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Graphics card for HTPC

ubern00b

ubern00b

ubern00b

Soldato
Joined
25 Nov 2004
Posts
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Anyone got any advice or first hand experiance with a graphics card choice for an HTPC. Its a tossup between a 8400/8500 or a 2400/2600. I have read in the past about problems with ATI or nVidia and this driver not supporting x mode or not having y feature. Just wondered the current state of drivers and any known bugs etc that may exist before I buy a card. I will be outputing to a Samsung LE40R87BDX @ 1360x768 using DVI - HDMI. Mostly xvid and x264 encodes will be watched.

Just had to send back an MSI HD2400Pro twice as both cards were DOA so I havent had a fantastic introduction to the 2400 but it could just be MSI's fault, or anything really. Anyway any thoughts or inputs you have are welcome and appreciated :)
 
Im impressed with my 8500GT under Vista Media Center. Good performance and picture, the Nvidia drivers have come along way when it comes to VMC in the last year. I wouldnt bother with a 8400, as they are barely cheaper and dont have so much umph when it comes to decoding.

2600 is meant to be good too, but the 2400 is a little underpowered for HD.
 
I personally prefer the Nvidia Cards myself for the Video Playback. Last ATI Card I had was a 9700Pro.

Both have pros and cons but for most people boils down to personal preference.
 
If you have a dual core CPU, then a older gen basic card will do. I'm using a ATI X300 and everything plays fine0 including 1080p movies, to a Samsung 1080p screen, I don't have Blu-Ray/HD-DVD though.

So basically £25 second hand card to a 2600Pro.
 
I wont be using it for hardware decoding as I dont have HDDVD or BluRay (yet) and as far as I am still aware DXVA just doesnt work for x264/mkv playback. The system is an E6400 @ 3.2 so plenty grunt for playing back just about anything I suspect.

Was more wondering about driver support I suppose, as I read on various other forums about a bug in nVidia drivers that give strange artifacts if the video resolution isnt MOD16 (divisible by 16). Dont know if its been fixed in recent drivers or not. Dont know of any bugs in ATI's drivers but that doesnt mean there arent any.

From the replys so far it appears its much of a muchness, as mdjmcnally says, personal preference I guess, and I have none. Just want whichever works! Thanks for the input everyone :)
 
It mostly depends on what OS. If your using XP, then virtually any card will do what you want. But if its Vista, then you'll need the latest models, as support for older cards like Nvidia 6/7xxx is somewhat lacking. e.g I had a 6600GT and 7300GT that worked great with Purevideo/MCE05, but in VMC they were just rubbish - shuved in a 8500GT and everything started to work properly.
 
Havent decided yet what I want. Vista MCE or MediaPortal. First thing that struck me with MediaPortal was the lack of mouse navigation, specially when watching a film (fast forward, pause etc) it all seemed to be keyboard commands. MCE on the other hand was fantastic with a nice OSD if you moved the mouse to the bottom of the screen. Anyway I guess this is a whole other discussion but I would want something that gives me the option to go in whichever direction I choose.

I was looking at an XFX 8500GT 512MB Passive card (256MB version was only £5 cheaper) so I thought at least if I wanted to get a game in here or there I had that option too.

Oh, nVidia control panel changed entirely to the new interface or do hacks etc still exist to get the old style panel up and running?
 
For a video card I would recommend one from the current generation that off loads the decoding from the cpu as it helps to keep a htpc cooler and quieter (if you use a passively cooled card) and tends to produce a better image.

For OS, I'd go for VMC with a the proper remote and a compatable tv card as the new interface is really nice and a doddle to set up. Also as the post above, the video playback is also better with new generation cards and VMC.

The microsoft mpeg codec in VMC is good too. I saw a definite improvement when I switched from XP with cyberlink codec to Vista.
 
badbob said:
Mouse works in Media Portal.
Click to expand...

What am I doing wrong then! Should I be moving the mouse to a specific spot to bring up the OSD or something? Even when pressing Y on the keyboard to get the OSD, using the mouse to try move the progress bar didnt do anything. I guess I just fail at MediaPortal :(
 
Until you put a blu ray or hd-dvd optical drive in ther I wouldn't bother with a videocard and use an on board solution

The cyberlink decoder is the only one I've seen any evidence of dxva with using a 2600xt and that is only for h264 and mpeg2. It provides not hardware acceleration for vc-1

The problem is that the cyberlink h264 codec is incompatible with the majority of .mkv files encoded using x264 due to a problem with reference frames.

For me this means that without installing powerdvd and just using coreAVC I get all hd playback in VMC perfectly using cpu only decoding on a be-2350

Once I install powerdvd I can no longer specify an individual codec for VMC so I am forced to use KM player or Media player classive for .mkv's
 
I know all about DXVA2 and x264/mkv's :( I had an old P4 which I stuck a 2400Pro into with this purpose in mind and I was quite upset to find it didnt work. Your quite right, Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.x is the only codec licensed to use DXVA2 (and it does accellerate VC-1 although VC-1 isnt nearly as CPU intensive to decode as x264).

After you install PowerDVD it automatically sets the merits on its codecs to higher than everything else and this is why it would be using those codecs. There are programs like GSpot what will allow you to set the merits yourself on your system to the codecs you prefer.

CoreAVC is a fast decoder, but visually not the best. FFDSHOW is heralded as, quality wise, the best x264 decoder. Its a lot slower tho, but if you want quality Thats what you have to sacrifice.
 
After much reading it seems your right. I was sure I had VC-1 accellerated but it was obviously my mistake, must have been an mpeg2 or avc encode.
 
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