[darkscout]

I'm looking at trying to build a very lightweight XBMC setup.

Apple TV runs a 1.0 gHz Pentium M.
Original XBOX had a 733 mHz Pentium III.

99% of my stuff is still SD content, and the XBOX handles it just fine. As did my 833 mHz laptop throughout college.

With VDPAU Feature Set C and possible Broadcom hardware support, the main CPU doesn't have to do much. Most of the set top boxes showing up have less CPU than my graphing calculator and do HW acceleration for everything. So any HD content should be able to go through that same with any upscaling.

As awesome as the Revo sounds, it's complete over kill. I have an old AMD-Mobile 2800+ MiniATX laying around that I'll probably use. (No VGA monitor in the house and no other output on that board).

The only 'problem' would be how much CPU do the newer Skins and/or any Library processing.

I intend to run Debian with VDPAU with Feature Set C (when they start releasing Low Profile Cards) or the Broadcom setup. Whom ever gets here first.

[dan1son]

From my experience the AppleTV struggles with some of the newer skins, especially with fanart enabled. The Library is fine... it's just the artwork that takes a toll on it. If you turn off revolving backgrounds and fanart it's very responsive.

A lot of the slowness might be a lack of ram, it'd have to clear it out before loading everytime due to such a small limit for images, and the hard drive is pretty slow.

With hardware acceleration (especially in the GPU since it can go straight to screen after processing) the video is the easy part which is why you see set top boxes with embedded processors. You also never see user interfaces quite as complex or active as XBMC with a new skin.

[althekiller]

One with sse2.