As far as general web browsing on a TV goes on the Acer Revo, I DEFINITELY suggest Windows 7. It has a mode (sorry, the name escapes me) that essentially “beefs up” all of the icons and fonts on the operating system, making them all large and highly viewable from afar when viewing on your couch, say. It’s great. Same thing with web browsers: Adjust the fonts to display large and it’s all highly viewable.

Now keep in mind I have the single core Revo, the 1600. And as far as casual web browsing goes, I don’t have a complaint. Again, Windows 7 I feel is the better choice over XP. It’s all very zippy. That’s not to say XP isn’t bad either, but if you have a choice, I would go with Windows 7. And of course in either operating system, I would suggest going with Chrome as your web browser of choice: It’s super lean in memory size, and a very fast browser. I still use Firefox, but I can feel the difference right away.

With Flash 10.1 your results will vary. But non-Flash sites all work great. I suspect if you go dual core with the Acer Revo 3610, you will get even better results with casual web browsing.

One last word regarding Hulu: in WindowsXP? Forget about it. XP doesn’t have anything to compensate for vsync, so Hulu’s quite a tearing mess in action scenes and panning shots. Of course, being a modern operating system, Windows 7 fares much better when Aero is turned on, eliminating pretty much all Hulu screen tearing although the picture is still prone to a skip here and there as the Flash plugin (the weak link in the puzzle) struggles to cope.

One question – how does the Acer handle general web browsing from the couch, things like ebay, twitter, facebook, blogging, forums, google maps, etc.? I’d like to be able to do some web stuff in the living room and wondered how zippy the Revo is.

Thanks!

I was wondering if you test out a couple of games for me? The demo’s are available on steam so they shouldn’t be too difficult to get. They are “Trine” and “Serious Sam HD (the first encounter)”

If the revo can play these well then an acer revo will be in my house the very next day.

My instinct was to disable Aero and free up some vram, right? Well, I have noticed in many cases (including Hulu Desktop and Media Player Home Cinema) leaving Aero ENABLED provides better performance in regards to vsync and refresh rates.

Also, it could be your roms are bad? Seems unlikely, however.

Are you running the N64 roms in fullscreen? Have you tried adjusting some of Project64′s settings to tweak performance?

Also, make sure Windows Automatic Updates isn’t doing any kind of shit in the background. When I first installed Windows 7 and tried watching movies, I couldn’t figure out why the video was so choppy. Then I realized Windows was constantly downloading updates and applying them in the background. I ended up setting Automatic Updates to Manual, rather than the default Automatic setting.

So I installed Project 64 and am having hit or miss performances with certain titles. Some play flawlessly while others run uncomfortably slow. I have read when it comes to emulators the CPU is what makes or breaks performance. My CPU usage never spikes above 80% and levels off on roughly 60%.I was wondering if you have any recommendations on how to resolve this issue? Keep in mind I also have a Win 7, 2gb video with video increased to 512Mb.

P.S. If anyone is wondering, I installed Boxee instead of XBMC and it too runs smoothly.

Once your Revo is on your network, you can create a shared folder on your Revo. I keep one on my Revo’s desktop so I can easily trasnfer files around between computers on the network. Any other computer on the same network will be able to see your Revo’s shared folder, and you can easily drop files into the folder.

Alternatively, you can invest in a NAS — Network Attached Storage — which can act as a file server for your home network. These are great, and I definitely recommend doing this. Here’s a good Cnet article:

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-network-attached-storage/

Thanks!

@Yameen,
Thank you SO much for providing this information! I will be making my purchase (Revo 3610) in the next couple of days!

Also Yameen, could I ask you a question about how you get the media to your revo? I know you said through an ethernet cable but what is on the other end? Do you have another pc that you leave on somewhere else in the house? just curious as I was going to go about it through a large external hardrive, and would be good to know of other ways.

Thanks again! and can’t wait to read your windows 7 article!

Mark

And great news: As far as I can tell, the games run perfectly. Even in fullscreen. Even though I own the games I tested, I’m a little reticent to post their names. Hope you understand. But I tried some of the most popular titles, as well as ones I thought would put some strain on the Revo’s processors.

I checked the frames-per-second counter and it always stayed just around 60fps. When you look at Project64′s suggested specs, the Revo more than stands up to the task:

Pentium III
600 Mhz or better
128 Mb. RAM or more
Fast video card with 16 Mb. Video RAM or more
Windows 95/98/Me
DirectX 6.0 (latest version of DirectX recommended)

Those are some old specs. So yea. As far as I can tell, man, N64 is no problem on the Revo. And the games look SICK in HD, btw.

Thanks for writing in about that. I’ll add it to my forthcoming Windows 7 article. Holler!