Terrible picture quality --- going insane!

[skye3000]

Which card should I use? there is only a $10 difference

MSI NX6200AX-TD128LF Geforce 6200 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Low Profile Video Card - Retail

Core clock: 350MHz
D-SUB: 1
DirectX: DirectX 9
DVI: 1
Memory Clock: 500MHz
Memory Interface: 64-bit
OpenGL: OpenGL 1.5
PixelPipelines: 4
TV-Out: HDTV/S-Video Out

OR

MSI FX5500-TD256 Geforce FX5500 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card - Retail

D-SUB: 1
DirectX: DirectX 9
DVI: 1
Max Resolution: 2048x1536@85Hz
Memory Interface: 128-bit
OpenGL: OpenGL 1.5
SLI Supported: No
Tuner: None
TV-Out: S-Video Out

[excotec]

How will it be connected to yur tv? MVP, S-Video, DVI?

[skye3000]

S-Video for now. if I buy a new TV I want to get one with a DVI input.

[excotec]

Then go with the one that will support both. According to your specs the 6200 will do s-video and dvi.

[skye3000]

I'm not to worried right now about DVI. I'm a long way off from buying a new tv but I'm worried that the 6200 won't be the right card. by that I mean I want the tv output to be near 100% quality. If anyone could tell me what to look for in the hardware specs of a vid card I would have a better idea of what to get. even with my gforce fx 5600 the quality was slightly less than perfect. like everyone has said in previous posts I to have become addicted.

maby we need to set up an enicietive to seek out the very best video card for the job.

[Torque]

I was using the integrated MX440 on my MSI motherboard. The picture quality wasn't bad thru the s-video, but there was ghosting and the occasional choppiness at times. I tried a FX5200 with both DVI and S-video, DVI was much sharper looking but still ghosted. I tried the 6800GT from my office machine and it worked great, Video quality was good for s-video but wonderful with DVI. Very smooth and sharp. But even with an Arctic Cooler installed, it made my HTPC noiser. I found a review of the Gigabyte FX6600 256MB on htpcnews.com. It's passive cooled, has DVI, component, and s-video. It's available in both AGP and PCIe. I got the AGP version and am very happy with it. You can see it at pcalchemy.com ($136)