6600GT as an HTPC video card

[SlitheryDee]

Well I'm trying to work out the components for a decent HTPC and I've seen on a couple HTPC oriented websites that Geforce 6 series cards (particularly the vanilla 6600 passive cooled models) are very popular. I hooked my main rig (equipped with a 6600GT /w s-video out) to my television as a little test. I must say the image quality was awful, most text was blurry and unreadable in games and all webpages or documents of any kind were unreadable.

I should note that I didn't do any extensive testing as far as various resolutions in games or applications. After the fact, (my computer is now reunited with it's original monitor) it has occurred to me that I might need to hit the television's "native" resolution in order to get any sort of clarity.

For the record this is the closest thing I could find to my card on Newegg. It is an AGP XFX 6600GT /w core clock 500mhz memclock 1000mhz, has 2 DVI ports and one S-video port. My main question is whether the blurriness I'm experiencing is a resolution issue, a fault inherent in the 6600GT, or perhaps a fault inherent in connecting a video card to a television via an S-video cable. Can anyone help me?

 

[SonicIce]

maybe this is the nature of svideo

 

[SlitheryDee]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
maybe this is the nature of svideo

I've considered this, but does anyone have an HTPC connected to their television using an S-video cable with satisfactory results? It may not be a good comparison, but I've had an xbox connected to the same TV playing the same game (madden 2005) with an S-video cable
and had much better image quality.

 

[TerryMathews]

What resolution are you running?

For S-Video, you ideally want to run 640x480, and no more than 800x600.

The card and drivers will adjust the display settings to look _slightly_ better on a TV if you don't have a regular monitor connected as well.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Originally posted by: TerryMathews
What resolution are you running?

For S-Video, you ideally want to run 640x480, and no more than 800x600.

The card and drivers will adjust the display settings to look _slightly_ better on a TV if you don't have a regular monitor connected as well.

I believe I was running at 1024x768, possibly 800x600 (this was a couple weeks ago). Perhaps this is the problem then, I'll have to try at 640x480 to be sure I suppose.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee

Originally posted by: SonicIce
maybe this is the nature of svideo

I've considered this, but does anyone have an HTPC connected to their television using an S-video cable with satisfactory results? It may not be a good comparison, but I've had an xbox connected to the same TV playing the same game (madden 2005) with an S-video cable
and had much better image quality.

Svideo? Cmon man, you can't even call your computer a HTPC if your using your video card's Svideo output. Get with the times, you'll need a new display that accepts DVI,VGA, or HDMI at the very least. It's not even worth the trouble if your gonna use S-video. Displays are coming down in price too so you should prob. wait until you can afford one and do your HTPC right 🙂

 

[SlitheryDee]

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee

Originally posted by: SonicIce
maybe this is the nature of svideo

I've considered this, but does anyone have an HTPC connected to their television using an S-video cable with satisfactory results? It may not be a good comparison, but I've had an xbox connected to the same TV playing the same game (madden 2005) with an S-video cable
and had much better image quality.

Svideo? Cmon man, you can't even call your computer a HTPC if your using your video card's Svideo output. Get with the times, you'll need a new display that accepts DVI,VGA, or HDMI at the very least. It's not even worth the trouble if your gonna use S-video. Displays are coming down in price too so you should prob. wait until you can afford one and do your HTPC right 🙂

I agree wholeheartedly, but I already have a video card that has both a DVI and an S-video port and most of the components for an acceptable HTPC. What I mean to say is that I can build an HTPC now with very little expense and still be able to use a better display with a DVI input in the future. I'm wondering if I can make S-video work for the moment. When I am ready my HTPC will be fully capable of driving a higher quality display. Or am I missing something here...😕

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee

Originally posted by: Sudheer Anne

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee

Originally posted by: SonicIce
maybe this is the nature of svideo

I've considered this, but does anyone have an HTPC connected to their television using an S-video cable with satisfactory results? It may not be a good comparison, but I've had an xbox connected to the same TV playing the same game (madden 2005) with an S-video cable
and had much better image quality.

Svideo? Cmon man, you can't even call your computer a HTPC if your using your video card's Svideo output. Get with the times, you'll need a new display that accepts DVI,VGA, or HDMI at the very least. It's not even worth the trouble if your gonna use S-video. Displays are coming down in price too so you should prob. wait until you can afford one and do your HTPC right 🙂

I agree wholeheartedly, but I already have a video card that has both a DVI and an S-video port and most of the components for an acceptable HTPC. What I mean to say is that I can build an HTPC now with very little expense and still be able to use a better display with a DVI input in the future. I'm wondering if I can make S-video work for the moment. When I am ready my HTPC will be fully capable of driving a higher quality display. Or am I missing something here...😕

ah, I see your point. Well your Svideo out largely depends on your video card, for best results you obviously would want to output at the resolution of your television. Other than that there is not much you can do really.

 

[TheCanuck]

That's the nature of using an SDTV with s-video. Text is practically unreadable unless you're at a 640x480 (perhaps 800x600) resolution. When I hook my laptop up to the TV it's very hard to read text at 1024x768 but movies look fine when playing.

If you get a decent frontend program like gbpvr / myhtpc / meedio / mythtv etc then you might have better results since those are setup to output larger fonts & more readable on a TV. But you'll still be limited to 800x600 or lower.

When I first built my HTPC I tried it with just the s-video connection and it sucked. Ended up buying a 32" widescreen CRT to use instead. That way I could use VGA @ 1280x720 and was able to finally read the desktop. Unfortunately it's now gathering dust in Vancouver since I had to move back east again.

Best thing you can do is buy an HDTV (perhaps a DLP / LCD projection) that accepts either VGA / DVI / HDMI. Might want to get a newer one that is HDCP compliant -- at least then you won't have problems with Blu-ray or HD-DVD.

 

[jdkick]

Both myself and a friend ran into this about 2 years ago... I was using a 9500Pro and he was using a 9600XT. We both found the output quality via s-video to be horrendous, regardless of the resolution. We did a bit of digging and found that ATI cards with the "Rage Theatre" chip (usually found on the All-In-Wonder cards, and a few others) had much more superior video out quality... at least compared to generic tv-out hardware.

Anyway, he ended up moving to an nVidia card (FX5200 I believe) and found the quality improved a great deal. He's also quite happy with the results he gets on a regular non-HD tube via s-video and uses the machine daily as a PVR, so I don't agree with the above suggestions that the OP buy a new television.

I personally scrapped the project, but intend to revisit it one day when I have the time.