What AGP Video Card Do You Use For HDTV?

[zed]

OK, I know video cards are a well hashed over topic but I'd like to upgrade from my 6200 to something that'll handle HDTV better and I need some advice. It has to be AGP and around $100 US. I'm considering a GeForce 7600 card like this one:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...=P450-7600

but would consider equivalent ATI cards. The power supply requirements (12v @ 18A) are a bit daunting, too...I'd have to upgrade my power supply as well, I guess.

(Do those cards REALLY take that much power? It seems like an AWFUL lot. I mean, I feed my ham rig with a 20A @ 13.8v supply.)

Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing what AGP cards you guys are using to feed your HDTV's. Actual experience would be preferred.

I'm running a 3.0 GHz P4/HT (Then again, maybe it's time to upgrade computers to something with PCI-E... ).

TIA...

[sub]

The new ATI HD 2600 (and 2400) cards are sounding pretty sweet for home theater PCs, but the AGP models are still a month or so away. The power usage for these sounds pretty decent, and their are passively powered models.

[zaphod7501]

I'm using a 7600GS on a Sempron 3000+ with 512Mb RAM. I can play 720p and 1080i at less than 50% CPU with almost no dropped frames or stuttering. The trick is to access the PureVideo hardware for decoding. I am running in a dual monitor mode with one feeding an InFocus projector and the other on a KVM switch with my editing PC.

This requires the later drivers because they expose the hardware to third party applications (filter decoders and media players) without the need to purchase the nVidia PureVideo software. This should be no problem under XP or Vista. You should be fine as long as you get filters and players set up properly.

The version of DVD player that came with the card I got had the necessary filters as part of PowerDVD. Unfortunately, I am running Win2k and it was an XP only version, so I had to get inventive to get it working. I upgraded from a GF-3 card to the 7600GS and got zero improvement until I figured out the situation.

Edit: Re 6200
If your 6200 has onboard memory and is not a version that uses shared system memory, then it also has PureVideo hardware that can play HD pretty well with the right combination of filters, decoders, and players. I have a 6200 on a dual AthloXP2400+ that plays HD better than the 7600GS, it's just not connected to the A/V system since I use it for editing.

[herbs]

If the 2400 is in agp form i thing ill get one of them I read a review of one them with a sempron 2800 doing full 1080p h.264 with 8% cpu usage. Its crap for games etc though.

[carpeVideo]

I use a Radeon 9550. It works well using the Nvidia pure video decoder with 720P (50% cpu), has a passive heat sync and a DVI out and it was 20 bucks.

I get some stutter with 1080i using GBPVR with VMR9, but playing HD with zplayer or gom works fine (probably overlay),

[zed]

If your 6200 has onboard memory and is not a version that uses shared system memory, then it also has PureVideo hardware that can play HD pretty well with the right combination of filters, decoders, and players. I have a 6200 on a dual AthloXP2400+ that plays HD better than the 7600GS, it's just not connected to the A/V system since I use it for editing.

Thanks for the input.

Actually, I have two systems, a server and a client. The server is driving a Viewsonic 32" LCD HDTV at 720p via DVI and a Dell 20" LCD monitor via the VGA output from the 6200. The client is a dedicated PVR driving a Mitsubishi 65" DLP HDTV at 1080p via the DVI port on another 6200. Both 6200's have the latest drivers (at least I'm pretty sure they're the latest). They both work pretty well, actually, after some tweaking of the Purevideo parameters. There's some occasional stutter but it's not really that big a deal (perhaps I'm not as picky as some folks). PQ on both is very good. I use Purevideo on the client but I'm using the Zulu decoder that came with my Dvico card on the server...it seems to work better than Purevideo there. CPU usage is 30-45% on HD, less on SD. Both system run 3GHz P4's. I dunno...maybe I oughta just stick with what I have till I can do some major system upgrades...dual core, PCI-e, etc.

[bogyver]

I was in your same situation but with a geforce 6200, it would playback 720p just fine but it had trouble playing back 1080i it would stutter every so often, i found that playing the 1080i stuff deinterlacing turned off in vlc it would play back completly smooth but deinterlacing seem to be to much for it. I ended up getting a Ati x1550 and plays it back perfect. I would point out to you that 7600 should be more than enough to play back 1080i, i remember looking at newer nforce boards with integrated graphics being able to play back 1080i no problem, this suggest to me that any card in 7000 series should be able to handle play back of 1080i. Also an option that is mentioned often would be to get a Geforce 6600.

[wtg]

I went from a 6200 to an ATI x1600 Pro with great results. I still use the NVidia PureVideo decoder - it performs better than any I've tried with the ATI card. Playback of 1080i in overlay mode used 20-25% cpu. Playback in the now required VMR9 in FSE mode uses 40-50% cpu.

My system uses an AMD 2500+ with 768 meg ram, has two internals HDs, DVD-RW, two internal capture cards and a PCI nic and gets by with a 350 watt PS.

[sslusser]

I used to run a Silent 6600gt AGP card made by Gigabyte that performed pretty well with VMR9. They make a 7600GS, which will perform better than the 6600gt.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814125039

If you really want AGP, I'd wait to see what the ATI 2400/2600 and Nvidia 8600 series offer in AGP over the next couple of months. There are supposed to be AGP cards for both of these.

[sub]

If you really want AGP, I'd wait to see what the ATI 2400/2600 and Nvidia 8600 series offer in AGP over the next couple of months. There are supposed to be AGP cards for both of these.

I've seen a few comments on forums about people using an AGP version of the ATI HD 2400, so it sounds like they starting to trickle out there. Apparently they great with H264/VC1 stuff like BluRay/HD-DVD, but there seems to be a few minor teething problems with highdef MPEG2. Hopefully these are software related and drivers will address these problems.