Posts by KOPRajs

  • RAID support

    Well, for me it would be sufficient to have the ability to access data on the RAID array. I don't need to boot from the RAID, nor to have the /storage on the RAID. I would just love to have my music, movies, photos and games collections on a RAID storage in my HTPC. One fast device for the boot and the storage partitions and two big disks in a RAID1 array for media files.

  • Running RetroArch on the LibreELEC with GBM without exiting Kodi

    As the title says, is it technically possible to run RetroArch in the current LibreELEC on x86_64 (using GBM) without the need to exit Kodi first? I'm aware that it is technically possible if there was a window manager (using both X11 or Wayland), but I'm not sure how the GBM works. Maybe it is possible to run two GBM applications each on a separate virtual terminal in Linux? Or maybe some way to suspend the Kodi without exiting it?

    If it is not possible, what would I lose by using the legacy X11 LE image? HDR? Anything else? Hardware is based on 12th Intel Core i5 with Iris XE.

    Background:

    I'm building my new HTPC based on Intel Core i5-12500H. I was hoping to see the OpenGL libretro context support in Retroplayer for Nexus, but it doesn't seem to be the case, so I need to look at the possibilities how to run a separate RetroArch for now. I'm used to run LibreELEC box 24/7 and I actually hate when Kodi gets restarted from time to time (usually having uptime in months), so I really don't want to restart Kodi everytime I run a game.

  • Looking for a perfect HTPC + NAS hardware

    Quote from styoda

    Hi KOPRajs,

    Did you complete this project?

    Thanks

    It might sound a bit wierd as I already have all the components here, but no, not yet. I'm currently enjoying the summer and I'm looking forward to get back to this once the summer is over.

    I'm planning to use this hardware for Kodi 21 and hopefully for the more demanding emulators when Kodi gets the libretro OpenGL support. Until then I'm fine with my current Amlogic S922X based system which can easily handle emulators up to PCSX (PS1).

  • Looking for a perfect HTPC + NAS hardware

    Just to let you know the current state of the project.

    I've got all the components here:

    Streacom ST-FC8 Alpha (black) - the passive case with optical drive slot

    ERYING Mini-ITX Motherboard i5-12500H - the Mini-ITX board with mobile Intel CPU and Iris XE GPU (i5-12500H)

    Kingston FURY DDR4 3200 MHz 16 GB RAM - dual channel 2x 8 GB memory

    Kingston FURY M.2 500 GB SSD - primary disk for LE

    Panasonic UJ-265 - slot-in SATA Blu-ray writer from "old stock" (Ebay)

    M.2 SATA controller card - 4 port SATA controller expansion card (AliExpress)

    Pico PSU 150 W - 12 VDC ATX power supply (AliExpress)

    and a bunch of small accessories, cables etc. (mostly from AliExpress)

    I've already tried if the basics fit together (I will have to use the bottom M.2 slot for the SSD to avoid the proximity to the heat pipes) and I'm looking forward for the final build process. I have yet to decide what SATA disks I'm going to use for the RAID NAS storage (depending on the remaining space in the case and the cooling performance).

  • Looking for a perfect HTPC + NAS hardware

    Quote from tokul

    PCI-E SATA adapter

    I've ordered M.2 SATA controller. It is smaller and there are 3 M.2 slots on the motherboard compared to only 1 PCIe slot, so better to use the M.2 and keep the PCIe free IMHO.

    I've chosen this one with JMicron JMB582:

    S59866d06af05429f87d11b474cc5de61U.jpg

    I'll try to shorten it from 2280 to 2242 size as the motherboard should fit the shortened version.

    EDIT: I've updated the second post with the final choice of HW.

  • Looking for a perfect HTPC + NAS hardware

    Quote from smp

    That page is wrong.

    Yes, I've seen it showing AV1 decode "No" for several more CPUs which in fact can decode AV1 in hardware.

    I do have some experience with Beelink's mini PCs, however while they generally work nice, they are too small to accommodate 2x HDD and the optical drive, which I want.

    Since it seems that there is currently no Mini-ITX board with the mobile Ryzen 6xxx, I've decided to stay with Intel for this build.

    I've ordered the ERYING Mini-ITX board with the soldered Intel Core i5-12500H + M.2 to SATA adapter (I will need more than 2 SATA ports) + Pico PSU (everything from Aliexpress).

    Once it arrives, I'll double check compatibility with the fanless Streacom ST-FC8 case. If everything is ok, I'll try to build this compact and fanless beast HTPC with 1x M.2 NVMe, 2x 3.5" HDD and the slot-in DVD drive.

    I'll try to update with the results.

  • Looking for a perfect HTPC + NAS hardware

    I will use this post to summarize the interesting hardware found so far.

    A new information for me is that the desktop CPUs (both Intel and AMD) seem to have inferior integrated graphics compared to the same CPUs for laptops. As I would like to use the 3D emulators and the shaders in the future, I'm going to need a system with a laptop CPU / APU.

    This is interesting motherboard (if only it would have the Iris XE graphics):

    MSI PRO-HM570TI-B-I526

    Are there any similar boards with newer mobile CPUs (1135G7 or 1240P)?

    Quote from smp

    https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805041043563.html (i5-1135G7)

    https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805040993987.html (i5-1135G7, dual LAN)

    https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805040832385.html (Celeron 6305)

    I have a mini PC with Celeron 6305. It supports hardware AV1 decoding and the GPU is powerful enough to do a Lanczos3/Spline36 1080p-to-4K upscaling.

    Thanks for the tip! :thumbup:

    This one looks even better:

    ERYING Mini-ITX Motherboard i5-12500H

    There is plenty of intersting cases:

    LC POWER LC-1530mi

    Chieftec BU-12B-300

    Fractal Design Core 500

    Fanless cases:

    Streacom ST-FC8 - for slot-in optical drive

    Or even special HTPC cases:

    LUXA2 - LM100

    My final choice of HW (WIP)

    Streacom ST-FC8 Alpha (black)

    Hitachi-LG GS40N DVD drive

    ERYING Mini-ITX Motherboard i5-12500H

    M.2 NGFF Key-M to Dual SATA 3.0 Expansion Card

    RGEEK DC-ATX 150W Power Supply Module (Pico PSU)

  • Looking for a perfect HTPC + NAS hardware

    I'm looking for a perfect LE-based solution to replace my current Amlogic S922X system in the long term. I'm using pretty much most of the ELEC system features including media player (4K HDR), NAS (shared USB external drive) and retro console emulation. With the new ultra efficient x86 CPUs and the performance demand of the hopefully soon coming emulation features (like 3D emulators and shaders) I'm thinking about switching to x86 platform.

    I was looking at Ryzen based systems like Beelink SER6 with Ryzen 6800H (6800U would be even better) as it should be very powerful yet very low power when idle and also it has hardware AV1 decoder. But I would like to extend the current solution by adding an optical drive (could be slim) and by adding the second disk in a RAID 1 array (to back up the NAS data). Also, I would like to have all-in-one system which means to switch from 1 external disk to 2 internal disks.

    So the questions are:

    1. What is the current state of support for Ryzen 6xxx APUs?

    2. Is there either a mini PC with 2 HDD slots (either 2.5" or 3.5") and an optical drive slot (either slim or full)?

    3. Or is there a mini ITX board with the mobile Ryzen 6xxx APU?

    EDIT: I'm aware of the missing RAID support in LE, but it can be added in custom build.

    EDIT2: Or is it better to stick with Intel?

  • RAID support

    I'm probably able to create the build myself, no problem. It is just pain to maintain custom LE build only to add a few kernel modules that are already there, just disabled and not being built. I'm currently in the planning process for my next HTPC setup, so I've not decided yet. I really like the idea of all-in-one device, but the missing mdraid support is holding me back a little.

  • RAID support

    I've just found out that there is no mdraid support in the default Generic LE kernel. Is it still a NO GO ZONE for LE in 2023?

    At least you could add the kernel modules, so we can build the userspace as an addon and we don't have to keep custom LE build just to add a few lines to the kernel config. Of course including the mdadm package as well would be awesome.

    Having a disk with multimedia data in the HTPC is a common practice. LE already can automatically mount such disk, we can even share the disk in the network, but we are missing the option to have the data protected against the disk failure by having a mirror (mdraid1).

  • RK3399 HDMI audio quality

    Hi,

    I've tested the Joern's image and I can confirm that both audio issues from the original post seem to be resolved for me. Good job!

    Unfortunately the image introduces new issues for me on the H96 MAX RK3399 box. USB-C is not working anymore, no deinterlacing etc. However, some of the issues are probably related to the not updated device tree for H96 MAX. I'm using the original device tree from Android which I've modified to work with the official LE image (H96 MAX RK3399).

    Hopefully Kwiboo is listening and some of the Joern's changes will make it to the official release!

    EDIT: While the above new issues seem to be related to the device tree the following 2 seem not:

    1. While playing the Hobbit video from YouTube mentioned earlier the audio is finally without any cracking but approximately twice per the video the HDMI mode change occurs resulting in half a second drop of the audio and an OSD with the HDMI mode shown on the TV.

    2. Sometimes the HDMI mode is incorrectly set to 4K instead of 1080p resulting in the video or the GUI being shown only in the quarter of the screen. Subsequent mode change brings it back to normal.

  • RK3399 HDMI audio quality

    I've played with the CPU settings a little more because running both CPU clusters on full speed all the time is not a feasible option for the H96 MAX box (because of the bad thermal design).

    I'm getting the best results with setting like this:

    Code
    echo "powersave" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy0/scaling_governor
echo "performance" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/policy4/scaling_governor
echo "0" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/online
echo "0" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online
echo "0" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu2/online
echo "0" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu3/online

    Basically I turned the RK3399 big.LITTLE CPU into a simple dual-core Cortex-A72 SMP CPU by limiting the LITTLE cluster to a powersave state and telling the scheduler not to use it. "Isn't it ironic", turning half the CPU off actually makes the LibreELEC run faster? :)

  • RK3399 HDMI audio quality

    So I've tested it and I can confirm that the audio "clicks / pops" get significantly reduced by setting the governor to performance. But they are not completely gone, they just seem to occur a lot less and they are also less noticable (only in quiet parts).

    It seems it is related to the current CPU speed:

    Low speed (powersave governor) -> more audio "drops" and bigger "gaps".

    High speed (performance governor) -> less audio "drops" and smaller "gaps".

    Looks like a buffer underrun issue to me.

    Also it seems that the common atribute of the affected audio streams is that they are all 32-bit (like the AAC 32-bit from the YouTube sample above) which means they need a bigger buffer than a common 16-bit audio.

    EDIT: I've tested it on the current official image with the rockchip-4.4 kernel but it seems that the problem affects all RK3399 images.