Video Cards

[Guest]

I am building a new computer and was looking for a video card that plays DVD without skipping and has decent gaming capabilities. A tv output would be nice, but price is a factor.

 

[Guest]

Try some of the Geforce2 MX boards with TV out. You won't be disapointed. Price/performance = 10.

MacGyver

 

[Guest]

I would definately reccomend an ATI Radeon to you. I know that there are lots of people that say that ATI is crap compared to Nvidia. ATI doesn't have good support or drivers. However, they do provide better image quality then the Geforces and still pump out reasonable frame rates. The Radeon is even hardware equiped for Microsoft's DirectX 8.
On top of this, the Radeon family has hardware MPEG2/DVD playback. Just put a cheap 70 dollar DVD drive in the system and you have flawless DVD quality. For the TV out, you will need to get either the ATI 64MB Version or the All-In-Wonder Card. I have the All-In-Wonder card and it works great after I installed the latest drivers for my motherboard.

 

[Guest]

Your going to sacrifice on something if you want a card that does everything. I bought the Hercules Prophet 32 Meg DDR-DVI card for a reasonable $200 (just in case I ever want a flat panel, yeah right). It's great for gaming, but the software DVD decoder it came with was just okay. You can't beat Sigma's Hollywood Plus $50 Mpeg decoder card for DVD smoothness on your tv or monitor. It has digital sound output also. If it's a new computer, get separate cards or else you'll kick yourself later. MHO

 

[Guest]

Careful with inlay cards.. If you plan to overclock, the synchronization between the inlay and AGP might be lost. My Creative Labs CT7160 inlays DVD perfectly connected to an ASUS DDR 32 GeForce (pure), ONLY if I feed it 33MHz PCI and 66MHz AGP. These settings give stable and smooth output as well as 5.1 sound from the inlay card. But boosting to 133 MHz FSB (33MHz PCI/88MHz AGP), causes the video to disappear from the screen (Desktop intact, and sound intact, and no freeze-up). Same problem at 35MHz PCI/140MHz FSB. The o/c settings are fine for EVERTHING else (especially games . I think the inlay/AGP ratio is critical in this case.. at least, that's my theory. I have to 'underclock' to watch DVDs !

 

[Guest]

So what you guys are saying is that i should get a decent video card along with a DVD decoder card. Not the ATI Rage Fury 32Mb that has DVD decoding? It is only a $70 card. Any suggestions on brands fro video cards and decoder cards?