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[chazman]

This is what i get when i switch to Theater View (it also says: eror finding compatible stencil buffer format). The machine is an older 866 PIII, 512 RAM hooked up with a Fastpoint touch screen. I wanted to make a cheap music jukebox and it works great except when I drop into Th/V (which is where I had envisioned leaving the thing). Is Direct3D something I need to install? Is the onboard graphics on this old clunker nut up to snuff? What are the min graphics requirements? Thanks in advance.

Charlie

[park]

I had the same message until I searched the web for updated video card drivers. I have an ati mobility d in my vaio laptop, and downloaded some modified ati drivers (Omega drivers). Now I can see everything no problem, though thumbnails and buttons take a while to pop up. Better than buying a new computer, or media reciever though. 

[Uwe]

I have had the same Problems. First update / downdate your Video-Card Driver, second buy a new one.
But i don't think your PIII is fast enough for Theatre-View in MC12 . The waiting time is really annoying for daily use. My 650 MHz wasn't fast enough so i bought a new, used PC.
Third: Use MC11
 

[park]

My 1ghz p3 is borderline. Not so sluggish as to be frustrating, but definitely noticable.
I wonder if JRiver could create a non-animated, or "lite" animated theater view for older computers.

[ADDiCT]

...and that works over VNC, like MC11's Theater View did.

[JimH]

First update / downdate your Video-Card Driver, second buy a new one.
But i don't think your PIII is fast enough for Theatre-View in MC12 . The waiting time is really annoying for daily use. My 650 MHz wasn't fast enough so i bought a new, used PC.

It's more likely to be a video card issue than a CPU issue.  Even updating the driver for the video card may be enough.

It's not easy to do both 3D and old-style, so we have to choose the future.  Sorry for the trouble.

[glynor]

It's very likely the onboard graphics for a chipset that old.  I don't know what the specific graphics requirements are, but if you're looking to replace the video card, look for something that's DirectX 9 capable in hardware.  Something like these should work:

HIS Hightech H925H128E1TOPN Radeon 9250 128MB DDR PCI Video Card - Retail - $44.99
EVGA 128-P1-N309-LX GeForce FX5200 128MB DDR PCI Video Card - Retail - $46.99

If you're otherwise happy with the performance of MC on the system, then I don't know that the CPU is going to make that much of a difference when in Theater View.  You should really be able to evaluate that part now by using MC12 on the system as is.

That being said... I would carefully consider my options before dumping additional money into a rig that old.  You could also whip together a cheap AMD Sempron64 Socket AM2 system (the nVidia 6100/4x0 based systems, like this one, are perfectly nice and have great onboard video).  One of those, the cheapest AMD Sempron they make (wait until after April 8 -- there's big a price drop coming), and a stick or two or DDR2 ram would give you a much better machine for now, and would give you one that could be upgraded significantly in the future (the upcoming Barcelona CPUs from AMD are going to be backwards compatible with AM2 socketed motherboards).

[Uwe]

First, i bought a video card and that was not enough for my 650 MHz PC, then i bought a 2,3 GHz PC ($60) built in this Video Card and was happy with MC12.
I also don't believe that it's only a Video Card issue because the CPU Usage raises when changing into Theatre-View and the CPU-Van Speed also raises after a while.
Uwe

[glynor]

When your video card can't render a 3D scene in hardware, it offloads the work to the CPU.  Therefore, a crappy video card can affect the CPU usage, but the if the video card is up to snuff, then it shouldn't matter what CPU you have (within reason).  A 650mhz P3 is probably just too slow to use with MC12 regardless.

[chazman]

Thanks everyone. I'd really like to stick with this PC (I am cheap but I also like that it is REAL quiet... these new PC's have all over the place inside and I think it should be sufficient to play MP3's... I'm not gaming state of the art here). What's the deal with MediaJukebox? I can't find info on it. Will that work? I don't care much about 3D... I just want "big" buttons so it's easy to maneuver with a touch screen and a finger. Suggestions?

[glynor]

MC11.1 will work just fine.  Plus, if you purchase MC11.1 now using the current build on the MC11.1 forum, it will include the update to MC12 (the license will work) so if you ever do update that aging machine, you'll be able to switch to using MC12 for free.

[chazman]

Wow... the attention to support here is amazing! Two more questions:
- I have not purchased yet (only did the free download last night). If I download V11 should I first uninstall V12?

- V11 has a Theater View? Or some full screen view that is appropriate for a touch screen kiosk mode?

Thanks again!

[glynor]

Wow... the attention to support here is amazing! Two more questions:
- I have not purchased yet (only did the free download last night). If I download V11 should I first uninstall V12?

You don't have to, but it won't hurt either.  MC11.1 and MC12 can co-exist side by side.  Make sure to download the latest version of MC11.1, which is available here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=36448.0

The libraries (the internal database that MC uses) are not compatible though, so the two versions will work completely independently of one another.  You'll basically have to "start from scratch" for your MC11.1 installation, and re-import all your files and whatnot, but that's no huge deal.

Also.... They do really have amazing support.  However, I'm just a friendly user (I don't work for them).  This forum is the main reason I love MC so much.  Everyone is amazingly helpful and friendly here.  If you need anything, just ask (though try to search first)!

- V11 has a Theater View? Or some full screen view that is appropriate for a touch screen kiosk mode?

It does, and it's not 3D accelerated so it works with much older hardware.  It's not quite as fancy, but it works well.  MC12 does have a LOT of new features, particularly targeted at Video playback and "special" file type support, but MC11.1 is perfectly capable.  The one big thing missing from MC11.1 that you might miss immediately is that it didn't have any type of Auto-Import capability.  You can still save a set of folders and tell it to manually search them for new files, but it won't just automatically do it.

Like I said -- You can't really go wrong with buying MC11.1 now (assuming you like the product -- try it first), since any license purchased at this point will include MC12 free of charge.

[chazman]

Just out of curiosity... what is Th/V doing that is so graphic intensive? By the looks of the screen shots it looks like it's almost a step back graphics-wise with big clunky VGA-type buttons and jpg's of album covers... am I missing something?

[JimH]

3d Animation.

[chazman]

3d Animation.

of.... what? The album covers? or a "cool" JRiver logo bouncing all around the screen? Not to be too snarky but is it really needed? Can't you just allow users to disable the "3D Wowness". I realize me trying to use an old PC may seem silly but at the same time the necessity to buy a gaming powerhouse to play MP3's also seems silly.

[Matt]

It's a question of architecture.

Theater View uses a continual redraw approach like a game uses.  This changes how it's programmed relative to a traditional GDI approach.  This also takes 0% CPU with even a modest video card, unlike GDI drawing which _always_ takes CPU cycles for a draw.

To attempt to support a continual redraw approach with GDI would cook even a high end system -- moving data across the graphics bus simply takes a lot of CPU.

Most video cards from the last 5 years work fine with this new approach.  Any new card that costs over $30 will work fine.  This isn't that severe.

[glynor]

Just out of curiosity... what is Th/V doing that is so graphic intensive? By the looks of the screen shots it looks like it's almost a step back graphics-wise with big clunky VGA-type buttons and jpg's of album covers... am I missing something?

You can't see (obviously) the animations in screen shots, because they're moving.  There's more than just the background logo bouncing though.  Every view change "zooms" in and out, buttons animate and move as you scroll through lists, and the screen draws in a "fluid" way.  When you're using it, it's actually quite nice and slick.

The animations really aren't graphically intensive at all.  They just require something approaching a modern video card, with hardware Direct3D rendering capabilities.  This is really no different than Windows XP Media Center Edition (which actually requires a DX9 capable GPU to even run) or most other HTPC front-ends.

[chazman]

Follow-up:
So i got a cheap card and Theater View works great! Well, sort of. Two things:

1. How do you scroll without a mouse that has a scroller wheel in Th/V? Using the touch screen I can't scroll down the album covers below the opening screen? Even using an older mouse without a wheel it would be a problem.

2. THis may be unrelated to the new grx card but ALL my song names are gone??? What happened? If I explore out to the file and hit properties the name tag is of course there but MC isn't displaying them. The artist, album, genra, rating... everything else displays but no song name. Regardless of which screen view I am using that column is blank. Weird or what?

Thanskagain for the help.