HW Configuration for GBPVR?

[reboot]

I happen to own three various MSI boards (Neo2/3/4 Platinum), with various CPU's, and they all work flawlessly, even extremely overclocked with water cooling
The DD5.1 audio will rattle windows.

[ddrawley]

If you only intend to run GB-PVR on your system, the 6600GT is more than is needed. The 6600GT is good enough for most games today. I am still researching to see if a 6200TC is good enough for GB-PVR. The component out and DVI are very desirable. I am sure you would not go wrong with a passively (no fan) cooled 6600. I have found the NVidia drivers to be less troublesome over the long haul. To their defense, ATI has greatly improved their drivers over the last year or so.

P.S. Sub has stated in several threads that he does not recommend the PVR-350, as it is troublesome under many conditions and only displays mpeg encoded content.

***********

sub

Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 13,004
Default
Honestly, I wouldnt recommend anyone gets an XCard or PVR350. They produce a great picture, but are just too limited. No DVD support. No AVI files on the PVR350, and only very few AVI files work on the XCard. The PVR350 is also really buggy, and prone to lockups. I also dont actively develop or support these devices anymore. You're better off with a regular video card.

[PMF]

It sounds like I am going to buy a MSI mobo.

Just make sure you get 256-bit Video path and memory 128-bit for the min

My FX5200 was cheep. How can I check if the conditions are fulfilled?

The ATI 9250 I installed yesterday seems to work fine. What do you think about that card? Has it passed the test?

By the way - has anyone experince with slimline cases? After I have made a stabile system, I would like to move the HW to a nice looking box, which will be placed under the TV. It would be nice if my Chill power supply (ATX) and Zalmann cooler could fit in.

[reboot]

Although the FX5200 is the lowest end card that uses DX9.x, you can get a 5500 or a 5700 for about the same money, even the 256 meg versions!
Whatever you get, make sure it's got 128 meg onboard memory minimum, and it should be just fine.
I can't comment on Radeon's, because I only ever used two. My ancient 7000 was a great card (at the time), but the 9250 sucked.

[nitrogen_widget]

I'm running the radeon 9550 with component dongle & the picture is very good. Lord of the rings -return of the king plays smooth useing 640x480 with high detail.
Madden however needs to have the detail turned down or it stutters.

[kayleigh]

The Radeon 7000s are stable, still supported, and dirt cheap (US$25-US$35). The only downfall I can see is that I can't find one with more than 64MB DDR on board.

[ricklous]

It sounds like I am going to buy a MSI mobo.


My FX5200 was cheep. How can I check if the conditions are fulfilled?

The ATI 9250 I installed yesterday seems to work fine. What do you think about that card? Has it passed the test?

By the way - has anyone experince with slimline cases? After I have made a stabile system, I would like to move the HW to a nice looking box, which will be placed under the TV. It would be nice if my Chill power supply (ATX) and Zalmann cooler could fit in.

take a look here mate, even if you're not specifically using a mini-itx board, its a good source of ideas on how to get away from the beige box look....

[pwborders]

Ok people I think you are getting 2d and 3d functions of video cards confused. The TV out of a particular card is dependent on the 2d functions, the same functions that are at work on the desktop. You are not using the 128mb of memory or the overclocked 3d processor when doing the desktop or tv. The main difference you see in tv out between different cards is dependent on the tv out chip that is used and how well the drivers support the chip. I had a very nice ti4200 video card that's tv out was ok but not very well supported by even the latest versions of nvidia's drivers. Then I picked up the absolute cheapest 5200 card and it works great with much better tv out support.

If you are only using the computer for standard desktop apps or pvr functions you will not gain anything from a higher priced card. More memory is only used for texture buffers and such in 3d game play, not for tv or desktop use. The same goes for added pixel pipelines and all the other parts that are used for 3d image generation in games. The mpeg hardware decoding acceleration you see is basic graphic chip hardware that has been common to most graphic chips for several years.

Find a card that has good support for the tv out chip in the drivers and has a decent tv out chip to start with and you will be happy. Most, if not all, nvidia cards use nvidia's own tv out chip which is neither good nor bad. The previous generation, like my ti4200, used Conexant tv out chips but they were not supported as well as the nvidia tv out chips.

[Torque]

Just a note to let you know I have that MSI K7N2GM2 in my PVR. It's a really good board, very stable with my 2100+ CPU and two 512MB sticks of Corsair memory. I'm currently using the onboard video, MX440 equiv I believe, and although the picture quality is pretty good, I still can't entirely get rid of the blurring video like when the camera pans fast in a tv show or watching auto racing. The video memory is shared off the system ram and currently I have it set to use 64MB. I would like to think the onboard vid is to blame for the blurring video and will be purchasing a passively cooled Geforce 6200 with HDTV video out (comments on this CARD?).

[nitrogen_widget]

I have a question about that board.
Where is all the stuff that's supposed to be on it?
It's a heat sink & a 3 capacitors.

It's as bare as a realtek LAN card.