AGP video card recommendation?

[SickBoy]

If it's possible to recommend an AGP card at this point in time - what would be a good one for playing streaming HD video from my HDHomeRun or my STB (via Firewire)?

I can connect to my display (32" 720p LCD) via VGA, DVI or HDMI so the connectors on the back really aren't an issue, I have some flexibility there. However it needs to take up only one slot, height-wise, as I am working with a mATX enclosure - which also makes heat somewhat an issue as the enclosure is pretty tight but ventilated adequately.

Was looking at the Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 from Newegg, would be open to other recommendations.

Given that with about $300 I could probably do a better full-system upgrade (with PCI Express) maybe I should be looking at that? Current spec is a Sempron 2600+, 1.5 GB PC3200, FX5200 AGP card.

[mikeh49]

Go for the upgrade! I think you're swimming upstream with AGP and HD. As for what to upgrade to, good luck. There seems to be no real consensus, at least that I coud divine from this forum, as to the best/easiest video card for HD.

That said, I got reasonable HD performance from a Sempron 2800+ and a 9600Pro at 1366X768 (my TV's native resolution) using XP and the FSE renderer. This included streaming via FW from my STB. So you could try something like that for the low buck approach. There are some drawbacks to FSE however.

I upgraded to a Gigabyte 780G board which has been so-so. Not significantly better on HD than the 9600Pro as far as I can tell so far. But, to be fair, I haven't tried very hard to optimize HD.

[wpialum]

Your system is good enough to be a server. I would definitely recommend the PCH option as an upgrade. No messing around with hardware/software anymore, and it's short $$. Plus, Martin and Sub are doing great work improving it constantly.

Aside form that, I have an Nvidia 6600GT with an aftermarket cooler on it. AGP. PM me if you're interested. It played HD content smoothly before I upgraded to the PCH.

[pBS]

agp works fine, it's mmore than enough to do HD....

that said, it's just harder to find good accelerated cards for agp...
but i had a ati x1600 working fine on agp 4x with ultra slow memory [pc133!] just fine...
it only has 256 megs onboard and even that is hypermemory [just a buffer for main memory]
only a lowly celeron 1.8G no less...[128k cache]

have since upgraded to pcie hd3450 but i also have an agp 3450 and it works great as well..
[and actually has better cooling] fantastic blu-ray accell, looks beautifull and smooth...

the nv6600 should work ok, but hard to get full accell on that one, tho ffdshow works great on it for software decode of everything..

[SickBoy]

Your system is good enough to be a server. I would definitely recommend the PCH option as an upgrade. No messing around with hardware/software anymore, and it's short $$. Plus, Martin and Sub are doing great work improving it constantly.

Aside form that, I have an Nvidia 6600GT with an aftermarket cooler on it. AGP. PM me if you're interested. It played HD content smoothly before I upgraded to the PCH.

"PCH option"? Sorry, I must have missed something - what does that refer to?

[wpialum]

Sorry. The PCH is the Popcorn Hour media client. It's definitely worth taking a look at.

mvallevand (Martin) has written an interface that allows you to use GBPVR natively on the device.

A number of users are using it, and pretty happy. It's also referred to as an NMT. Check the forums. Ask any questions you have.

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/i...tegory_id=

[pBS]

while the pch is a great unit, it is a bit pricey compared to a 35$ video card...

the 3850 is a bit overkill just for video, but a 3650 should fit nicely and be quite cool comparatively....
my 3450's are wayyy below even 3650 specs and do bluray quite nicely..
mpeg2 is easy, tons of cards out there can do it accelled, h264 is harder but the upper half of the spectrum of cards available now can handle that even thesedays...
[h264- NV8xxx+ and ati HD3xxx+]
but i'd say get something that you know others are working well with, and driver versions are critical...some work, some don't...
i had to modify the 8.11 drivers myself to add my card cuz the others just don't work as well for me on video...it's pretty easy...latest drivers may work again tho,never know...
it's usually not about the hardware itself unless it just doesn't have acceleration built in at all...

and don't need more than 256 meg mem as full 1080p uses less than that...
on my 3450's the mem speed does seem to make difference tho...800's can be sluggish,where as the 1000mhz mem cards are liquid smooth...[500mhz-ddr2=1000]

[SickBoy]

Yeah, as great as the networked frontend might be I think I want to be running a full PC for doing other stuff as well.

[SickBoy]

Another question: Would the onboard nVidia Geforce 8200 from the Asus M3N78-VM be adequate for HD video playback? The newegg listing for it seems to indicate it can handle BluRay and HD-DVD playback...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813131318

If this will work - upgrading the whole system is probably the direction I'll end up going in, since I would not have to purchase a seperate PCI-Express video card. With DDR2 memory as cheap as it is right now it would seem this would be a huge upgrade.

[pBS]

i'd get some real user feedback on that one as it came out about same time as 780g and with the problems the 780g had, if the 8200 worked i'd think they would have grabbed a big chunk of the market....but they didn't...
i tried a 8400 card once and it was totally unimpressive...but you can't go by the numbers with nvidia, higher is not always better...and interestingly enough, they came out with the 9400 motherboard chipset just after that which is probably a better bet but kinda pricey comparatively..

the 8200 has the guts to do it, i just wonder about the speed of output to video..
[ex:the hd2400 can do 264 decode, it just can't display it on tv fast enough]

so look for real 'user' reviews on video accell...magazine/website reviews are biased, and often don't mention video at all...or not in real world apps...