Radeon 4650 - Help With A Couple Of Issues

[mallik]

Hi, I am running a Radeon 4650 mainly for media, and I am having some issues. The main issue I am having is with video playback. It's hard to describe it, but it's often jagged. There are lines and flickering, especially when there is more action in the video sequence.

The other issues have to do with configuration and getting it set up how I want it. I have the system hooked up to my standard monitor, as well as my TV through HDMI. When I turn on the system it will come up on the monitor but in order for it to show up on the TV I have to go into the ATI Control Panel, enable the secondary display (TV) and then clone it with the monitor.

The only way it will automatically display on the TV is if I have it set to the proper video input before turning on the system. Even then sometimes the audio doesn't work and I have to unplug the HDMI cable and plug it back in.

I installed the latest drivers but that made it worse. Now when I clone the desktop onto the TV, it shows up in 4:3 just like it is on the monitor. If I change the settings to the proper resolution for the TV, it looks fine on the TV but stops displaying on the monitor.

I just want it to automatically display on both the monitor and TV when I turn on the system. Any help with these issues as well as the video playback issue would be appreciated.

 

[BushLin]

I had most of the issues you're describing with a 3870 and a 4850 card having upgraded from a system with a 7800GT (AGP) which had no problems over HDMI. If I changed input on the TV I'd either have to re-configure the displays using the second monitor or re-plug the HDMI to get the picture back, at one point I had some hotkeys setup to quicken this but it was far from ideal.
I think the default setting for how colours are sent (to be fair, I don't remember this bit as well) isn't optimal (4:4:4 RGB?) and can make the image look crap even at the correct resolution.
There also seems to be a problem with the audio going into a power saving mode and taking a second or so to fire up again, by which time you've missed the sound.

In the end I gave up and bought a GTS 250 and have no problems... although the sound isn't carried over HDMI on my model, others have an internal connector for this but my TV can take sound separately so it wasn't an issue.

 

[mallik]

Thanks. So it's a problem with the card and there is really nothing I can do?

Did you have the video playback problems as well? Were they resolved when you switched cards?

 

[BushLin]

I don't think it's fair to say there's nothing you can do, this was earlier in the year and maybe there are fixes or workarounds now. I don't recall video playback issues but the cards didn't stay in the system for long.

Perhaps cards with built in HDMI connections don't suffer from this but I've not seen these issues mentioned anywhere other than places like AV forums, I'm surprised it doesn't get mentioned in reviews because the HDMI support was shocking on the cards I tried.