Aargh - need a new video card!

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:50 am

I built a great HTPC using the NSK2400 case - 2 HDTV tuners, on-board graphics, and 2 GB RAM. Very quiet.

Now, I get a LCD TV, and I find out that the stock videocard can't decode 1080i signals worth squat - it's like watching 15 FPS video. And yes, I think I've tried everything, and it's just not powerful enough.

So, I look for a suitable replacement - sounds like a 7600GT is the best suited card from nVidia. No idea about ATI, since they don't really have an equivilent to PureVideo that they advertise - shot in the dark stuff.

Unfortunately, my PCI-e slot is right next to my PCI slots that are filled, so I need a single-slot solution that'll fit in the NSK2400. So far, I can't find ANY solution that will work for SPC standards. :-/.

So, here's the questions:

1. Do I need a 7600GT for 1080i? Anything less won't do inverse telecine according the nVidia, even though you can turn it on in the new driver (and it makes my 6150 slow to a crawl)

2. Are 8600GS's going to be good enough for 1080i (speculation.. ugh)

3. Will a ATI X1600Pro work? This one looks PERFECT! I just with I could get a 7600GT with this cooler... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121056

Any help appreciated. Thanks!
-Dan

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:57 am

This review might help you:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... yback.html

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:32 pm

Thanks!

On a whim I picked up a eVGA 7300GS, and while the fan ain't going to work, it appears it would be good enough vs. the 6150 for 1080i work (doesn't have the horrible de-interlacing that the 6150 had). This will probably hold me over until the 8xxx's come out, passive, with inverse telecine and all the bells & whistles. The 7300GS would then go into my other PC for light gaming..

Thanks again for the link - though it kinda tempts me to get the x1600 for the lower CPU load, but I've already got nVidia drivers all loaded on this machine. I'd hate to make it a crumbling house of cards....

-Dan

nici · Post by **nici** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 2:40 pm

crumbling houses of cards is what makes this stuff fun. that is if you've got nothing better to do.

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:56 pm

plympton wrote:Thanks!

On a whim I picked up a eVGA 7300GS, and while the fan ain't going to work, it appears it would be good enough vs. the 6150 for 1080i work (doesn't have the horrible de-interlacing that the 6150 had). This will probably hold me over until the 8xxx's come out, passive, with inverse telecine and all the bells & whistles. The 7300GS would then go into my other PC for light gaming..

-Dan

Dang.. played around for a bit today, and the 7300GS has the same stuttering as the 6150 had. Switching to a non-PureVideo Decoder seems to make it better, though, but then why the heck do I need a new video card... ugh.. is it the decoder.. the Video Card.. the TV (Olevia's have stuttering problems, apparently, when they have the ATI Chipset...)

-Dan

Mike_P · Post by **Mike_P** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 6:17 am

the video processing of a card is mostly dependant on Core Speed.

try a slight overclock to see if it helps. if not, u need a faster card.

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:41 am

How much space do you have between a) the back of the card, and your CPU heatsink? b) the top of the card and the top of the case?

I was thinking of a 7600GT with a HR-03 installed backwards. I doubt it will fit in the NSK2400, but it's an idea. This can also be run passively. Look at this:

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 7:46 am

Mike_P wrote:the video processing of a card is mostly dependant on Core Speed.

try a slight overclock to see if it helps. if not, u need a faster card.

Tried, and it still stutters. I thought I was done, and no-go. The 7600GS is advertised as "seamless stutter-free HD video", so I'm going to take their word for it! The 7300GS, while a higher clockspeed, doesn't do de-interlacing according to nVidia.

Oh, and I'm picking up a Radeon x1650 today for kicks to see if it works better. There's a great passive Radeon x1600XT on Newegg for ~$100 that I'll jump on if it works - the heatsink ins to the CPU side of the card, not the PCI side, so I won't lose any slots (well, my PCI-e 1x slot...)

-Dan

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:10 am

angelkiller wrote:How much space do you have between a) the back of the card, and your CPU heatsink? b) the top of the card and the top of the case?

I was thinking of a 7600GT with a HR-03 installed backwards. I doubt it will fit in the NSK2400, but it's an idea. This can also be run passively. Look at this:

That direction would work (I don't need my PCI-e 1x slot at the moment), but the curved heatpipes would poke out through the top - not against that, I just don't know how to do it without butchering the top of the case.

-Dan

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:08 am

plympton wrote:but the curved heatpipes would poke out through the top - not against that, I just don't know how to do it without butchering the top of the case.

How comfortable do you feel about modding? I'm not sure how you would bend heatpipes, but you could detach the heatpipes from the base (the part that touches the GPU) and move the base upward, and reattach it. Basically, sliding the rectangele upwards. This would in turn lower the top of the heatpipes. Look at this crude paint illustration. Green is the original position, Red is the new position. (sorry it's small)

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:25 pm

angelkiller wrote:
plympton wrote:but the curved heatpipes would poke out through the top - not against that, I just don't know how to do it without butchering the top of the case.
How comfortable do you feel about modding? I'm not sure how you would bend heatpipes, but you could detach the heatpipes from the base (the part that touches the GPU) and move the base upward, and reattach it. Basically, sliding the rectangele upwards. This would in turn lower the top of the heatpipes. Look at this crude paint illustration. Green is the original position, Red is the new position. (sorry it's small)

That's a good mod, but I was able to find a passive X1600XT (the GDDR3 version of this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121057) that'll work for me. I got a X1650 fan version, and underclocked it to 300 MHz, and put the fan on at 5-volts, and it's holding steady at 73 degrees or so - not great, but it's essentially passive with a stock cooler (not heatpipe). I figure the tradeoff of X1650 vs. GDDR3 is probably a wash in terms of power & heat.

Now that I got it all set up, though, I'm wondering if I even lthis 32" LCD TV. The colors aren't much better than my 15 year old Sony 27" TV, and you really can notice the 1080i "jitter", even when it's re-interlaced well, by eyes are just too dang sensitive! I just wish more broadcasters were using 720p instead of 1080i.....

-Dan

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 5:18 pm

plympton wrote:I was able to find a passive X1600XT (the GDDR3 version of this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814121057) that'll work for me. I got a X1650 fan version, and underclocked it to 300 MHz, and put the fan on at 5-volts, and it's holding steady at 73 degrees or so - not great, but it's essentially passive with a stock cooler (not heatpipe). I figure the tradeoff of X1650 vs. GDDR3 is probably a wash in terms of power & heat.

I'm lost. So did you ever get the X1600XT? If you didn't, then you found a passive GDDR3 x1600XT? But you said you get a X1650XT. [/

]

Ok, 73C isn't dangerous, but with a fan, that really hot. My X1950Pro idles at 42, with the X2 fan set at 27 in Ati Tray Tools. At 27, my Tri-Cools make the most noise in my system. And isn't the stock speed at ~575MHz?? You underclocked it by 275MHz??

AND it idles at 73C? I'm really sorry, but I'm very confused.

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 6:01 pm

angelkiller wrote: I'm lost. So did you ever get the X1600XT? If you didn't, then you found a passive GDDR3 x1600XT? But you said you get a X1650XT. [/ ]

Ok, 73C isn't dangerous, but with a fan, that really hot. My X1950Pro idles at 42, with the X2 fan set at 27 in Ati Tray Tools. At 27, my Tri-Cools make the most noise in my system. And isn't the stock speed at ~575MHz?? You underclocked it by 275MHz?? AND it idles at 73C? I'm really sorry, but I'm very confused.

Ok, so that's understandable. I couldn't find a passive X16xx card locally, so I picked up a X1650Pro that had a fan - testing, use if it worked, etc. Then I found that GDDR3 X1600XT on Newegg and ordered it.

Now, I'm pretty new to this videocard stuff, so I'm not sure if it's REALLY underclocked at 300 MHz or not. Does seem kinda high, but the airflow on my system is pert-near Null - it's an HTPC with 1 5-volt 12 CM exhaust fan and the PS fan running on temp-controlled low. I'm thinking I might add a 5-volt 80 mm fan blowing on the video card when I get it, or add a 2nd 12 cm exhaust fan to my NSK2400. Plus, I can pull the 6150's video-out dongle to get some increased inflow.

Yeah, confusing to you, but it is to me, too!

-Dan

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 6:28 pm

You must be doing something wrong. I have 2 7300 cards. One Passive Asus 7300LE overclocked to 525mhz, and one stock MSI 7300GS HDMI and I have no problems with 1080i content even at stock speeds. The cards will not do Inverse Telecine so you have to leave that off, as well as noise reduction and edge enhancement (your TV should do that if you want it anyways. I have sharpening and Noise reduction off on both the video card and TV because they look terrible IMHO) but I have found that the picture on my Sony 40" 1080p and Samsung 56" 720p displays looks great. There are a few interlacing artifacts here and there but nothing to really get your panties in a bunch about. I'm also waiting for the 8X00 cards to see what kind of performance they have. With the radeon 1600 you should be able to turn on 3:2 pulldown detection in the driver. They do not do Inverse Telecine.

What program are you using for playback? you need to make sure the playback is set to full screen exclusive mode or any nvidia card will look like crap. MCE turns this on by default. Make sure the TV is set up properly. Turn off noise reduction and make sure you are running a 1:1 pixel format (both TVs I had to hunt for settings to eliminate internal scaling even though I was outputting native rez).

The linked xbit labs article, while a good article, only deals with GPU acceration and not deinterlacing quality of various cards. GPU acceleration has been proven to be tied to clockspeed and so this article while it supports that claim, is not that important for video quality while deinterlacing. I left my comments with them and I hope they will address them when they do their HQV HD deinterlacing tests that they are planning.

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:56 am

autoboy wrote:You must be doing something wrong. ... I have no problems with 1080i content even at stock speeds. ... There are a few interlacing artifacts here and there but nothing to really get your panties in a bunch about. .

Well, I tried and tried, but this is the stuff I was getting on 1080i content with the nVidia drivers - I tried everything - different this'n'that'n'settings'n'others... couldn't get it to stop doing this.

Now, I didn't try it without PureVideo (which is where I'm at with the Radeon... ugh.. maybe something else to try...

Here's what was going on with the nVidia card - wish I could / can get rid of it!

http://www.freepdx.com/link.php?id=582

-Dan

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:22 am

Yeah, something else is wrong and I'm not sure if throwing more powerfull video cards is going to help. Like I said, I used a 6150, and two 7300's with great success. Can you tell me what your exact setup is?

What processor
drivers
video cards
OS
media player
settings of media player
codecs
FSE
VMR9
etc.

You can also post this over at AVSforums. They know a lot about this

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:56 am

autoboy wrote:Yeah, something else is wrong and I'm not sure if throwing more powerfull video cards is going to help. Like I said, I used a 6150, and two 7300's with great success. Can you tell me what your exact setup is?

You can also post this over at AVSforums. They know a lot about this

Searched and searched... could be that my Asus MB has a problem, too, it's the M2NPV-VM - I've read a bunch of other stories about how they've had problems, too.

Trust me, I'd LOVE to use an inexpensive (on-board) videocard! Especially since this is on 24/7 ($$).

What processor 3800 x2
drivers lots... 93.71 (?) 84.25 caused a bluescreen after reboot
video cards 7300gs, 7600gs, 6150
OS Win MCE 2005
media player MCE
settings of media player 1360x768, DVI or VGA
codecs PureVideo latest
FSE default
VMR9 default
etc.

The only thing different now that I'd try is that I'm not using PureVideo anymore - it wouldn't work on DVD folders with MCE (blocks & stuttering). I changed codecs, and that weird multi-frame could be from the PureVideo codec... <sigh>. I think I changed to PowerDVD HD Maybe Friday I'll try try again...

-Dan

plympton · Post by **plympton** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:57 pm

I uninstalled the ATI card, and reinstalled the 7600GS, and lo-and-behold, it appears to work - even have the horsepower to use Inverse Telecine most of the time (though I can't see much of a difference, except a few stutters as it appears to try and keep up).

The secret sauce appears to be that PureVideo Decoder stinks, and that PowerDVD decoder is the champ. Who'da thunk it.... ugh.

Gotta go to bed...

Now the question, can I plunk the X1600's heatsink onto a 7600GT.. "signs point to maybe" as the Magic 8-ball used to say.

-Dan

Aargh - need a new video card!

Aargh - need a new video card!

OK, so I tried it...