ATI HD2600 settings and help required

[tieke]

Just wondered if anyone had a working setup using an ATI 2x00 video card, and if so could you share your settings?

I have a HD2600XT and am using the 7.11 catalyst drivers, but despite hours of playing around with various decoders and settings, my picture is still not as good as it was with my old cheap and nasty geforce4 MX400 card. ie GBPVR menu transitions are still sometimes choppy and I can get some impressive image tearing on mpeg playback.

So - if anyone has tweaked it to their liking, would you be able to post all appropriate info? (ie catalyst version and settings, mpg codec etc).

I've spent so many hours trying to get a clean GB-PVR install working on my new computer as well as it did on my old one that I'm getting serious MythTV flashbacks.

cheers,

tieke

[sub]

I've got an ATI HD 2600 Pro in one of my machines. Its running the 7.11 catalyst drivers on Vista with the EVR renderer. The machine has an E6550 processor.

Its a test machine, and while I havnt put this machine through any serious testing since this card was added, it seems to perform nicely without any serious tweaking. I've only tried it with the Microsoft MPEG2 decoder and the Cyberlink PDVD7 decoder, but both seem to work well (tried ticker test files etc). I've not noticed any video tearing, the menu animations are smooth.

It does particularly well with the High Def H.264 Freeview DVB-T trials, consuming only 5% CPU.

[bogyver]

There is buch of info avilable here on tweeks than can be applied I even use them on my x1550 and it help cleaned up my video alot
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=872538
This web site has a vbs file that i used to apply tweeks to my card even though its not listed
http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/
more here
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost....count=2121
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost....count=2011
Hope these help

[bigbus01]

I have an MSI HD2600XT. I found that if I don't make sure the overdrive settings are set, I have trouble with tearing, etc. Run the "Run automated clock configuration utility" that is on the ATI Overdrive tab/button. Also remember to check the "Preserve ATI Overdrive settings at logon".

I am running VMR9 FSE, NVIDIA Pure Video, and MSI's ATI Catalyst (afraid to upgrade because it is working well). HD content has been really good with this setup.

Bigbus

[Mysteryman]

I just recently replaced my 6600GT with an HD2600 Pro.

The difference is AMAZING. It's possible I just never got the hardware acceleration working properly on the 6600GT, but it wasn't from lack of trying. I hate Purevideo configuration.

The HD2600 playback of ATSC HD is our 11% CPU (was 80% with the gt6600). CNN news tickers are glassy smooth and system menus are fluid.

One thing you may want to check. Installing the Catalyst drivers did NOT install the AVIVO decoder. For me, it was a separate directory on the installation CD (same with HDMI audio passthrough).

[nemulate]

Hi tieke I have the same chipset as you except it's an Asus board M2a-VM. Just installed a 2600xt instead of the x1250 onboard and performance has gone downhill Juddery ticker is very noticeable! Tried disabling cool and quiet, different decoders (Powerdvd, Ati etc) 7.11 drivers etc. Any ideas anyone before I take the card out and go back to my onboard!

Thanks

[sub]

I had a good experience with my 2600 Pro on Vista so decided to update the 9250 in my lounge HTPC to a 2600 Pro also (thinking ahead to the H.264 Freeview starting). Unfortunately things havnt gone as smoothly as on my Vista setup. The HTPC is running XP, and I've also got problems with the tickers not being smooth. The picture itself is pretty good, and seems to deliver slightly better colours than the old card, but the ticker is far from smooth. I've only just updated the video card today, so havnt spent much time looking into it yet.

[nemulate]

Well seems I'm getting not coming out of standby issues now too! Machine tries to come out but doesn't get to desktop! Was working fine before new card. Maybe it's time I got round to installing Vista?

[Mysteryman]

For the record I'm on win2k3 with a generic mobo and an AMD 3400+.

I can also say the colors were better on the HD2600 over the GT6600. I experienced this too when I went from an ATI x300 to the GT6600, colors faded.

[nemulate]

Ok finally worked it out! When I was using onboard x1250 graphics was running resolution at near lcd tv of 130x768. 1080 was too jerky! Now have 2600xt found out I can run at 1920x1080 and the ticker is lovely and smooth so basically wasn't using my new card at its full potential!