Whats my bottleneck? And a question about temperatures

[coolred]

Currently have an ECS K7S5A, with a 2100+, 2x256MB Crucial PC2100 and an ATI AIW radeon 8500DV.
I know its not the speediest system, and it doesn't need to be. I mainly only play RTS's like rise of nations and the Age of games. I am also building an HTPC/PVR and I think the 8500DV would make a nice fit in with it, so that gives me the option to upgrade the video card in my main system. I am thinking to an 9600pro or XT. While I am sure this wouldn't hurt any, if the memory or processor is gonna be the limiting factor, then theres not much point spending the extra money on a new card. But the video car dis the oldest part inthe system, so I wouldn't be surprised if it is the lacking component.

Question 2, how do the temps on the low end A64 chips compare to mid to upper range of XP's????

Basically the 2800+ and 3000+, compared to the 2600+ to 3000+ XP's

 

[pelikan]

I think a video card and 1GB of ram would help your system quite a bit for gaming. I would just upgrade one thing at a time until you have the performance you are after.

 

[coolred]

Like i said, I don't do much gaming, and mainly only easily handled stuff. I can't say that my system is slow when playing the games I play, it seems fine to me. But I just think that maybe the 8500DV would be better suited in the HTPC, maybe I am wrong, will have to keep thinking. So I could either leave the 8500DV where it is and get a real low level radeon card just for TV out, or I could use the 8500DV in the HTPC, again mainly for the TV. ThenI would require a new card in my main system. Nothing fancy. I think a 9600Pro would be plenty, but may opt for the XT since its usually not too much more.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

You might want to try the TV out on that 8500 if that's what you'll be using for your HTPC. It seems 8500's (and 9100's) have a problem with S-video at 800x600. There's this 'film' covering the whole image with noticeable colored splotches. There was a huge thread about this at Rage3D, and I have gone through both a 8500 and 9100 and experienced it.

Also, a 9600 would probably be a worthwhile upgrade if you do any gaming at all.

And I also wouldn't invest in another 512MB of PC2100. 768MB total should do you if 512MB isn't getting the job done.

 

[coolred]

Hmm, well then, a couple questions. I just tested it out a little last night, since I thought I had used it before. It seemed fine to me, obviously most of the tex was unreadable, but a DVD played on it look OK. COuld you give me a little more detail about it, you said it is very noticeable?

I am checking rage for the thread.

Is this a problem with just the TV out? My TV while being standard definition does allow for component inputs, would using the ATI HDTV adaptor work better?

Also I tested it last night with composite, since I couldn't find a long enough svideo cord at the time,

 

[coolred]

OK, I found the thread at rage and will look through it, but now that I think about it, this sounds somewhat familiar to me. Are you absolutely sure this is a problem on the AIW 8500DV? Like I said it seems only vaugely familiar and it would have been quite a while ago that I read about it. But something in the back of my mind is saying this problem somehow did not effect the AIW 8500DV.

 

[coolred]

I must admit though that I have only on a couple of rare occasions used TV out before. While the DVD looked good enough(needed some adjustments, but didn't notice any artifacts or anything) as I said text was unreadbale, I started up rise of nations and that would have kinda of been a pain to play, cause it was pretty small, and wouldn't let me change the reslution to something other then 1024x768.

Is there really any benefit though running at anything higher then 640x480 on a standard definition TV? I mean it can't handle the extra line sof 800x600 or 1024x768, right? I mainly want to use this to output the SageTV software, and DVD's. But it would be cool to actually be able to game and browse the web on it as well, if I can make it lookgood enough to read.

Maybe I am having the problem you describe and that is what is causing my problem, but it doesn't sound like what you described. Also whe I orignally plugged it in and set it up, I think the resolution was set to 1024x768 and this cut off the bottom and right sides by a couple inches. Is this just a product of not being able to handle that high of a resolution?

 

[robcy]

I would suggest that you use the 8500 for the HT box, and get a 9600PRO-XT/5700Ultra for the gaming rig. The diffrence in performance between what you have and one of these cards is pretty significant. The AIW8500 is a great card, I have one on my HTPC, and it works great. It does the duties of TIVO, DVD player, connects to the server which holds all of my movies, plus my cable channels are run throught it.

 

[coolred]

Okay after comparing composite 640x480 and 800x600 to Svideo at the same res.'s I think I may see what your talking about. The 640x480 looks fine, crystal clear, whiel the 800x600 is like you said, kinda flat like it has a film over it. I can't say for sure if I noticed the blotchyness you spoke of. This is th eonly card I have ever used the TV out on, and even then only a couple times. I think i just assumed it looked bad since the TV wasn't setup to handle that resolution.

Like I said this will mainly be a PVR/HTPC, so as long as it can display the stuff required of those duties, thats fine. Gaming would be nice and may be possible, although those RTS's I like have some small text inthe game and its hard to read even at 640x480. Browsing the net would be sweet, but not many pages are setup for 640x480 anymore, so there would be a ton of scrolling, so that I am not too worried about.

But then again the more I think about it, all the 8500DV gives me is basically the TV out and the breakout box. I won't need the SPDIF out, since my motherboard will have it. The RCA in could come in handy at some time, although I can't think of anything specific right now, and the RCA/svideo out will do the same thing as the Tv out on any video card, right? I won't really be using the tuner, since I am using sageTV and it only uses hardware encoder cards. So should I maybe try to sell it and get one of the low end radeons in its place in the HTPC, and then a 9600 in my main rig?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

A flat gray background should make the splotches noticeable, or somewhat solid colors moving around - the splotches are static so they will stand out. Again, this is only at 800x600 over s-video. Any other resolution should be fine, even a custom one like 720x540. I looked for the thread last night at rage3d but couldn't find it. It might be so old it has been pruned out by now. I just wanted to warn you of some potential frustration. It's really your call if it's worth it to sell off the 8500 and get another card. If you can get around using 800x600, or if it's not that noticeable to you, I'd say just use it unless there is a significant price difference between what you can get for selling it and a lower end card you could use instead.