architecture was first implemented with the Itanium processor line from Intel. The basic idea behind it was that the compiler would, at compile time, determine which instructions could be executed in parallel and how best to optimize execution on the processor. The benefit to this was that the CPU didn’t require any additional hardware for SMT and the OS could care less about how it was executing the instructions.

Although it all worked great in theory, delays from Intel, poor software support from Microsoft and complex compiler designs ultimately tanked Itanium along with EPIC.

I think you’d be hard pressed to find a person who will carry the x86 banner, as at this point it’s a necessary evil for the desktop market. But I have to think that chip manufacturers, especially AMD at this point, will eventually reach a tipping point where they have to stop relying on the Operating Systems/Kernels to optimize the usage of their hardware.

Perhaps CPU drivers? Perhaps a rebirth of EPIC? I’m not sure, but I think this issue is really brought to light in the latest AMD Bulldozer reviews.

And while we’re talking modular processor design

Not to wank over the topic more, but I really think AMD is on to something here with their modular processor design. The idea that with advances in processor power management and design, we’re no longer bound to have cores in “lock step” and they’re free to lead a little more independent life on the die.

nVidia "Kel-Al" Block Diagram

I think there’s a lot we could take from the mobile market space and what AMD has currently achieved with Bulldozer. Take a look at nVidia’s latest mobile CPU named “Kal-El”. What nVidia realized was that while users were performing single threaded tasks such as watching a video, playing music or a simple mobile game, there’s no reason to keep four cores spun up to do this.

AMD Bulldozer KINDA accomplishes this with core “parking”, but I think they came at this problem backwards. As a home user, I’m not terribly concerned about the power consumption of my home processor as much as I am the raw performance when I need it. Granted, parked cores allow for a slight overclock using the “Turbo Core” technology which can overclock the active cores up by 20% over stock clock.

One thing we can take from the discussion of multithreded software is that most software is either massively scalable across many cores, or it’s not. As an end user, I appreciate that chip designers are moving towards a more modular design, but I’m still let down by options.

If I’m at home playing a game, do I want six cores clocked at 3.2Ghz? Perhaps. Should Windows park two and clock the remaining four up to 3.6Ghz? Mayhap. But isn’t that just a best guess?

My dream design (and between “Kal-El” and Bulldozer, I hope we’re moving toward) is a TRUE modular design where I’m able to specify that:

“Hey, I’m about to play a game, clock two cores up to 4.5Ghz and shut the rest down.”

“I want to play a game I know sucks across multiple cores, so crank one core up to 5Ghz and shut the rest off.”

We have ‘Profiles’ for video drivers, why not for CPU’s? We’re getting close, we’re on the road there between the mobile space and new desktop designs, but we’re not there yet.

That being said…

Although the raw performance numbers are disappointing, software isn’t optimized for it and it looks like we won’t see it really shine until Windows 8 comes out, I still think there’s some points that people should be excited about from Bulldozer. The modular design really sets the stage for the future of the x86 architecture and scalable CPU’s going forward. My only wish was that CPU designiers were masters of their own destiny, versus being beholden to software vendors (specifically Microsoft) in order for their technology to shine.

Hmmm, come to think of it, that one paragraph sums up my feelings on the topic. Could have saved some space on the internets. Oh well

Cheers!

Devices I’ve used at length:

• HTPC running Windows Media Center
• Western Digital TV Live!

Both of those devices were OK, but I felt that both had their limitations. Either lacking in features or usability. Both required use of their own inputs on my home theater and thus, were not very well integrated into the whole experience. Issues such as occasionally having to plug in a keyboard to the HTPC to address an issue, or the Western Digital TV Live not having certain features, like a web browser or Netflix (which I believe the newer models have).

My only expectation for a HTPC/Meida player really are:

1. Ease of Use
2. Integration into Home Theater
3. Ability to stream many media formats (up to 1080p) and play back smoothly
4. Ability to stream online content (specifically, Netflix)
5. Web Browser

I recently was in San Diego visiting friends and one of them had the new Logitech Revue Google TV based device hooked up! I was intrigued because I’m a bit of a gadget guy and anything home theater related immediately catches my eye. After poking around with it for a half hour or so, I decided once the funds became available that I would purchase one myself and give it a whirl.

What really set the Google TV apart for me is that it’s not just another home theater component, but more an extension of your current DVR/STB by living “in-line” between your STB and your Television. In my eyes, this is what makes it a more valuable addition to any home theater.

So let’s dive into my expectations and how they were met:

1. Ease Of Use / 2. Integration into Home Theater

The Logitech Revue itself was fairly simple to setup. It has two HDMI ports on the back (in from your STB and out to your Receiver/TV), an optional optical out port if you use an external device for sound processing and an optional IR blaster port (and IR blaster) if the IR ports on the box are unable to reach your device. My setup has the Google TV living directly between my DirecTV DVR and my Denon AVR-2308CI Receiver, and the IR ports were able to control both devices without a problem.

Once it was all hooked up, the Logitech Revue automatically detected and set my resolution to 1080p when starting the setup. The setup itself is fairly easy and goes even faster if you have a “Google Account” before you start the process. All my devices and their IR codes were supported and was a snap to setup.

Once everything is booted up, I was fairly impressed. The UI itself looks like a next generation TiVo and is fairly simple to navigate. I think the easiest way to get around on Google TV is to use their “spotlight-like” search which lets you jump anywhere from Web Browsing, tuning in a channel on your DVR or going into an Application.

Features like PIP while web browsing and continuing playing the background make it super easy to use and a great user experience.

3. Ability to stream media from network resources

The main reason I use a HTPC/Media player is to play back 1080p MKV content from my Network Storage Device. The biggest question to me was, “Could the Logitech Revue, with it’s 1.2Ghz Intel Atom processing ability, be able to play 1080p MKV files over the network without any skipping or frame drops?”

The answer is, IT CAN! The Logitech Revue can play 1080p MKV files no problem! This is accomplished using the Logitech Media Player application that comes installed by default on the Logitech Revue. The only downside is that the Logitech Media Player does not support SMB shares (yet, hopefully), so you’ll need a DLNA server on your network to serve up the content. The Logitech Media Player was able to see my Twonky based DLNA server without issue and stream all the media containers and formats I had available (DivX/h264/AVC/MPEG/AVI/MKV/MPG).

The only technical shortfall I found was the lack of support for playing back DTS streams. AC3/Dolby were supported without issue, but it’s something to keep in mind.

4. Ability stream online content

This is a mixed bag and I’ll touch more on it in my final thoughts, but overall I was pleased with the offerings so far. The Netflix and Pandora apps built into Google TV worked great and I was able to use both without a single issue. Netflix is integrated directly into the Main Menu, so you can see your recommendations right off the bat.

The Web Browser (Chrome) is fully enabled with Flash and is able to play most online content from major providers, such as YouTube, Comedy Central, NBC and so on. There are some licensing issues, so sites like Hulu are blocked.

5. Web Browser

This is one of those areas where I’ve never REALLY used the functionality on previous boxes. I never invested in or wanted a full size keyboard laying around my living room to support my HTPC, and other devices such as the Western Digital TV Live! simply didn’t have a browser installed. So this was new ground for me and I was curious how it would work out using my TV for regular browsing.

Oddly enough, it seemed weird at first but then the other day my Macbook’s battery went dead and I decided to sit and browse through Google TV. I found the experience very fluid and natural. The ability to zoom in and still have a touch pad mouse made it all feel very familiar. I missed some things, such as tabs and small things like that, but overall I didn’t run into any issues using the browser for casual browsing.

The only drawback I had was that I found the experience in the browser to be much slower and less responsive than the rest of the system. Once your video was up and playing, you can enable full screen playback without a hiccup. So I’m not entirely sure on the reasons for that, but I imagine it can be addressed in coming releases.

Overall, I’ve been really pleased with the purchase of the Google TV powered Logitech Revue. I think your experience and reception of the device will depend upon your expectations. A replacement for your STB television provider it is not, at least, not yet. What is is (currently) is a power enhancement to your current Home Theater giving you greater ability and features without having to switch from Input to Input and utilize different devices to accomplish a quick task.

Watching a movie and want to look up who a certain actor is? Now that information is available on screen.

Just missed the end of your show and want to know when it’ll be on again? I bet you $20 that the Google TV software can find the next showtime faster using the “Spotlight-like” search than your STB can.

You want to read about the news while watching it? Now you can.

I think if the above reasons are high on your list of desires for a Home Theater component, I think you should give the Google TV powered Logitech Revue a try.

Cheers!

Soon after installing the GTX 295 I started experiencing strange issues. 3D Performance was in the pits, video playback had issues and even sound while playing a game was choppy and stuttered. I was at a loss for what could have been happening because I had the latest drivers from nVidia and did a fresh install of Windows 7 x64 Enterprise Edition.

Then I remembered last time I had the symptom of stuttering sound…

Many years ago when the only way you could get even basic RAID functionality was to utilize an add-in PCI card. This was before PCI-Express, so your card was limited to 32-bit/33Mhz standard PCI bus which was limited to 133MB/sec. Depending on your chipset or motherboard layout, you might be using onboard sound or an add-in PCI sound card.

During periods of heavy IO when using a PCI RAID card, the PCI bus would be saturated with data to the RAID card and there would be limited bandwidth for the sound card, causing chopping and stuttering sound. A workaround that sometimes worked was to put the sound card ahead of the RAID card in the PCI slots so it would have priority to/from the chipset.

Knowing this I started doing some research on what hardware my Dell Dimension 9200 was actually using. The chipset inside is the Intel P965 Express chipset, which after looking at the specifications appeared to me to be the obvious issue.

Intel P965 Express Chipset Diagram

The PCI Express slot provided by the Intel P964 Chipset is a fraction of what is available today by modern PCI Express 2.0 chipsets. It came down to the system not being able to quench the thirst of the nVidia GTX 295. Because of this, it was maxing out the available bandwidth on the northbridge and not allowing any other devices to be serviced.

Suspecting this, I upgraded my motherboard (which also required a new case, so needless to day the Dell Dimension 9200 is no longer) to a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P which sports the Intel P45 Express Chipset.

Intel P45 Express Chipset Diagram

All in all, this chipset provides more bandwidth across the board. When I upgraded I kept my Intel Q6600 processor and 4GB (4x 1GB DDR2-667) RAM and wouldn’t you know it, it solved all my problems! Games play super smooth and the sound is perfect.

So if you’ve recently upgraded to a newer video card and are experiencing strange performance issues, you might want to look into your motherboards ability to keep the video card’s higher processing ability quenched without sacrificing servicing additional components.

Cheers!

Perhaps my expectations for it were too high, expecting things like plot and decent graphics…. you know things games aren’t expected to deliver (apparently).

My qualms with Borderlands are simple…

1. There is no plot, or at least none to the point I played. You’re a character, on a planet, in a town… all of which you know nothing about or the history of it. Because of this, the endless list of “quests” turns into a laundry, or “todo” list. It almost feels like work after a while.

2. The graphics, although stylized, were designed almost to compensate for the game engine’s terribly slow loading time. It’s a feature of the Unreal engine to load low-res textures as a place holder while the full res textures are loaded and rendered. Because of this if you venture through the world too quickly, your screen is awash in murky, flat textures. Some people see it as part of the style; I see it as a lame compensation for a poor game engine.

3. The AI is stupid. Do yourself a favor and play as a sniper. If you’re far enough away, even standing in the wide open, you can pick people off without them even moving! As a low level character it took me 60 shots, but I was able to kill a higher level character because he just stood in place while I was lighting him up.

I can see how this game strokes people’s egos in the sense that you continuously build up your character and find newer weapons (which I’ll admit, there are plenty of). The game lacks substance though, which to me is paramount when committing a large slice of my time to playing a game.

So I’ll follow the trend many user reviews are following and create an equation to describe borderlands:

(((Fallout 3 – Plot) – Graphics) – Production Value) + Weapons = Borderlands

Borderlands SUCKS!

The available alternatives out there didn’t seem technically feasible as most D-Link and Linksys offerings are merely Windows Media Center Extenders with “support for MPEG-4/ASP” (read: DivX) but no support for MPEG-4/AVC or MPEG-4/VC1. The option of setting up another HTPC for my home theater wouldn’t be financially viable because at a base price of about $399 I might as well invest in a Blu-Ray burner to watch my backups.

Enter the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player…

Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player

While scouring the internets looking for solutions to my problem, I stumbled upon the recently released Western Digital Live HD Media Player. The specs fit the bill (and them some) for my technical expectations:

• VIDEO – AVI (Xvid, AVC, MPEG1/2/4), MPG/MPEG, VOB, MKV (h.264, x.264, AVC, MPEG1/2/4, VC-1), TS/TP/M2T (MPEG1/2/4, AVC, VC-1), MP4/MOV (MPEG4, h.264), M2TS, WMV9
• AUDIO – MP3, WAV/PCM/LPCM, WMA, AAC, FLAC, MKA, AIF/AIFF, OGG, Dolby Digital, DTS

Throw in the fact that it supports 1080p over HDMI and is only, it seemed like a no brainer!

The device itself is small. Hilariously small actually. Imagine a small box of 3.5″ floppy disks (if anyone actually remembers those)

Now, my home network setup is unique to my situation. I have two Apple Airport Extreme base stations extending the same network. My NAS is attached to one base station in my office. The Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player is attached to another Apple Airport Extreme base station on my home theater. I knew going into this situation that bandwidth would be an issue as playback of h.264/MKV video is bandwidth intensive and can sometimes require upwards of 50mbps depending on the quality.

My initial testing after hooking up the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player showed that I was in fact having issues with wireless bandwidth from my Intel SS4200-E NAS to my home theater. The MKV playback of a 1080p MPEG-4/AVC video began stuttering and losing audio/video sync. I started to get disheartened because I thought my Apple Airport Extremes must have been connecting to each other at the highest possible speeds, right? Wrong.

Turns out I had room for improvement in my Wifi setup. I stumbled upon this blog post over on Engadget which talked about the speed differences between Apple’s 2.5Ghz “compatible” N and their 5Ghz modes. I checked my Apple Airport Extremes to see what my network was set at. You can do this by opening up the Airport Utility and selecting your primary base station. Under the wireless tab, you should be able to select your wireless mode.

Setting Apple Airport Extreme Radio Mode

After fiddling around with all the settings, I found that explicitly setting 802.11n with a 5Ghz radio frequency gave me much higher wifi throughput as I had previously running 802.11n in “b/g compatible” mode. The downside of this is not only 802.11n devices that support the 5ghz frequency are able to join my home network, meaning our iPhones are stuck to non-wifi mode while around the house.

Apple Airport Wirelss Setup for Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player

That aside, the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player was able to play back all of my 1080p HD content without slowdown or playback issues. It would seem from other reviews on forums and across the internet might be having networking issues if they’re having trouble during playback. Granted, I can’t speak for every method of encoding h.264 (between different profiles & containers, it’d be hard to do a comprehensive test), but I can say that my files which I encoded with x264 and saved in an MKV container playback perfectly!

I couldn’t be happier with the Western Digital TV Live HD Media Player and I haven’t had a single issue yet. It’s able to connect to my Intel SS4200-E NAS (both UPNP Media Server and SMB) and browsing files is a sinch. Part of me wishes the interface allowed for more interactive content, such as Media Browser does for Windows Media Center by automatically loading movie information and covers based on the file name. I suppose these features might come at a future time, as Western Digital has just released the first firmware update for the TV Live HD Media Player and they seem to be on track for the next release shortly.

The only drawback I’ve run into thus far is the inability to play WMV files, which I suspect might be a licensing issue… but who knows. It might be coming in a future firmware update as well!

Hope this helps someone out there in the same situation I was in! Please leave any questions you might have and I’ll be more than happy to answer!

Cheers!

The DNS-323 has been a great NAS! I had my doubts at first with a D-Link product, since in the past their networking products that I’ve used haven’t been quality. So my issue was, how do I upgrade from a RAID1 on a two-drive NAS to a new fault tolerant system that has at LEAST 1.5TB of storage. I mean, if you’re going to upgrade you need to make it count, so doubling the capacity of my current NAS was the primary goal.

I did some research and with NewEgg running a sale on the hardware, I settled on the Intel SS4200-E NAS. On the spec sheet, this NAS met my requirements because it supported up to four drives, RAID5 and RAID10! Technical reviews I found of the device put it at the top of the chart when it comes to RAID5 performance.

The inhabitants of the Intel SS4200-E NAS was going to be four Hitachi 1TB drives.

Intel SS4200 NAS

Well, let me backtrack a bit and go over the problem that brought me to even write this post.

Because I already had two 750GB SATA drives in my D-Link DNS-323 NAS, my plan was to setup a 1TB RAID1 in the Intel SS4200-E using only TWO Hitachi 1TB drives. Once the data was copied over, I would re-purpose the 750GB SATA drives in my old NAS as an additional 750GB RAID1 in the Intel NAS. Sounds simple, right? Wrong.

The first major flaw I found with this unit is that it only allows ONE CONTAINER PER DEVICE. Meaning if you have 2x Drives, you’re running a RAID1 or RAID0. If you have 4x Drives, you’re running a RAID5 or RAID10. That’s it! There is no way with the Intel SS4200-E NAS to setup two containers! I could have two independant RAID1 containers, even though I was using four drives!

What the crap?! So much for a business class NAS from Intel!

So I ended up having to buy two more Hitachi 1TB drives (which isn’t too bad, being they’re only $79 on Amazon with FREE SHIPPING! ) and finally settled on a 2.7TB RAID5.

Hardware setup was super easy as the Intel SS4200-E is an ‘almost’ tool free setup. I say almost because some of the thumb screws SHOULD be tightened with a screw driver

Intel SS4200 NAS

The software, EMC LifeLine, is pretty well polished compared to the D-Link and other NAS offerings. It makes great use of AJAX to display real time system status information on the screens and gives you even small features that other NAS devices might overlook. Small things like LED brightness, which trust me, when your office is near the bedroom, this one is a huge feature!

Intel markets this NAS as an entry-level and SOHO NAS. So it’s very entry level, to a fault. Other features are lacking such as FTP support. Your only option with FTP is to turn it On or Off. That’s it! You can’t configure even basic options such as port, permissions of quotas. So be warned if you’re looking into using this NAS as anymore more than at home storage.

The Media Server that comes with it is alright. My XBox 360 saw it without issue and was able to stream all types of media off of it without issue (such as MP3 and DivX). My only gripe with the Media Server is that you have to manually re-scan for updates. I’m not sure if there’s an automatic timer, because there’s no option for that in the configuration.

All in all, I’m pleased with the Intel. It met my basic needs for a home NAS but I can see how it would be limiting for someone looking for more advanced features or someone who requires more ability to configure the small options.

The case I’ve been using is a Morex 3677B case, which is fairly small but still allows enough room for a 2.5″ Hard Drive and a Slim Laptop CD/DVD drive.

A couple gotchas I ran into while upgrading from the VIA board to the new Intel Atom based board:

1. The Zotac IONITX board has only SATA connectors, no PATA connectors to be found! This was a road block as both my previous hard drive and slim CD/DVD drive were both PATA so I was forced to upgrade them as well. Luckily I was able to score a 320GB Seagate drive for only $79!
2. Zotac provides a small 50mm fan to use on the heatsink because the Dual Core N330 CPU as well as the nVidia northbridge require active cooling. Luckily the Morex case has a 50mm exhaust fan that sits close to the heatsink. I was able to flip it around and use it to blow onto the CPU.
3. Speaking of the heatsink, it’s about 1.5″ high and ALMOST comes too close to not fitting into the case. So it’s something to keep in mind when you’re working on your setup!

I’ve got everything hooked up and it was very easy to get the driver package installed. Because the Zotac IONITX came out so recently, the CD it came with had the latest drivers and the motherboard had the latest BIOS installed.

The ONE issue I’m having and still searching for a solution for is that using HDMI as the audio output, I’m getting audio distortion. I’ve tried different source materials and even tweaking the audio settings, but it’s still happening. Other than that, I’ve been super pleased with it’s performance! I mean, seriously, a computer the size of a shoe box showing four CPU’s (2 physical + hyper threading) and an nVidia graphics adapter!

Hope this helps someone out there in the market for upgrading their own HTPC as well!

Cheers!

Reunion Title Screen

Does anyone else remember playing Reunion back on their 386′s with a staggering 2MB of RAM? Lord knows I remember!

Reunion came out over fifteen years ago and I still feel the urge to play it now and then even today. It’s a great game and can be downloaded from many abandonawre sites across the internet.

I started playing again recently using DOSBox and I was amazed, because I didn’t even know the game had sound! When I played “back in the day”, my system didn’t have a Sound Card (because I couldn’t afford a Creative AWE32), so needless to say it was a whole different experience. The game has a fantastic production value and even when modern development languages, I’m not sure that even I’d be able to create a game of such depth a complexity!

Anywho, I began to get frustrated because I knew there were parts of the game I was missing because I couldn’t meet certain goals or didn’t have enough resources. Granted, I should have spent the time perfecting the game and working towards those achievements….. but it’s an old game and I don’t have as much free time as I did when I was thirteen years old

To that end, I sat down and studied the Save Game format for a while and also the (paltry) Save Editor that was included in the Abandonware version. I knew I could come up with something better that gives me even more options in the game. It took me a couple hours but I was able to come up with a pretty functional Saved Game Editor for Reunion that works around a couple glitches the previous version had.

I know, I’m a total cheater but it was a fun little project and I figure perhaps ONE person on the entirety of the Internet must need something like this as well, so I figure I’d throw it out there for anyone who needs it

Reunion Saved Game Editor – Download (92kb)

So I built an HTPC. I built a GREAT HTPC. It was small, fanless and had everything I’d ever need. But I was disappointed though, only because the quality of the video combined with what I was ACTUALLY able to do with it let me down. I suppose it was my own fault because I had let my desire for the system to be completely silent and fanless impact its performance.

Fast forward a couple years later and I have this shoe box sized PC sitting below my computer desk at home. What should I do with it?

In moving forward with reviving my HTPC from its unused ranking among my home hardware, I decided to set forth a couple of goals for the upgrade so I could be pointed in what I was shopping for (and so I could have a valid excuse to tell my wife why I was spending more money on something I never used in the first place )

1. More CPU Horsepower – This is obviously the most important aspect of this upgrade. Currently my HTPC uses a VIA EPIA-M 600mhz fanless Mini-ITX motherboard with built in CPU/Video. Originally this seemed like enough to play NES ROMS but it became obvious that OS overhead and lack of video acceleration were deal breakers when it came time to play DivX/XviD movies. So this next version had to have considerably more CPU power.
2. HDMI/HD Video Support – In the last few years I’ve upgraded my Home Theater to use HDMI exclusively. It was mostly to clean up the serpent lair that was the are behind my AV rack (which I’m sure the EMF was giving me cancer). Here’s a picture (seriously, no joke!) So, in honor of my new found love affair with HDMI, this new HTPC must support HDMI in a Mini-ITX form factor up to a resolution of at LEAST 720p.
3. 5.1/7.1/Surround Sound Support – Sorta the same as above, but the HTPC needs to support surround sound. As I’ve mentioned in my previous article, when I backup my DVD’s to XviD, I preserve the Dolby AC3 soundtrack so I would like to still enjoy the surround sound when replaying these files on my HTPC.
4. Wireless Ethernet – You see a theme here? Basically I want the power cable and the HDMI cable being the only wires coming out of the back of this device. Wireless Ethernet is pretty standard on most motherboards now, so this shouldn’t be a tall order.
5. Price – I understand that to make this upgrade even worth it, things have to be cost effective. I want to upgrade the Mini-ITX motherboard in my HTPC for under $200 out the door.

I began my search at my favorite peddler of Mini-ITX and mini-system wares, LogicSuppy.com. I immediately take note of the new Intel Atom based solutions from both Intel and Jetway, but I also note that Intel has decided to “nerf” their Atom offerings as to not undercut their desktop motherboard market. Their Atom Mini-ITX boards, albeit cheap (sub $100), lack sever of my requirements. The Jetway Atom boards at LEAST offer DVI (so I could do a ghetto fabulous DVI -> HDMI conversion), but that would require more cables than it’s worth and the Jetway boards cost upwards of $250! Yikes!

The time came to conjure up my Google-Fu skills to see what I could come up with. Newegg has some descent offering from VIA but all the EPIA boards are under powered in comparison to the latest Intel offerings. A 1.8Ghz VIA C7 board would seem to have the horsepower, but it fell short of the requirements and also crept up to almost $300!

I keep going back to the Atom platforms but none of them seem to fill my requirements. That is, until I come across the NVIDIA ION platform offering from Zotac! I remember reading about NVIDIA ION but never gave any serious thought to it as a desktop platform. I decided to check out the features of the Zotac IONITX-A Atom N330 Offering:

1. Horse Power: Dual Core Atom N330 1.6Ghz CPU — CHECK!
2. HD/HDMI: 1080p over HDMI — CHECK!
3. Surround Support: 7.1 over HDMI — CHECK!
4. Wireless Ethernet: Build In — CHECK!
5. Price: Amazon lists it at $189 when it’s released  – CHECK!

It seems we have a winner!

Talk about a colossal upgrade for a HTPC. A Mini-ITX motherboard that has a dual core CPU and HDMI output!? Insane! Needless to say as soon as this little bad boy hits the streets I’ll be picking one up.

I’m curious if anyone else out there has been in the market for a mini HTPC upgrade as well? What have you been looking for and what were your requirements? I’m interested to hear from you!

Cheers!

I checked around the net for models that were supported by my car (which was hard because it was a 1st generation, 1st year TSX). I know there’s an MP3/DVD Player option as well as an XM head unit available for the 2004 TSX, but no iPod adapters from Honda. I finally decided on the DICE Electronics R4 Kit for Honda/Acura because it had received positive reviews and seemed a pretty simple install

I purchased the DICE iPod Kit from a reputable seller on eBay for $139 + tax and had it within a few days. The unit itself is pretty small (only a couple square inches) and has inputs for the iPod cable as well as AUX input. It’s a good thing the unit is so small because it has to fit up in the dash

Installing the unit in my car took about all of 2 minutes. Literally.

(Sorry about no pictures, I’ll add them as soon as I’m able to!)

Step one was to remove the storage bin that is located below the factory radio. This is where the factor XM or MP3 player would go. Simply open the bin and pull it out towards you. There are two clips on the bottom right and left as well as clips on the top.

Pull out the storage bin carefully as the light above is still attached to it. Carefully remove the light taking care to not break the housing. Once the bin is out your radio compartment will be exposed. Just a warning: be careful in there! Unless you’ve unhooked your battery, there’s still live current as well as some wires for the airbags Don’t kill yourself over an iPod hookup

Step two is wiring it in. You’ll see one wire running straight up into the stereo. Unplug this. This is the wire that will plug into the daisy chain provided by the DICE iPod kit. Plug the other end of the DICE iPod kit into the factory radio.

Step three is running our cables however you choose (into the glove box, storage bin, middle console) and putting the storage bin back in! Presto! Done!

I used a Dremel and cut out a small section of the bin to run the cables through. To keep it clean looking, I used a bit of rubber (read: old mouse pad) to cover the Dremel spot and cut a slit down the middle allowing the cables to run through it. This helps seal up the bin without having a gaping hole into my dash. Also, for the sake of future use I added a small amount of hot glue to the connectors that are plugged into the DICE iPod Kit so (god forbid) someone pulls on the cable too hard it wont unplug from the DICE iPod Kit while still in my dash. I didn’t add a LOT of glue, just a small drop to hold them in place nicely.

Finished storage bin with iPod & Aux Cables

A few “gotcha’s” about this unit and the 2004 Acura TSX. The ‘XM’ mode of the DICE iPod Kit only works with Honda/Acura models with an actual ‘XM’ button. This wasn’t introduced until the 2005 model year. The 2004 Acura TSX only has a “CD/AUX” button. Because of this, the DICE iPod Kit cannot work and will not be detected in XM mode. You have to set the unit to “CDC” (CD Changer) mode.

Other than that, the unit works great! It’s able to charge my iPhone 3G while I’m listening to music as well as allowing me to stream my iPod and any audio from my iPod straight into my factory radio!

Setting the DICE iPod Kit to ‘iPod’ mode allows you to control the iPod manually on the screen and not with the wheel controls. I find this much easier than trying to navigate the songs using a ‘track up’ & ‘track down’ method on my steering wheel. Also, in ‘iPod’ mode, the DICE iPod Kit acts as a standard audio source. Meaning it’ll play Pandora and send ring tones to your factory radio without having to use the AUX input, like iPod adapters from other manufacturers!

I hope this helps someone else out there in the same situation I was in Please feel free to ask any questions and I’ll be sure to post pictures of my setup as soon as I get them!

Cheers!