Graphics cards (PCI, AGP, PCIE)

[Rich78]

Just wondering what the deal is with the different standards for graphics cards?

Originally I was led to believe AGP was better than PCI, and now from what I've read PCIE is better than both AGP and PCI and AGP is going to become redundant over time?

Do I need a special socket for PCIE or will it connect in the usual PCI slot?

Also looking at a few cards and found PCIE to be the cheaper option? I'd have thought if it was better it would be more expensive.

Is the difference in sockets that much different.

My current card is a GeForce4 Ti4200 AGPx8, my motherboard will only run at AGPx4.

Now with the problem I'm having with my graphics card, if it turns out to be the graphics card I would like to upgrade it.

How much of a difference is there between the 5200 and the 6200?

The 6200 seems to offer the Purevideo support but is it that much better than what I have already, apart from the fault mine seems to be giving.

Thanks

[CHli]

Bandwidth:

PCIE > AGP > PCI

Compatibility :

PCIE is not compatible with PCI

Price :

PCIE is cheaper now because it's the most produced

Uprade options :

If you want to updgrade there are two options :

buy a passive FX5200 to play SD it's enough
or buy a passive 6600GT if you want to play HD

Have fun

[Rich78]

Thanks,

Don't know what you mean by passive :? but I have currently got a 4200 which plays HD fine, the problem I have is the text in windows seems to go all screwed, however this doesn't affect movie quality.

It's fine when I use VGA but when I use DVI it screws the text on the display.

How much better would a 6600 be? I need to really justify the cost.

Would it improve vastly over what I currently have?

I'm still not even certain it would fix the fault I have with the text but I can only assume it's the GFX card that's faulting.

[CHli]

Passive = Passive Cooling = Fanless, sorry for the shortcut.

Do you have a picture of your screwed text ?

What's your display ?

[Spragleknas]

My current card is a GeForce4 Ti4200 AGPx8, my motherboard will only run at AGPx4.
AGP 8X is a hype; you would not notice anything running on a "AGP X8-port.

How much of a difference is there between the 5200 and the 6200?
I belive the 6200 is cheaper, or same price, as the 5200 - so I'd go for the 6200 due to PureVideo suport. I also belive its cooler.

The 6200 seems to offer the Purevideo support but is it that much better than what I have already, apart from the fault mine seems to be giving.
A DX9 card will allwasy be good when using MP. You don't say much about your setup - If you have a s754 or s939, you shoul know that the 6150 (integrated gfx) has a better suport for PureVideo

[Tech Geek]

The GForce 4 card doesn't support DirectX 9 does it?

Plays HD video? Doesn't matter... a lot of other cards do until you try to use them with MediaPortal and some source formats are easier to play than others. You have to test it.
I had no difficulties with HD video outside of MediaPortal but major problems with the MediaPortal TV module.

AGP 8x has TWICE the bandwidth of 4x and you are less likely to experience skipping in high bandwidth video. PCI is too slow for HD and I'm not sure if 4x has the bandwidth Microsoft suggests is needed for HD with Windows Media Center Edition which uses the same video engine as MediaPortal.

http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/viewtopic.php?t=16561

[Rich78]

I don't have any pics of the screwed text sorry, however I'm starting to think it's the LCD screen itself because when I turn the screen off and back on again it resets the text to crystal clear again, which lasts for until I playback some video or scroll down a webpage.

Seems like a refresh issue.

I also found some HD content that does slow down on my card and that's some Starwars EPIII ROTS trailer footage.

All the other content I'd tried previous from the Microsoft HD content site and the DIVX HD content site played fine.

I think I'm probably at the limit of my system for the time being and HD isn't that important to me, however using the DVI connection and running @ 1280 x 720p is because I can see such a difference in picture quality between it and the VGA connection.

I'm thinking that maybe the VGA/PC side of the LCD is fine but the video side is a little screwed, because I also tried my GameCube on it last night (which I've had on it before) and either I've got so used to the resolution of the 1280 x 720p or there's something not quite right with the set.

I found lots of ghosting around the graphics and it just looked a bit messy.

[Spragleknas]

Try connecting it to your TV, then....

[Tech Geek]

Originally Posted by Rich78

I also found some HD content that does slow down on my card and that's some Starwars EPIII ROTS trailer footage.

All the other content I'd tried previous from the Microsoft HD content site and the DIVX HD content site playe

That's not surprising. Some of the video uses some interlace format that seems to require a huge amount of bandwidth and a very fast card.
I could play the recording I made of the Superbowl using a different program just fine even though it was 1080i but MediaPortal seemed to have a hell of a time trying to record/play 'Life According to Jim' which was lower res.

[samuel337]

Originally Posted by Tech Geek

The GForce 4 card doesn't support DirectX 9 does it?

No it doesn't - I had to swap my 5200 into my MP machine for MP to run smoothly.

Sam