[mythtv-users] Hardware ideas

[John Patrick Poet]

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004, David Wood wrote:

> And it's down to the mx440 and the radeon 9200.

I am currently using an MX440-8x for playback of HD material.  I, of course,
am using a VGA->Component adaptor, and not the s-video.  Color Fidelity is
excellent.  On *some* severe, close-up pans (e.g. down a mountain side),
the video will have a minor studder step.

I have been told by a couple of different people that a FX5200 provides
smoother HD output (via VGA) than a MX440.  The FX series has just a bit
more bandwidth.  I also *believe* that the FX series has IDCT acceleration
built in, but the MX series does not.

You can pick up a FX5200 for not much more money than a MX440.

I personally decided to splurge a little and just ordered a MSI FX5700LE
from Newegg.  I choose it because of an article I read at
http://www.anandtech.com which indicated that the MSI FX cards are about the
quietest out there, which actually have fans on them.  My MX440 does not
have a fan, and it occationally over-heats.  I should have this card
tomorrow, and I will let you know if I actually see any improvement.

Most people trying to do HD under Linux avoid ATI cards.  ATI's provided
linux drives have not handled HD resolutions in the past.  I don't know if
that is still the case.  There are also "open source" drivers available, but
I don't know if they work any better/worse:

http://dri.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/


I realize you are not talking about HD, but thought you might want to take
all of this into consideration.

John