[mythtv-users] Video card recommendations for new build

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sat, 22 Jul 2017 11:39:29 -0400, you wrote:

>I'm looking for some help picking out hardware to build a new FE/BE Myth 
>box. I haven't had good luck lately buying hardware. Twice now I've done 
>a bunch of research and then ordered the wrong thing. I'm getting a 
>little gun-shy. That's why I'm asking for help this go round.
>
>I'd like recommendations on the video card to begin with and from there 
>I think I can pick a MB and CPU.
>I prefer NVIDIA to use VDPAU. Full height is fine as this will be an ATX 
>desktop size box. Cooling fan is ok too. I'm in the US and generally buy 
>from Newegg but not stuck on them. This box will have 2 HD-PVR and 3 HD 
>Homeruns for tuners. And it will be running current Myth. (I'm finally 
>upgrading from Mythbuntu 10.04 with Myth .025.)
>
>Thanks in advance for all replies.

You need to first decide whether you want to future proof yourself by
getting a video card that will do 4K.  If you already are playing
files that are 4K (eg from Netflix), then you will need a 4K capable
card.  If you are only wanting your MythTV box to play recordings from
FTA or cable, then as yet 4K support is unnecessary and you can get a
much cheaper card.

The recommended cards for MythTV are still, as far as I know, only
Nvidia.  MythTV has proper support for using the higher hardware
interleaving support modes on Nvidia cards only.  So if you are
wanting 4K support, take a look at this page:

https://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/4k/supported-gpus

If you do not need 4K support, then I believe that a 610 or above GPU
is fine.  However, I have no personal experience with 610 cards (I am
still using my old 220s), so someone else should confirm this.  I
recommend at least 1 Gibyte of GPU RAM, as if your system is using
other GPU RAM intensive things (such as compiz on Ubuntu), a 512
Mibyte card will run out of GPU RAM when asked to do VDPAU by MythTV.

Frontend boxes are best with a fanless card if they are in the same
room as the screen and speakers.  There are lots of options for
fanless 610 cards, but I have only seen one 4K capable 1050 card that
was fanless.  The 610 cards are pretty cheap, so you may want to get
one of those now, and then upgrade later if you then need 4K.  4K
cards are not cheap.