Help select an HTPC AGP card

[mazeroth]

I'll be hooking an older Athlon 1.4ghz computer with AGP up to my new Hitachi CRT 51" HDTV that has an HDMI input. I was looking to get a low-end GeForce 6200 but after reading a review on Newegg about the eVGA I'm not so sure:

Cons: I gave it a low rating because it doesn't appear to work for my application. Using DVI out to HDMI into my Sony HDTV results in very blurry text and graphics. PNY's tech support's response was that they did not support that type of connection. A 6 year old ATI AIW 16meg card worked great using the same connection.


Is this true for all 6200 series cards? I was looking at the Radeon 9250 series and GeForce FX5200/FX5500s but want to make sure the DVI out will be as clear as I can get it. I will use it mainly as an MP3 server (nice stereo hooked up in TV room) and want to make sure my guests and I can easily read the text. I will also use it to play some older sports games and some emulation stuff but output quality is my #1 priority. If I can keep it under $50 that would be great.

Thanks!

 

[mazeroth]

Up

 

[Fraggable]

I may be wrong, but I don't think HDMI output is supposed to really work until the next generation of cards come out with DX10 support.

 

[mazeroth]

On my main computer I tried the DVI out to HDMI on my X1900XT and it worked just fine. An HDMI is just a DVI with audio on the same cable, nothing else.

 

[mazeroth]

Any other recommendations?

 

[nullpointerus]

I remember reading in a few AT articles that nVidia's drivers offer better support for HDTV resolutions, but I don't have any first-hand knowledge of this. As a different approach, you might try checking some HTPC forums for the model number of your TV to see if someone else got it working and if so how they did it.

EDIT: DVI is digital, so every card that supports the right resolution setup for your TV (which usually takes some work to find out!) will have the same display quality. The person who complained about the DVI quality of one card over the other probably just misconfigured one of them and ended up triggering the TV's scaler accidentally.

 

[mazeroth]

Anyone else care to comment?

 

[brandonr23]

check out www.avsforums.com in the HTPC area.

 

[mazeroth]

I've already posted there. Not much help