[mythtv-users] TV-out video card hardware requirements (AGP vs. PCI)

Alan Calvert cal at graggrag.com
Fri Jun 8 13:29:28 UTC 2007


Brad Patterson wrote:
> I need to get a new video card for my myth box, as the current one that 
> I have doesn't include a TV output.  The problem is that the 2 computers 
> I am thinking about "converting" into a full time myth box are older 
> machines and neither of them have PCI-express slots.  One of the PCs has 
> an AGP slot and the other only has PCI slots.  My question is this:
> 
> If I opt for the PCI (non-express version) video card, will this be 
> enough performance to support video & TV playback?  The card I am 
> looking at right now is on sale at Best Buy, it is a BFG  brand card 
> with Nvidia 6200 OC with 256MB of ram.  I know that it will have plenty 
> of ram on the video card, but I wasn't sure if the PCI slot type of card 
> would cause a problem for video playback to the TV. 
> 
> Can anyone clue me in here?  Thanks!!

For anything Mythtv can do, the 6200 256Mb would be more than adequate. In
this context, the main difference between AGP and PCI is simply bus speed.
AGP offers higher bus speed, plus the added bonus of being the only thing on
the bus. The PCI bus will moderately busy taking care of disk, network, sound,
usb, everything, so loading your graphic traffic onto that bus will not be as 
wonderful as using an AGP card. That said, I believe a PCI 6200 should work
just fine, providing it is on the list of supported cards for the current/latest
nvidia drivers.


cheers.



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