Video Card database?

[Bob]

I keep looking at used cards I see posted, but have no easy
way to compare cards. Does anyone know of a reference which
makes it easier to figure out how a given card fits into the
realm of video cards? I am articularly interested in a card
that will unload the CPU as much as possible when display
video files or DVDs on TV. Obviously, my budget is small.
My current system is limited to AGP4x or AGP Pro cards.
(Asus P4T-e w/P4/1.8G 384MB ram)

Bob

 

[kony]

I keep looking at used cards I see posted, but have no easy
way to compare cards. Does anyone know of a reference which
makes it easier to figure out how a given card fits into the
realm of video cards?

Not much point really, you buy an old used card if you only
need 2D or some special purpose like a mere occasional head
on a server or troubleshooting/etc. Otherwise any old card,
old enough to cost significantly less, is so far below the
performance levels of today's low-end cards (and even
integrated video in some cases) that you're better off just
looking for a deal on low-end modern (still in the market as
new or surplus) card.

I am articularly interested in a card
that will unload the CPU as much as possible when display
video files or DVDs on TV.

Pretty much any ATI card for the past 8 years has done so,
and any nVida or Matrox for almost as long. This is a
fairly standard and basic feature that is not really
dependant much on any kind of scorecard that measures some
overall 2d (or most often, 3D) performance levels.

Even so, at highest resolutions you'd be better off with at
least a circa '00 card from nVidia or ATI.

Obviously, my budget is small.
My current system is limited to AGP4x or AGP Pro cards.
(Asus P4T-e w/P4/1.8G 384MB ram)

The more important parameter is likely to be which has best
TV output, and I can't answer that... "maybe" a Matrox G450
but I"ve not directly compared so many old cards' tv-out to
know for sure.

 

[Paul]

I keep looking at used cards I see posted, but have no easy
way to compare cards. Does anyone know of a reference which
makes it easier to figure out how a given card fits into the
realm of video cards? I am articularly interested in a card
that will unload the CPU as much as possible when display
video files or DVDs on TV. Obviously, my budget is small.
My current system is limited to AGP4x or AGP Pro cards.
(Asus P4T-e w/P4/1.8G 384MB ram)

Bob

Plenty of benchmarks here, but they're for gaming:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/vga_charts.html

AGP compatibility info here:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

While there are a ton of benchmarks for gaming, video
playback articles are a lot thinner. And some of the
articles say things like "we'll have to wait for an
updated driver" and then they don't follow through
with a later article to update the results.

For basic assistance with playback, video cards have had
IDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform) for a number of
years. That means virtually anything at the store has
IDCT. But, more recently, ATI and Nvidia have added
more hardware to assist with video. I think one of
the reasons I haven't been following developments, is
because of the Purevideo results (late and not that
impressive, not fully functional on a couple 6800 cards,
users need to buy a separate DVD player software package).

Here are some links to give you an idea of what ATI and
Nvidia have tried to do recently.

http://www.ati.com/technology/h264.html
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2433
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2536&p=4

http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo.html
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html
(Purevideo available on GeForce 6800/6600GT/6600/6200, not 6800GT/Ultra)
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2305

(How it is supposed to work.)
http://www6.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-17.html

The 6200 AGP could well be the cheapest non-gamer card to
get Purevideo playback. As far as I can tell, the 6200 has
Purevideo, but the foolishness at the product launch makes
it really hard to be sure. Who can trust a company that
delivers hardware this way.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce6200_agp.html

This one is $58. The only thing I don't like to see,
is the VGA signals being transferred via a ribbon cable.
If the VGA resolution on your monitor is low enough,
you probably won't care about this. (The higher the
res, like 1600x1200, the more important how the VGA
signals are treated.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121542

This one is $70 and a full sized card. At least all the
signals stay in the PCB. The product pictures show it
comes with a video output cable (RCA jack) for your TV.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145118

When selecting a card, check the pictures of the product
on Newegg, to see if there are adapters included with the
video card. If the DIN connector to RCA or SVHS adapter
is missing, it is a real pain to find one at retail
for a good price.

Note: You'll be out of pocket another $20 for this, to
complete the package. Why this isn't bundled with the
video card, is just one more of life's mysteries:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html

On the ATI side, Fullstream seems to be a technology for
partially fixing heavily compressed video from the net. The
Avivo stuff seems to be limited to their very latest X1000
series cards (PCI Express only?). Some older ATI cards,
like the 8500, had "Video Immersion" which seems to be IDCT
and some deinterlacing. So, ATI has some baseline capability,
and maybe with the power of your processor, ATI would be enough.

A forum like this might have some useful info:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=76

The comments here are for Linux users mainly, as software
support for Windows will be better. But it does explain
a subtle difference between 5xxx and 6xxx series Nvidia cards.

http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/linux-htpc/video.html

It is too bad someone couldn't write a quality page like that
for Windows users...

Paul

 

[Sleepy]

I keep looking at used cards I see posted, but have no easy
way to compare cards. Does anyone know of a reference which
makes it easier to figure out how a given card fits into the
realm of video cards? I am articularly interested in a card
that will unload the CPU as much as possible when display
video files or DVDs on TV. Obviously, my budget is small.
My current system is limited to AGP4x or AGP Pro cards.
(Asus P4T-e w/P4/1.8G 384MB ram)

Bob

Your CPU is more than adequate for running a DVD film through a TV as well
as doing web browsing on a PC monitor if thats what you're getting at?
Alittle more memory would help things run smoothly - 512mb is the lowest
anyone should have in a Windows XP system. For image quality I'd go for a
Radeon such as a 9200. I hook my 9700 up to my Sony TV to watch AVI or DVDs
using the SVHS output and its fine - a 9200 would do just as good for that
but I also do a bit of gaming.

 

[Bob]

Your CPU is more than adequate for running a DVD film through a TV as well
as doing web browsing on a PC monitor if thats what you're getting at?
Alittle more memory would help things run smoothly - 512mb is the lowest
anyone should have in a Windows XP system. For image quality I'd go for a
Radeon such as a 9200. I hook my 9700 up to my Sony TV to watch AVI or DVDs
using the SVHS output and its fine - a 9200 would do just as good for that
but I also do a bit of gaming.

I should have said Windows 2000 also. My goal is to be able
to record a couple channels, and playback something recorded
earlier while also browsing, etc. I'm watching for a good
deal on some used RDRAM, but haven't found it yet.

Bob

 

[Bob]

Plenty of benchmarks here, but they're for gaming:

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/vga_charts.html

AGP compatibility info here:

http://www.playtool.com/pages/agpcompat/agp.html

While there are a ton of benchmarks for gaming, video
playback articles are a lot thinner. And some of the
articles say things like "we'll have to wait for an
updated driver" and then they don't follow through
with a later article to update the results.

For basic assistance with playback, video cards have had
IDCT (inverse discrete cosine transform) for a number of
years. That means virtually anything at the store has
IDCT. But, more recently, ATI and Nvidia have added
more hardware to assist with video. I think one of
the reasons I haven't been following developments, is
because of the Purevideo results (late and not that
impressive, not fully functional on a couple 6800 cards,
users need to buy a separate DVD player software package).

Here are some links to give you an idea of what ATI and
Nvidia have tried to do recently.

http://www.ati.com/technology/h264.html
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2433
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2536&p=4

http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo.html
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html
(Purevideo available on GeForce 6800/6600GT/6600/6200, not 6800GT/Ultra)
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2305

(How it is supposed to work.)
http://www6.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-17.html

The 6200 AGP could well be the cheapest non-gamer card to
get Purevideo playback. As far as I can tell, the 6200 has
Purevideo, but the foolishness at the product launch makes
it really hard to be sure. Who can trust a company that
delivers hardware this way.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce6200_agp.html

This one is $58. The only thing I don't like to see,
is the VGA signals being transferred via a ribbon cable.
If the VGA resolution on your monitor is low enough,
you probably won't care about this. (The higher the
res, like 1600x1200, the more important how the VGA
signals are treated.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121542

This one is $70 and a full sized card. At least all the
signals stay in the PCB. The product pictures show it
comes with a video output cable (RCA jack) for your TV.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814145118

When selecting a card, check the pictures of the product
on Newegg, to see if there are adapters included with the
video card. If the DIN connector to RCA or SVHS adapter
is missing, it is a real pain to find one at retail
for a good price.

Note: You'll be out of pocket another $20 for this, to
complete the package. Why this isn't bundled with the
video card, is just one more of life's mysteries:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/dvd_decoder.html

On the ATI side, Fullstream seems to be a technology for
partially fixing heavily compressed video from the net. The
Avivo stuff seems to be limited to their very latest X1000
series cards (PCI Express only?). Some older ATI cards,
like the 8500, had "Video Immersion" which seems to be IDCT
and some deinterlacing. So, ATI has some baseline capability,
and maybe with the power of your processor, ATI would be enough.

A forum like this might have some useful info:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=76

The comments here are for Linux users mainly, as software
support for Windows will be better. But it does explain
a subtle difference between 5xxx and 6xxx series Nvidia cards.
http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/linux-htpc/video.html

It is too bad someone couldn't write a quality page like that
for Windows users...

Paul

Thanks Paul. This will keep me busy for awhile.

Bob

 

[chrisv]

Thanks Paul. This will keep me busy for awhile.

When you have some spare time, you could learn how to trim posts,
and/or how to reply to someone without mangling what is quoted into an
unreadable mess.

Hint: OE sucks.

 

[Bob]

When you have some spare time, you could learn how to trim posts,
and/or how to reply to someone without mangling what is quoted into an
unreadable mess.

Hint: OE sucks.

Thanks. You've answered all my questions.

 

[kony]

I should have said Windows 2000 also. My goal is to be able
to record a couple channels, and playback something recorded
earlier while also browsing, etc. I'm watching for a good
deal on some used RDRAM, but haven't found it yet.

Just about any video card will be fine for recording or
playback while browsing, I do that all the time on multiple
systems even with integrated video. However, if you have
multiple video tasks running simultaneously then there is
another issue in that you may be limited to having only one
using an overlay, displaying the 2nd on-screen would be
higher CPU utilization. Even so, browsing is a rather
low-demand use, more significant might be which codecs you
used if it's software-encoded recording.

 

[Bob]

Just about any video card will be fine for recording or
playback while browsing, I do that all the time on multiple
systems even with integrated video. However, if you have
multiple video tasks running simultaneously then there is
another issue in that you may be limited to having only one
using an overlay, displaying the 2nd on-screen would be
higher CPU utilization. Even so, browsing is a rather
low-demand use, more significant might be which codecs you
used if it's software-encoded recording.

My current TV card has hardware encoding. (WinTV PVR-250)
I've looked for video cards with hardware decoding, but this
doesn't seem to be spec'ed on any of the more recent ones
I've found.

Bob

 

[kony]

My current TV card has hardware encoding. (WinTV PVR-250)
I've looked for video cards with hardware decoding, but this
doesn't seem to be spec'ed on any of the more recent ones
I've found.

It is significant if the decoding takes 20% of CPU and
browsing another 5%, so CPU is idle 75% of the time, rather
than idle 65% of the time?

MPEG decoding (except at extreme resolutions) is not very
demanding. It could make as much difference what player and
soft codec is used for this decoding in the player software.

Perhaps the better question is, do you find this a problem
with your current video? What is prompting this video card
change? I"m just trying to envision a scenario where it
would matter which (semi-modern) card you used...

 

[Bob]

It is significant if the decoding takes 20% of CPU and
browsing another 5%, so CPU is idle 75% of the time, rather
than idle 65% of the time?

MPEG decoding (except at extreme resolutions) is not very
demanding. It could make as much difference what player and
soft codec is used for this decoding in the player software.

Perhaps the better question is, do you find this a problem
with your current video? What is prompting this video card
change? I"m just trying to envision a scenario where it
would matter which (semi-modern) card you used...

Gaps in the video playback. Hesitations where the video
stops for a moment then jumps ahead. I suspect they are just
in playback, but have not tested fully to see if they are in
the recorded data.

I should probably throw in that my current video card is a
Matrox G400 Dual head, driving both the TV and Monitor. So I
probably do have room for improvement.

Bob

 

[kony]

Gaps in the video playback. Hesitations where the video
stops for a moment then jumps ahead.

During these gaps have you watched the CPU utilization to
confirm this is a issue because of lack of video assist?

I'm wondering if something like a video driver change might
help, or maybe it's something buggy in the encoding and
while it might work ok in some environments to play it back,
it doesn't otherwise.

In other words, a typical MPEG2 like your capture card
should make has played back fine on many a system I've done
so on, including some with integrated video running on older
platforms using PC133 system memory. I think there is a
specific issue causing the problem, but that even if another
card is needed it wouldn't necessarily have to be anything
special... unless there is some player or windows problem
causing it, then of course the problem might remain even
with a card swap.

I suspect they are just
in playback, but have not tested fully to see if they are in
the recorded data.

It could be important to distinguish this, since if it's in
the recording there's nothing optimizing for playback will
do for you.. but I though you'd previously written that
these files did play back ok on another system?

I should probably throw in that my current video card is a
Matrox G400 Dual head, driving both the TV and Monitor. So I
probably do have room for improvement.

That's a good card for 2D, but maybe not powerful enough to
drive a monitor and TV simultaneously? I don't think I have
a G400 around here anywhere but a box "somewhere" has a G200
in it, if i get a chance I"ll try playing back something on
it... though I have no idea what operating system is on the
system, and for that matter I don't even remember of the
card is in the system but I'm sure it's here somewhere as it
was one of those "TV" types with the breakout box for the TV
tuner and other video i/o.

 

[chrisv]

Thanks. You've answered all my questions.

Yeah, those mangled-up quotes should not concern you.