[mythtv-users] nVidia card choices, and processors for HDTV playback

[Brad Templeton]

On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 08:59:24AM -0800, Scott Alfter wrote:
> It works for me (the Gainward card is in the Myth box).

Yes, there are reports of working at 720p.  What we want to find out is
if anybody is doing 1080i to an HDTV over DVI/HDMI from the 5200, and
if so, to what TVs.   Several of us have tried to make this work and
get a "double vision" problem where the two half-frames are out of
vertical alignment by about 20 lines, I think.  Progressive modes would
of course not have this issue.
> 
> 
> I need to get the frontend running first.  I suppose I could just try
> playing the clips in mplayer or xine, but I would need to either figure out
> how to build 32-bit apps on an AMD64 system or copy binaries from an x86
> system (the latter might be the easier way to go).  I can build 32-bit
> binaries on x86 and install/run them on AMD64 (it's how I got LILO working), but
> building 32-bit binaries on AMD64 (outside a 32-bit chroot, which I haven't
> set up yet) is a little bit trickier.

I believe you just give the option -m64 or -m32 to your compiler.  gcc
says that -m64 still uses 32 bit int, is that normal on athlon64?

In my recent hunts, I have been surprised to learn that Athlon systems,
in spite of performing evenly with the faster-clocked Intel systems,
seem to get lower memory bandwidth.   I have two Athlon XP 3000 systems
with 400mhz FSB, and 200 MHZx2 DDR memory (PC3200) and they both have 
much lower memory bandwidth than 3200 mb/second, while my P4 system
does reach this bandwidth.   I'm trying to figure if I have something
configured wrong, but other benchmarks I see report the same thing.

I would be curious if other folks were willing to compile "lvbench"
(or apt-get it on debian) and try the "bw_mem 100M rd" test to check
read bandwidth on your various systems.  Or alternately, run memtest86
and see what it reports.