[mythtv-users] Better off with an ATI card?

Matt Mossholder matt at mossholder.com
Fri Dec 16 01:38:01 EST 2005


Hi again everyone.

After playing with 3 different NVIDIA cards and various driver
revisions, I am starting to wonder, "Am I better off with an ATI card?"
I Have my MythTV system attached to a Panasonic HDTV Tube via DVI, and
also have an AudioAuthority 9A60 VGA->Component adapter available. So
far, I have had nothing but bad luck with the NVIDIA cards, because of
the following factors:

    1. My Panasonic HDTV requires HDCP on the HDMI input, which I
connect to with a 
        DVI->HDMI cable.. This limits the cards that will work to the
6xxx and 7xxx product lines.

    2. Version 7667 (at least) and above NVIDIA X11 drivers have an
issue when used with the
         9A60 where the screen is wrapped half way around the screen
(i.e. the 
        left and right edges meet in the middle of the screen). This
means I can't use the 9A60
        with the 6200 card.

    3. Version 7XXX and above  drivers also have broken support for
VBLANK sync. This pretty much 
        precludes using my NV6200 unless I can live with the tearing.

    I've tried installing both an 5200 and 5500 series card in the same
system with mixed results. While the 5500 worked as expected with the
9A60 and 6629 drivers, the video quality so much worse than the 6200
card with the 7667 or 8174 drivers that I couldn't live with it.  The
5200 card was less cooperative, and would just lead to a black display
when X started. Everything was running as expected, I just couldn't see
it.

Given all of this, would I be better off getting a cheap ATI card for
this system? I've seen a few mentions lately of people using ATI, which
I know has been discouraged historically, but seems to be becoming less
of an issue.

Anyone have any experience they could share?


    Thanks!

        --Matt
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