Why do DVD players need an AGP graphics card?

[1Cheap2Crazy]

I have a cheap MB with onboard graphics(no AGP slot). I just bought a DVD player, but noticed that it requires an AGP graphics card. It says that it won't work with onboard or PCI graphics. What is so important about an AGP card that a DVD player needs it? I would hate to have to buy a new MB and graphics card and well I'm at it, a new cpu. Has anyone tried a DVD player with onboard graphics?


Thanks

 

[Sheriff]

They need some sort of decoder whether software or hardware based. You can get an add on card or try some Software but buying a new graphics card would be a better avenue as the Software stuff eats up a lot of Proccessor Power. All becuase it doesn't support a PCI graphics card doesn't neccesarily mean 1 won't work.

 

[Peter]

They don't. There are plenty PCI and even chipset integrated graphics cards that do have DVD decoder hardware, and play DVDs just fine. SiS has had that in for ages (since 1997), ATi followed soon after.

 

[beatle]

Yup, Peter's right. Even if your pci (or onboard) video card doesn't support hardware decoding acceleration, you can still play a dvd with a software based program such as PowerDVD. I did this for a while on my Celeron 450 and a FireGL card that had no DVD acceleration.

 

[1Cheap2Crazy]

Thanks everyone. I guess I'll try and install it one of these days.