Looking for new video card (1 Viewer)

[bobrap]

Been asked alot I know, sorry. I currently have an ATI 3450 and want to know if I would gain anything by going with a 4850 with HDMI. I'm just trying to get the best HD playback. Also, how does the audio work? I mean is there any benefit to running through HDMI vs optical cable? Thanks for any and all help/advice.

 

[akajester]

Been asked alot I know, sorry. I currently have an ATI 3450 and want to know if I would gain anything by going with a 4850 with HDMI. I'm just trying to get the best HD playback. Also, how does the audio work? I mean is there any benefit to running through HDMI vs optical cable? Thanks for any and all help/advice.

What video output on the ati are you using now?
What source quality are your videos?
What is your display device?
Are you running DXVA? or is your cpu doing all the video processing?

I'm running the same ATI 3450 card with vga out to a projector and a 7ft screen. My content is 1080p mkv files and my projector is set to 720p. It looks awesome! I'm running DTS audio out over spdif to a harman kardon receiver and it sounds great. The downside to optical, due to restrictions you won't ever get DTS-HD or TRUE-HD audio over it. So, in order to get the better audio you need to run it out HDMI. Of course that assumes that your receiver is new enough to handle HDMI audio and those formats.

So, I'm going to wait along time before upgrading my video path.

-akajester

 

[Snader]

I switched from my onboard HD3200 Ati graphics to a Nvidia 9400GT. sounds extreme, but all my problems with MP have been solved since then; for instance... MKV sound sync problems, DXVA being very picky, driver updates causing troubles when not deleting with driver cleaner, flickering GUI in MP. Running Vista32 by the way. The graphicscard costs only 50euros here in Holland... my best investment in one year of testing and trying to get MP stable with as less problems as I wanted.

 

[akajester]

I switched from my onboard HD3200 Ati graphics to a Nvidia 9400GT. sounds extreme, but all my problems with MP have been solved since then; for instance... MKV sound sync problems, DXVA being very picky, driver updates causing troubles when not deleting with driver cleaner, flickering GUI in MP. Running Vista32 by the way. The graphicscard costs only 50euros here in Holland... my best investment in one year of testing and trying to get MP stable with as less problems as I wanted.

The key there is "onboard graphics". When they share memory with your system everything breaks. I ordered a new motherboard and decided to stay with the seperate graphics card instead of onboard. You can get an ati 3450 for like $35 now. It's a great card for DXVA. I run 1080p mkv's with less than 5% cpu!

 

[bobrap]

What video output on the ati are you using now?
DVI

What source quality are your videos?
1080p

What is your display device?
46" Sammy LCD

Are you running DXVA? or is your cpu doing all the video processing?

I switch between Mediaportal and XBMC. My receiver can handle the HDMI inputs.

 

[KevL]

I recently upgraded from onboard HD3200 to an ATI HD4550 (silent, fanless) with 512MB GDDR3. Now have really good playback using Cyberlink PDVD8. Smooth playback on SD and HD formats. Best picture I have ever managed. No stutter or judder on slow pans etc, moving text is rendered without problems and sound is perfectly in sync. Couldnt quite manage that using the onboard HD3200.

Well worth £40 or so. Card heatsink does run very warm - though I guess it is supposed to.

I thought about getting a much more expensive fanless HD4670. It is a two slot card and would be OK for gentle games - I suspect the 4550 would not do even gentle games but is fine for video playback.

Kev

 

[Owlsroost]

Been asked alot I know, sorry. I currently have an ATI 3450 and want to know if I would gain anything by going with a 4850 with HDMI. I'm just trying to get the best HD playback.

Going to a 4850 (unless game playing is important) would be overkill - 4650 (or maybe a 4550) would be just as good for video use. The big picture quality improvement versus the 3450 is vector-adaptive deinterlacing support for 720i/1080i HD - the 3450 can only do 'bob' deinterlacing for HD. If you never watch interlaced HD material then this isn't relevant.

I mean is there any benefit to running through HDMI vs optical cable?

The 4xxx series have support for 8 channel PCM sound over HDMI - it's only of interest if you have a HT receiver capable of handling this. For ordinary AC3/DTS/stereo PCM there's no real advantage for HDMI versus optical/coax SPDIF, other than saving a cable.

I switched from my onboard HD3200 Ati graphics to a Nvidia 9400GT. sounds extreme, but all my problems with MP have been solved since then; for instance... MKV sound sync problems, DXVA being very picky, driver updates causing troubles when not deleting with driver cleaner, flickering GUI in MP. Running Vista32 by the way. The graphicscard costs only 50euros here in Holland... my best investment in one year of testing and trying to get MP stable with as less problems as I wanted.

Couldn't agree more - I went from an HD3450 to a 9500GT.....

Tony

 

[DoXer]

I switched from my onboard HD3200 Ati graphics to a Nvidia 9400GT. sounds extreme, but all my problems with MP have been solved since then; for instance... MKV sound sync problems, DXVA being very picky, driver updates causing troubles when not deleting with driver cleaner, flickering GUI in MP. Running Vista32 by the way. The graphicscard costs only 50euros here in Holland... my best investment in one year of testing and trying to get MP stable with as less problems as I wanted.

Which driver (version) have you installed?

Thanks and best regards,

DoXer

 

[Owlsroost]

I run nVidia driver version 181.22 (on Vista32).

Tony