[OTHER] Should I consider a discrete graphics card? (1 Viewer)

elsmandino

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Hi there,

I have been noticing, recently, that everyone is talking about the GT430 being the holy grail of video cards at the moment.

Is there any particular reason why everyone is switching to discrete graphics?

I am using onboard HD4200 Graphics on my ASUS Evo-M motherboard and everything seems fine.

Would I notice any real benefit for upgrading to a dscrete card?

I notice a lot of talk in relation to interlacing and although I get, basically, the difference between 720p, 1080i and 1080p, I am not entirely sure what this is and how it relates to Mediaportal and DVB broadcasting in general - could anyone just give me a general guide please?

Thanks
 

Paranoid Delusion

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    I am using onboard HD4200 Graphics on my ASUS Evo-M motherboard and everything seems fine.

    Then stick with it ;)

    The talk about getting a separate graphics card really relates to people without onboard and who also want full adaptive deinterlacing, and that can also depend on the TV being outputted too, what looks good to one person can look crap to another, take my neighbour, she cannot tell the difference between xvid and 1080 material lol, but then she can sing and I cannot :p
     

    elsmandino

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    Hi Ray,

    My only problem is whether it is a bit like SD TV. If you only ever watched this and thought it was fine without ever having seen HD, how would you ever know what you were missing? Perhaps ignorance really is bliss here.

    Is adapatvie deinterlacing only possible on discrete graphics cards or is it possible for onboard graphics to have a go, but just aren't powerful to pull it off?

    One other quick thing - I know that no DBV broadcasts use 1080p (too much bandwidth). But what do they currently use on Freesat and Freeview transmissions? I have heard that they use 1080i for HD channels, but does this mean that 720p is used for SD? I always thought that 720p, 1080i and 1080p were all HD, but just three increasingly better examples of it.

    Thanks
     

    spenca

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    hi all!

    another point to mention is stability, i had some htpcs with me and some friends, which run onboard and we had often problems with hibernate, with start live tv, with watching media. some problems are gone with discrete boards, over all these hibernate stuff!!

    mario
     

    Lehmden

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    Hi.
    I am a user of this "holy grail" and I can tell you, it's the best HTPC GPU I've seen so far. But this did not mean you can't use anything else...;)
    Is adapatvie deinterlacing only possible on discrete graphics cards or is it possible for onboard graphics to have a go, but just aren't powerful to pull it off?
    Most of the OnBoard GPU are not really powerfull. If they are (like Intel SandyBridge or AMD LLiano / Zacate) full HTPC taste (incl. VA Deinterlacing) can be there. But there are still some limitations every OnBoard GPU has. First of all the RAM gateway. On extra Graphics card own RAM is used. This is much faster than the "normal" Ram also used by CPU. So every OnBoard GPU is limited by this bottleneck. Another limitation is the 24p bug on recent SandyBridge Chipsets and the really buggy drivers from AMD/ATI (not limited to onboard GPU). Bigger Nvida Cards are too noisy (no passive cooling available) and power consuming, smaller ones did not have the full power of the GT430. So that's the reason why NVidia's GT430 is the "holy grail" nowadays.

    To be concrete, your HD4200 is not powerful enough to do full Vector Adaptive Deinterlacing on 1080i material. If you can see this depends on your setup and your eyes...

    I have heard that they use 1080i for HD channels, but does this mean that 720p is used for SD? I always thought that 720p, 1080i and 1080p were all HD, but just three increasingly better examples of it.
    You're right 720p is one of the HD formats used by some broadcast stations. If 720P or 1080i looks better depends on the source and your hardware. In Germany 720p is used by all non commercial stations where all commercial (private) stations are using 1080i. A few of the 1080i stations, mainly Servus TVHD (Red Bull TV station) and SKY (big PayTV station) sometimes delivers good HD quality with 1080i. But most of them are crap and did not look much better than SDTV. Then the 720P Stations have much better picture.

    For SDTV PAl/NTSC is used what means 576i/480i resolution.

    I stays for "interlaced" so only every second line is broadcasted to limit bandwidth. The missing lines (half of the picture) has to be recalculated in real time by your hardware. So all I formats are using lot of GPU power.
    That's why 1080i is the most power consuming format around there. If your hardware can handle 1080i it can handle all 2D formats without any issues.
     

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