MVP problems- Any reason I SHOULDN'T downgrade to XP

[btrcp2000]

I have everything running perfectly on Vista, except for the MVPs, which become non-responsive to the remote after a while. I have tried the various tweaks I have found here (like from laurenglenn, etc.), but it just seems that my setup has the tcp issue that apparently can't be fixed by sage.

Are there any gotchas or anything else I should consider before I tear it all down and start over with a fresh XP install? Anything on the horizon to fix the tcp packet resend thing?

[bialio]

Some video cards do better with Vista Drivers - in my experience Nvidia 8*** series cards work a lot better in Vista than they do in XP. That's the only real gotcha I know of.

I went through the same thing, ended up building a headless server running XP to do all the Sage Server duties, then have an MVP and a Vista Client.

btl.

[CollinR]

I'm not exactly sure why you consider Vista>XP a "downgrade" is it because you are dropping a version name?


To answer the query, bialio is spot on. Build an XP Pro headless server (no monitor) and set it up for dedicated SageTV use, your troubles will disappear.

Vista just isn't ready for prime time yet, only home users are getting stuck with it. In 2 years it may have an advantage but hopefully by then I'll have a Linux image and won't care.

[btrcp2000]

I'm doing that as I type. I got vista free from some promo microsoft did a while back, so it was fun to play with. It actually was really stable for me, just wouldn't work with the MVPs. I had sage running perfectly with hd and everything, now i get to start over. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Oh well, should go quicker this time as I know how I want sage to run.

One more quick question since you brought it up. I am planning on running my server as a client as well. as long as I have the horsepower (i am overclocking a 4300 to 3ghz, but willing to upgrade to a 6850 or maybe a quad if necessary), what is the downside of using my serever as a client as well? It will be dedicated to sage, no web surfing or games, etc.

[bialio]

There's not really a downside to attaching the server to a TV that's "in production" - you just need to be sure to have enough horse power to do everything concurrently that you think you might want to. The Sage UI is pretty lightweight - it consumes barely any CPU. What you have to consider is the HD stuff. It takes 10-20% of your CPU. If you are transcoding to an MVP at the same time, that's another 30%.

I loaded up my headless server once to see how much it could take. Had 3 analog tuners recording, 3 HD tuners recording, and was viewing an HD recorded show on my MVP. It took the processor up to about 45%. And thats on the 6850 So if I had been watching an HD show on that machine as well it would have probably pushed up to 60%.

btl.