[mythtv-users] Which video card to buy?

[George Mari]

Raphael wrote:
[deleted]
> 
> Interesting, so a 5200 literally can't do 1080i? I'm slightly surprised; 
> I would have assumed that between a 5200 and a 6200 there would be very 
> little difference in mpeg2 decoding speed. But since Norm has a P4 
> 3.2GHz and it can't play 1080i even though the processor is barely used, 
>   it seems like it must be the graphics card.
> I have a 5200 that can play 1080i with XVMC. Only problem is XVMC 
> randomly causes my system to lock up, causing mythfrontend to need a 
> restart, or worse the machine needs a hard reset. I haven't bothered to 
> look into sorting that out yet.
> 
> Raphael

I have a GeForce 4 MX 4000 outputting 1080P over DVI.  I'm not even 
using the latest drivers, as this card is no longer supported by them. 
If it can do 1080P, I don't see how the 5200 can not.

Has the OP posted the contents of his/her Xorg.0.log?  My guess is the 
1080 mode lines are failing validation.  I had to turn off some of the 
mode validation checks that the Nvidia driver goes through.  Check the 
Xorg.0.log for why the modelines are failing validation and then check 
the Nvidia readme file for details on which options turn off what in 
relation to modeline validation.  I couldn't get above 720p before I did 
this.