New AGP card

[Raduque]

I'm currently running a 9700Pro to feed my HDTV. I'm looking to upgrade to something that supports hardware video acceleration of HD content, because a 9700Pro isn't going to last forever.

And yes, I REALLY do want an AGP card, because I don't particularly feel like buying another MCE license, or spending $200 on a mobo and CPU.

So, which has the better HD support these days, ATI or nVidia? And can I actually get any of that support in an AGP card?

 

[tuteja1986]

ATI :! the best you could get would be X1600XT AGP but that sucks for gaming... AVIVO wins
On Nvidia you get 7800gs which priced really high for the performance it delievers but its best Gaming AGP card. Pure Video cost $20 i think , ATI AVIVO is free.

if your not looking to play games , then get a X1600XT AGP and enjoy your HD Acceleration.

 

[BassBomb]

7600GS/GT

 

[Wreckage]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130051

 

[tuteja1986]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102666

if your going to video encoding , then ATI AVIVO converts wins out right as its the fastest free Video Converter ... beats all $30 to $150 video conveter by more 2x encoding speed.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
then ATI AVIVO converts wins out right as its the fastest free Video Converter

H.264 is not free with AVIVO you have to buy the decoder from Cyberlink

 

[Raduque]

Forgot to mention, no gaming, and I'm using DVI out to DVI. I'm not going to be encoding or transcoding, just pure playback.

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
then ATI AVIVO converts wins out right as its the fastest free Video Converter

H.264 is not free with AVIVO you have to buy the decoder from Cyberlink

I'm currently using CoreAVC (the old free one, and thinking about buying the new pay one), how does the Cyberlink decoder compare, will it be faster on an AVIVO vidcard then CoreAVC is on my 1.8GHz CPU?

 

[Auric]

See doom9 and stay tuned to compression.ru for their forthcoming third AVC decoder comparision.

Paying for CoreAVC would seem foolhardy compared to PowerDVD which includes many more decoders although it can be rather pricey retail so perhaps buying the AVC add-on for an OEM version is a viable option. As said in 'nutha thread, the Cyberlink decoder supports both nVidia and ATi hardware functions.

I think CoreAVC and ffdshow AVC are best suited to borderline hardware where disabling the standard deblocking is desirable to achieve full frame rates at the cost of quality. Fine for a novelty in my opine, but not an HTPC.

The 7600GT is the best for both gaming and video. The current X16xx solutions are certainly slower at gaming, the 7800GS is overpriced and neither it nor the 7600GS sport the same PureVideo functions.

Of course, if gaming is not important the X1600 will save some scratch but one caveat is that ATi only claimed adequate acceleration of 720 but not 1080 so look into that. Perhaps a CPU upgrade would be a more viable and better bang for the rupee option?

Other than lacking AVC decode, what's wrong with the 9700 given a peppy 'nuff CPU? If the current CPU is so bleh, a viddy card may not be able to make up the difference.

 

[Raduque]

Here's something else I didn't think of: will ALL the PowerDVD codecs work in MCE?

As for the CPU, it's an AthlonXP Barton 2500+. I'm guessing that's not really grunty enough for HD decoding, though it works fine with CoreAVC.

And I'd really like to avoid having to buy a new copy of MCE as I mentioned, but if my current HTPC isn't good enough for HD, I guess I can always just sell or hand down the current mobo/cpu/ram/vid (along with it's MCE license). It makes a great DVD and SD upscaler.

Maybe I will just leave it alone till CableCard sorts itself out and see what Vista brings to the table.

edit: BTW, I'm in the US... I'm a Texican

edit2: just noticed that the PCIe 6800nu supports h.264 decode acceleration using PureVideo... maybe I will upgrade my HTPC to PCIe and use my spare 6800nu. I was under the impression only 7x series cards supported it.

 

[Auric]

I'm not familiar with MCE but suspect the PDVD codecs would work since they do in MPC.

Unfortunately, AthlonXP (and Celeron) are just not very good at HD decoding. HT or dual core makes a significant difference. Worse, AthlonXP lacks SSE2+ and that could be a fly in your nVidia ointment since it is apparently a requirement for PureVideo DXVA decoding. In lieu of hardware acceleration, nVidia gear performs significantly worse than ATi so the 6800 could be a downgrade from the 9700 with the same CPU.

So, you may want to revisit the X16xx option but certainly with more research in any case. FYI, the Cyberlink AVC decoder is available for $15 for AVIVO (not sure if that is an actual limitation or if the package would work just the same as that included with (or added to) PDVD.

Is the AthlonXP managing 1080p with CoreAVC? If so, why change. If not, what's the deal with the MCE license? Is it not transferable to new hardware? If not can it not be sold with?