Best relatively cheap all-around PCI card w/video out??

[Parrotheader]

Basically, I'm trying to figure out what my options are. Here's what I'd like to do ideally:

I have two higher-powered systems for my main work/play in the office upstairs. I'm about to network my third/lower-powered system in via HPNA in the basement. That system is going to be used primarily as a dog webcam server during the day (I figure why not) and will be used as a general surfing/spare gaming machine at night. I also want to use it to watch my increasingly extensive DIVX library (via network since the files are stored on my main systems upstairs.) I'll only have a 15" monitor in the basement, but I do have a 25" TV I use when I'm working out. I figure if I have a card with video out, I could just run it out to the TV and watch the movies on that when I'm working out instead of the tiny little monitor.

I'd also like it to be a half-way competent little gaming card, although it doesn't have to be cutting edge since it'll only be on a 15" monitor (800x600 will probably be the normal gaming resolution.) Right now the system doesn't have the power to push a good video card (it's a K6-2 400), but after my next system upgrade that unit will be replaced by my Celeron 600@900 so it'll have a lot more gusto and could handle a decent card then. But since I don't know when I'll be making my next system upgrade, the card needs to be PCI since my K6 system doesn't have AGP. Any suggestions?

Forgot to add, this system will be running W2K Professional Edition with no plans to upgrade the OS for the foreseeable future.

 

[Parrotheader]

I may have just partially answered my own question after poking around some. ATI's older 32MB Radeon SDR was available in the retail package with PCI and TV output. I could pick one of them up for $79 plus there's a $30 rebate on them. It wouldn't be mind blowing speed probably, but at 800x600 it should be plenty fast once a faster chip is matched up with it.

Are there any GeForce2MX varieties of this worth looking at?

 

[Engr62]

If you put a Radeon SDR PCI card in your K6-2 system, you will get pretty bad gaming performance. I replaced an ATI AIW 128 PCI video card in my K6-2 450 Mhz system a while back, and I got poorer performance in Quake 3 with the Radeon (~ 18 fps) than I got with my 128 (~ 19 fps) at 640x480. The Direct3D games did appear to run slightly faster, but I didn't have a benchmark to get hard numbers. When I put the Radeon SDR PCI into a PIII 600, the Quake 3 fps went up to 59 fps at 640x480 and 50 fps at 800x600 -- not blisteringly fast, but much better than on the K6-2.

I have recently relegated the Radeon SDR PCI card to my DivX player/computer (K6-2+ 450 Mhz) which I have hooked up to my TV. On that system, the DivX movies play great, and the output on the TV looks near DVD quality (except the sound is only stereo). I get about 23 fps on this system in Quake 3 in 800x600 on my TV with this system.

I like the TV output of the ATI cards (although I've never gotten to see a Matrox card's TV output which I'm sure is better). The Radeons seem to play DivX files better than others I've tested (Voodoo3, TNT2)--I know that they don't have any acceleration for DivX files, but maybe their DirectX interface helps with the smoothness of the movie.

 

[Parrotheader]

Thanks Engr62. You seem to have almost the exact same setup I currently have for you Radeon PCI system (and even using it for the same purpose . . . DIVX.) I realize the games will be pretty chunky on the K6-2 system, but it hardly ever gets used for that right now. It only gets pushed into gaming service when I have two people over (currently uses a Voodoo2 for games.) My main immediate concern is DIVX playback on the TV via video out. Once that card is matched up with my Celeron 600@900 I'm fairly sure it would offer pretty decent performance. I was actually able to track down a few reviews of the card when it first debuted and it seemed to do rather well in games when compared to the GeForce2MX. Granted, NVIDIA drivers have improved a lot since then, but ATI's aren't as bad as they used to be either. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Engr62]

I hope the info helps you out. Be careful though when looking at the reviews of this card. For instance, the review here on AnandTech of the Radeon 32 Mb SDR card is actually the AGP version and not the PCI version. The game performance numbers for the AGP version are much higher than you will get with the PCI version. Good luck with the upgrade.