Sean Houlihane

On first glance, an AM2+/AM3 motherboard using 780GX or 790GX integrated graphics would make a great HTPC, particularly with a reasonably low power CPU.
The big problem with this strategy is the driver situation. Whilst there exists an open source driver, it is limited in it’s use of acceleration – particularly for 3D.
The proprietary fglxr driver from AMD (version 9.5 as of this post) is very shaky. Although it gave the appearance of working, video playback under MythTv is broken, and I’m having many problems in trying to use a HD-TV as a display. Setup only seems to work if I have an analogue display connected to start with, and I need to ssh in to run aticonfig –install.
In fact, with the ASrock A790GMH/128M motherboard I have, it’s impossible to generate digital output from either of the onboard connectors, although the control pannel shows the TV is detected.
The RMA’d motherboard from DFI has returned, so more games tonight.

http://davmac.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/ati-driver-woes/ suggests disabling interlacing 9or at least not using ‘bob’ as an interlacer, since this generates double height images. That helped, I can now use myth full screen, compiz off, QT rendering on a 2nd ATI card (not the integrated one).

The DFI M2RS board has working onboard graphics, but won’t display the bios settings on a HD-TV (and is digital only, no analogue output). It’s northbridge also runs very hot (60 degrees in free air, out of the case) so is unlikely to be a go-er in the case in a cabinet.