Inexperienced user question: can I play high def dvds with my new 8600GT?

[plautus]

I have an ASUS A8VE-Deluxe, AMD 3800, 1 GB RAM, M-Audio sound card, LCD. Just curious.

Thanks!

 

[lyssword]

yes, 8600 has HD acceleration

 

[SolMiester]

Doesnt the O/S have to be Vista and everything else HD compliant?

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: lyssword
yes, 8600 has HD acceleration

More precisely, the 8600GTS will playback HDCP discs at full resolution.

Some 8600GT cards will playback HDCP discs at full rez, some won't. For those that won't, drop your desktop rez to 1280x800. You lose high-def rez, but you can watch the disc.

Both the card and the LCD monitor needs to support dual-link DVI.

Originally posted by: SolMiester
Doesnt the O/S have to be Vista and everything else HD compliant?

You can install a capable version of the player on XP as well.

 

[taltamir]

you need the right combination of OS, Drivers, and software (ie, the DVD playback software)... So 90% chance you will be running it using the CPU rather then the GPU.

Anyways your CPU is fast enough to play this so you don't NEED the video acceleration from your video card. So just running it with any DVD playback capable software is good (I would recommend media player classic).

 

[Binky]

The card is capable but not all 8600 cards are HDCP compliant. Your monitor also needs to be HDCP compliant (unless you use the right software tools...).

AnyDVD should remove any HDCP issues.

PowerDVD Ultra should play the DVD's just fine.

The LG blu-ray/HD-DVD combo drive will play all three types of DVD's.
Edit: the LG drive comes with a version of PowerDVD that will work fine, but it is slightly crippled because it does not output full 5.1 audio. I may be wrong on this, but i do know that it is slightly crippled in the audio output. But, it will play the DVD's and save you $100.

(If you're adding up cost, that's about $430 so far.)

Vista...not sure. That's how I play my HD stuff, but I don't remember if it's required or not.