Archive:Windows FAQ

XBMC for specific FAQs about XBMC running under Windows, Windows computer hardware, and Windows operating-system questions.

What Win32 ports are available ?

There are two existing Windows ports of XBMC

• XBMC.exe (build from the linux branch, using SDL/OpenGL)
• XBMC_PC.exe (build from the xbox trunk, using DirectX)

About XBMC.exe (SDL/OpenGL)

The SDL version is the Windows future of XBMC. The codebase is under development and is the base for the Linux, MacOSX and Windows ports. This FAQ will ONLY deal with the SDL version!
Note: The SDL win32 port still needs DirectX for the audio processing.

About XBMC_PC.exe (DirectX)

The DirectX version is only for skin and python development. You won't get support for it since it is only adapted to reflect the skin and python changes.

Why is a OpenGL 2.0 compatible graphic-controller the recommended minimum for XBMC?

OpenGL 2.0 is not really the current minimum requirement to run XBMC, as in reality XBMC will today run with only OpenGL 1.4 + GLSL support (everything else has fall-backs to be runned in software on the CPU, slower than GPU hardware though), however to be sure to stay future-proof Team-XBMC have decided that the OpenGL 2.0 is the recommended minimum requirement.

Currently OpenGL 2.0 hardware is only needed for:

• Any deinterlacing that is not linear blending (which FFmpeg does in software)
• Video video post-processing filtering (bicubic upscaling, etc.)
• Non-power of two textures for the GUI (using NPOT saves a lot of texture memory)
• Hardware accelerated YUV 2 RGB conversion (actually GLSL is needed for this, and a few GPU hardware implementations as low as OpenGL 1.4 does provide GLSL as an extension. OpenGL 2.0 guarantees availability of GLSL).

In the future OpenGL 2.0 might also be needed for:

• More video post-processing filters to improve visual quality perception.
• Hardware Accelerated Video Decoding (using the GPU hardware to assist with video decoding)

How to install XBMC for Windows (SDL/OpenGL)?

XBMC for Windows is still in experimental stage, there are however install packages available for easy installation.

• Download XBMCSetup-Rev<xx>.exe from the XBMC for Windows section on sourceforge. Higher rev-number means a newer build.
• Run the downloaded setup to install XBMC for Windows.
• You can now start XBMC from the startmenu either in fullscreen or windowed mode.

What are the recent changes?

All changes to the repository can be seen on our XBMC Tracker

Note: branches/linuxport/XBMC/ is the repository for the Linux, MacOSX and Win32 port. trunk/ belongs to the Xbox repository.

What is the best way to post logs?

Take the xbmc.log out of the XBMC installation directory and upload it to http://pastebin.com/ for example. Post the link instead of the content.

How can I switch XBMC to full screen?

Start XBMC.exe with -fs or create the advancedsettings.xml file in userdata with <fullscreen>true</fullscreen>.

What are platform directories ?

XBMC uses the UserDir in the installation directory to store profiles, settings and other stuff. You can start XBMC with -p to force it to use the directory Documents and Settings\[user]\AppData\XBMC on WinXp or Users/[user]/AppData/Roaming/XBMC on Vista.
On Linux and Mac other platform directories are used like the user HOME.

What is the current development platform ?

We currently develop under Windows XP SP3 with Visual Studio 2008. VS2003 project files are still available and updated in the svn.

Why is my video screen smaller than my desktop in full screen?

We're still early alpha. Try to set the XBMC video resolution to your current desktop resolution.

Does XBMC for Windows support Blu-ray or HD DVD playback with out without menus?

No. There is not yet any C/C++ open source software out there yet capable of fully playing back Blu-ray or HD DVD so we can not add the code from somewhere in any case. FFmpeg (the open source codec-suit that XBMC uses) will probably relativly soon be able to decode all audio and video codecs used in both Blu-ray and HD DVD, but even when that happens you still have to get around the DRM encryptions used by the disc formats and there is not yet any C/C++ open source software library capable of that on-the-fly, nither is there any C/C++ open source software library out there capable of displaying Blu-ray or HD DVD menus. XBMC need C/C++ open source software libraries for all of these things to fully support Blu-ray or HD DVD playback.