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new Graphics card for my dad old system

crazyk

crazyk

crazyk

Associate
Joined
9 Feb 2007
Posts
28
Hey Guys

My dad got an old pc that he wants to full high quality video from it without
It stuttering.

Now understand this is an old 6 year system using AGP card slot.

His Mobo is an
AK790-400VN Apoen

Processor
AMD XP2100+
1.7GH Socket A 462

And his current graphics card is
6600GT and he running at 1650/1080

Just wondering what AGP card could I get to upgrade the
6600GT as that all I need to upgrade.


Thank for your help guys
 
To get the full benefits of decoding video on the GPU you really need to be on Linux with a relatively modern Nvidia card (as ATI isn't that mature in Linux) or using Vista/Windows7 and DXVA2, and with a computer that old, he's almost certainly on WinXP which only supports DXVA1 and is a lot more limited in the file support.
To decode videos with the GPU, you need
1) GPU with support for the file type and encode being viewed
2) a player/codec capable of utilising hardware acceleration [MPC-HC Classic]
3) DXVA Platform with support for the filetype/encode in use

DXVA1(Windows XP) is a lot more limited than DXVA2 which is what Vista/7 use. What this means is that even with a modern card with fairly decent video codec support, Windows XP will limit what types of files can be played back using the graphics card.

The other thing is that the system itself is extremely slow by modern standards, even with DXVA he may find extremely demanding videos like Blu-ray rips may not run as well as they could, or may fall out of sync due to overheads and the work the CPU does have to do. (especially if subtitle rendering comes into it)

For video decoding though, theres very little point going for the 4670 over the 4350...this is presuming you it IS video decoding you're after rather than 3d performance.
 
Last edited:
i suppose a cpu upgrade would be good but that would mean an entire system upgrade

lack of motherboards that are agp with same socket would mean new mobo than new ram then new cpu then a pci-e gfx ;)
 
If he put a new graphics card in there, I doubt he would see any improvement so it would be throwing money away.

I did the same thing quite a while ago trying to keep an old AGP system alive, but at the end of the day I was left underwhelmed with the upgrade, and ending up spending more in the long run.
 
Get him an old 2500 Barton or a 3200XP i think it was & then buy the 4670.

Personally though i would look out for a 2nd hand system for him or at least a decent 2nd hand bundle to upgrade on the cheap.
 
crackerman said:
If he put a new graphics card in there, I doubt he would see any improvement so it would be throwing money away.

I did the same thing quite a while ago trying to keep an old AGP system alive, but at the end of the day I was left underwhelmed with the upgrade, and ending up spending more in the long run.
Click to expand...

true so i suppose the only way forward is a total upgrade, im sorry but the agp days are over ;)
 
It depends on what software he is using. If all the video crunching is moved to the graphics card the CPU would have little to do, and should get away with the 2100+.

But looking at OcUk's 4670 prices, you could pick up a AM2 dual core rig with a couple of gig of RAM and a decent GPU for less money.
 
jigger said:
It depends on what software he is using. If all the video crunching is moved to the graphics card the CPU would have little to do, and should get away with the 2100+.

But looking at OcUk's 4670 prices, you could pick up a AM2 dual core rig with a couple of gig of RAM and a decent GPU for less money.
Click to expand...

The CPU does still have to get involved especially where subtitles are involved though, so its quite possible he would still find it a limiting factor.
One of my friends is using a AMD 64 3700+ and he still can't expect everything to run with subs set to render at the same resolution as his tv, because the processing taken to do so in some cases causes slowdown and desyncs. :)

Also given the age of the system he's very likely to be on XP which limits the cases where DXVA accelleration can be used. (DXVA 2.0 is much more robust than 1.0 under XP)
 
billysielu said:
Grab a 400 quid ish prebuilt system off OCUK, job done.
Click to expand...

or you can get a xbox 360 used for £100 and play video's off there.

but anyway, that would a much cheaper better method, if your gna be fully upgrading.


you say full high quality. are we talking about HD stuff like 720p or just high resolution videos?


you may want to google this problem and find out how much a graphics card contributes to processing big videos. otherwise i stand with getting a cheap console to play the video's from if it comes to full system upgrade.
 
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