Buy what video card for HD playback?

[jal]

I'm a non-techie.

I am asking for suggestions about what video card to purchase. Here's my situation.


Having trouble with HD playback on my Placeshifter PC.

I wouldn't mind switching to Client instead of PlaceShifter if that will help (just thought of that, haven't tried it).


Anyway the main problem seems to be the video card, I'm using an ATI 9200 SE Radeon with TV-Out, which I believe is 8X AGP, well it's in my AGP slot anyway.

My PlaceShifter PC's motherboard is a Asus K8u-X with Athlon 64 2800 plus, 754 pin. 1 Gig RAM, 10,000 RPM hard drive. The AGP slot is 8x.


HD playback appears to work somewhat but is consuming too much CPU, the main problem being that when i try to do anything different such as stop playback it literally takes about 3 minutes before that menu even appears, until then i can't even stop playback as to view a different movie. HD playback works fine on the server, and I've got a Media Extender on trial which is doing good with HD playback except for a slight stutter.


So I pulled the video card from my the server PC and tried it on the placeShifter PC. This ttime the Stop Playback menu came up in about five seconds after the mouse-click(I'm good with that). Still using a lot of CPU, though, because I really couldn't do anything with Wordpad while the video was playing (not really a problem because I usually don't multitask when I watch SageTV). Also had stuttering huge.


I need HD playback both on the Server and on the PlaceShifter PC (my sister uses the Server).


So I need to buy a video card. I don't play games, so I don' want to shell out top dollar. I went to compusa.com to find a video card but don't know what to buy.


http://www.compusa.com/products/prod...rice%7C0#sort1


Anyone care to go to this site and make some suggestions for my purchase?

(BTW, upgrading the 9200 SE Radeo driver didn't seem to help).

[mcaron1234]

AGP DX10 cards

Assuming you don't want to upgrade your whole system to get a PCI express video card, the above link has all the AGP flavors of DX10 cards available at newegg right now. The choice of those cards is basically how much you want to spend. The more expensive the more power in the GPU. If you game at all on your PC I'd get the 2600XT because of it is the only one ddr3 memory.

Really though, if you have the dough I'd consider upgrading to a current C2D or Athlon X2. I think you'll find the whole HD viewing experience much better with more power in your hardware. I tried the just upgrade the video card thing and was completely put off by how picky the drivers for these cards are (nvidia specially, but ati too) in terms of what it will hard assist decode. I'm running a C2D E6550 (with a modest overclock, 2.8 ghz) ATI 2600XT and my PC can play anything I through at it with out worrying about whether the video card is accelerating the decode. I think my upgrade was ~500 for new motherboard, 2 gigs memory, proc and video card. Anyway, I hope this helps.

Matt

[jal]

I decided to go the video card route for the moment, and I pray it doesn't give me he!! to pay.

I went with the BFG Geforce 7300 GT AGP8x for $149.99 at CompUsa.


This was the first time I have used a video card with an (internal) power cord!


Anyway I just put it in five minutes ago and I was VERY satisfied - I tried the the one thing that was paining me - HD playback.


This time I could access the stop-playback menu within one second. What a difference! And the colors are crisp, brilliant and beautiful. Did I happen to mention there was no stutter? Yes !!!!


I am knocking on wood, because, just like you say, the drivers can be a real headache sometimes.