What AGP Video Card Do You Use For HDTV?

[zed]

There's a huge thread on the AVS forum about the ATI 2400/2600 cards. Some seem to be able to get them to work, others have problems. The 2600's seem to work better than the 2400's.

I acquired an HD2600XT card and it works very well for outputting recorded HD over a DVI-to-HDMI link. It's PCIe, tho, so perhaps not germane to this thread.

[Satori]

Does anyone know if FSB speed has an impact on HD? I upgraded my Dell 8100 to 2.6GHZ (See my sig) but it still has a 400mhz FSB. Any idea if it can do 1080i or even 1080p with VMR9 Custom if I use a 2600xt AGP? It looks like my CPU utilization would be ok from the article linked earlier, but that CPU has a much higher FSB.

[flyswatta]

Does anyone know if FSB speed has an impact on HD? I upgraded my Dell 8100 to 2.6GHZ (See my sig) but it still has a 400mhz FSB. Any idea if it can do 1080i or even 1080p with VMR9 Custom if I use a 2600xt AGP? It looks like my CPU utilization would be ok from the article linked earlier, but that CPU has a much higher FSB.

the 2600xt would probably be overkill. I was running an AMD 2100+ with an ATI 9500 (running at 4x AGP) and was running about 80% CPU for smooth 1080i playback. I upgraded to an ATI X700 (also at 4x AGP) and cut the CPU down to 50%.

Yesterday I upgraded the mobo & processor to an AMD 3200+ (now with 8x AGP ) and was running about 20% CPU utilization.

So, to make a long story short, your main system is fine, you just need to upgrade your video card and could easily get away without the latest and greatest.

[jh61408]

Well i installed a VisionTek HD2400 Pro AGP Graphics card. It installed Good. No problems so far. Set on 1920x1080 resolution. No problems so far, Analog recorded Videos look allot better than on my 9250 Card. Running PVRX2 and looks Really Good.

My only Concern and maybe it is my TV. It is a 37" LCD. But the screen has about a 1/4" between the Actual and what is displayed. So in other words it does not cover the TV all the way. I do not have the Catalyst control center installed as i have read it is more problems than what it is worth installed,And I do not think it will stretch the display to fill the screen all the way any way.

I used the Drivers on the disk and installed they are lised as Cat 7.6 with P/N as 400239
on the installation disc.

Got it at CC for $60 Web Special, store Pick up. I guess if it is not ready in 24 Minutes you get a $24 gift card to Boot.

[wtg]

Well i installed a VisionTek HD2400 Pro AGP Graphics card. It installed Good. No problems so far. Set on 1280x1080 resolution.
<snip>
My only Concern and maybe it is my TV. It is a 37" LCD. But the screen has about a 1/4" between the Actual and what is displayed.

That seems to be a peculiar resolution for a 37" LCD HDTV. Are you sure it's set right? A full HD television would run at 1920x1080 and a 720p tv at 1280x720, though some run at 1366x768 too.

Also, are you using the TV's VGA input or a digital connection like HDMI or DVI? Your card supports DVI output so you should try that to the TV. Depending on your TV you may need a DVI-HDMI converter cable but if you shop around you can get these pretty cheap (~$20), and a true digital connection will get your picture to fully and completely fill the screen without need to adjust overscan or anything else, and it should be a better picture as well.

[jh61408]

I am using a DVI to HDMI Cable. It is set a 1920X1080. Is it the Tv or Video Card?. Causing the Problem?.

Update, I installed the Catalyst Control Center and their was a option to
rescale the screen. It seemed to do the trick.

[bogyver]

I am using a DVI to HDMI Cable. It is set a 1920X1080. Is it the Tv or Video Card?. Causing the Problem?.

I have notice in the past that on some tv's when you set the resolution to the 1080p or 720p resolution that its to big for the display (not sure why this happens), you need to set it to a slightly lower resolution.
I know with the nvidia control panel there is a re size to fit tv option. I would imagine that the ati card has a similar option i just dont use dvi to hdmi in my setup.
The easiest way at the moment would be to try resolutions that are just below the 1920x1080

[jh61408]

I have notice in the past that on some tv's when you set the resolution to the 1080p or 720p resolution that its to big for the display, you need to set it to a slightly lower resolution.
I know with the nvidia control panel there is a re size to fit tv option. I would imagine that the ati card has a similar option i just dont use dvi to hdmi in my setup.
The easiest way at the moment would be to try resolutions that are just below the 1920x1080

That was the case for my Old Card 9250 ATI. It would oversize it at 1920X1080.
and the control center had a option to rescale it, but did nothing. But it seems they have gotten that working as i was successful in changing the resolution on my tv to fill the screen.

[wtg]

I personally got a little confused here. Not hard to do.

Are you saying the TV supports 1920x1080 but the video card resolution was set to 1280x1080? And you've set a rescale option and now that works? Because you shouldn't have to rescale anything I don't believe.

You should be able to set the PC to 1920x1080, and since your TV supports full HD, it should fill the screen perfectly without any scaling. I have a very similar setup myself using an ATI x1600 myself on a 37" 1920x1080 display. The catalyst software shows my lots of resolution options including 1920x1080, but 1280x1080 isn't even listed.

What TV do you have btw? There aren't too many 37" full HD TVs. I'm using a Westinghouse LVM-37w1. Had it for a year and love it.

[Deusxmachina]

That seems to be a peculiar resolution for a 37" LCD HDTV. Are you sure it's set right? A full HD television would run at 1920x1080 and a 720p tv at 1280x720, though some run at 1366x768 too.

Some cheaper TVs are made 1280x1080. There are some other resolutions out there that are really weird. They lose some resolution over full 1080 HD, but still look good, obviously. The main drawback to some of the off-resolutions is when the pixels are a strange shape.

I just hooked up a 1920x1080 Sony, and GBPVR is off the screen on that, too. I don't know if the overscan is factory-made or if it's just out of geometry from being used.