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Suggestions on a new video card?


lathompson

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Hi everyone. I have a Vista Home Premium machine and an XP Home machine. Both computers have 1 gig RAM and are pretty new fast machines. I need to get a video card for both and want to get something ideal for P2EXE since I have to buy something. I'll probably use it on the XP machine as I HATE Vista with a passion. I use version 5.0.

The cards have to have an SVHS video out jack. Are there any suggestions? I am budget conscious but would like a good card too. I don't play games. I only do video shows and edit a lot of large image files in CS2 for my photography business.

I'm open for suggestions.

larry

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Larry

i have

ATI - "all in wonder 2006 edition" - that is how it is labelled

Is a 9600 with 256 ram has svhs in and out jack + regular audio video input rca jacks

running on xp home - 2.8 ghz intel

use it quite frequently with no problems

i would look for the 512 all in wonder for the extra ram

when doing graphics it seems that it is all about ram -- the more the better

you have to remember that ati drivers are not the best at times

and

that some members have had trouble with them -- do a search for the details --Igor has tried to get ATI to update the drivers for xp on some boards to no avail

i think it is the ms mutimedia desktop that causes probs -- I think Fred Dickinson --Techman1 has problem - maybe drop him a line and he will fill you in with details

i have never been able to install the latest drivers - so i use the drivers that came on disk -- maybe if the latest drivers were installed first -- but now we getting into a real tech problem if it dont work:)

ken

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Larry

i have

ATI - "all in wonder 2006 edition" - that is how it is labelled

Is a 9600 with 256 ram has svhs in and out jack + regular audio video input rca jacks

running on xp home - 2.8 ghz intel

use it quite frequently with no problems

i would look for the 512 all in wonder for the extra ram

when doing graphics it seems that it is all about ram -- the more the better

you have to remember that ati drivers are not the best at times

and

that some members have had trouble with them -- do a search for the details --Igor has tried to get ATI to update the drivers for xp on some boards to no avail

i think it is the ms mutimedia desktop that causes probs -- I think Fred Dickinson --Techman1 has problem - maybe drop him a line and he will fill you in with details

i have never been able to install the latest drivers - so i use the drivers that came on disk -- maybe if the latest drivers were installed first -- but now we getting into a real tech problem if it dont work:)

ken

Thanks for the suggestion Ken. I've used the ATI boards on past PCs and had relatively good luck. One machine needs a uninstall/reboot occasionally, in order to restore the video out function, but mostly no problems. I did read in several threads here about P2E problems with ATI boards so that prompted the inquiry. I'l PM Fred and see what his experience is. I did a search for video board suggestions in this forum but came up empty. Do you recall if Fred was the only person with an ATI board with problems? As far as using MS multimedia desktop, I don't use it and actually don't know what it's about. I keep my OS as bare bones as possible, knocking down on features where I can.

By the way, since you mentioned trouble with loading new drivers, I had many problems with my updates too until I read the instructions for updates. You have to totally uninstall the current ATI drivers and go back to basic video drivers. Then I had to load in a sequence in order to update. That worked. At the time, 4 years ago (ice age?) it was the ATI All In Wonder and there was a "package" of features. They had to load in a certain order. Today, I don't know if you can simply load the video drivers alone. Maybe you already know this... I thought I might give up what I know. It might help. Updating drivers is pretty important these days. Things change often.

Thanks again!

larry

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You have to totally uninstall the current ATI drivers and go back to basic video drivers.-- been there done that :(

there other people that have had problems with ati cards -- later in day i will search farther for you if you cant find - do a search in the video section

ken

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Larry,

I have a Vista Home Premium machine and an XP Home machine. Both computers have 1 gig RAM and are pretty new fast machines.

Most of us are budget conscious ... how pretty new your pc is will be likely determined by your video card slot. AGP Slot cards are higher priced than most of the PCI-E counter parts. I have a pretty new girlfriend too ... but that doesnt tell me her age :P )

When searching for your new card selection ... make sure your PC- PSU (power supply) is more than adequate to power it. Everything eats up power .... even an additional stick of memory.

I would suggest a DX-10 capable card for the Vista ... XP tops out with DX-9 ( I think this is also part of MS design to lure XP users over to Vista thru time.)

Im only aware of ATI having issues with users who use screen calibration progams. This has been on XP/ATI units and not Vista/ATI

Ken,

You have to totally uninstall the current ATI drivers and go back to basic video drivers.-- been there done that

Have you tried uninstall/reinstall in Safe Mode ?

Also try removing the Driver Backups XP might keep of the ATI card

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Guest Techman1

Larry,

I sent you a PM. Regarding the ATI cards, as NoBeefStu indicated the problem is only with calibration profiles being used and ATI ignores these when used with PTE. Otherwise, everything works fine but the colors may be off a little when you are viewing slideshows on Windows XP systems with ATI cards.

Regards,

Fred

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Well, I'm not on Vista yet but still on XP (and probably will stay a bit longer with it I think) and have a similar question. I probably know the answer but nevertheless I would like to solicite comments from other forum members.

My PC is getting a bit older (dates from end 2001) but has had some extensions over time so now it looks like this (I can add the complete HW conf if needed):

  • 1.8 P4
  • 512 MB of memory
  • Video Card: Nvidia Corp GeForce3 Ti 200 with 64MB
  • 3 HD:
    • a 200GB maxtor
    • 80GB maxtor
    • 80GB (Seagate I think)

    [*]DVD RW drive

I was wondering whether it is worth to spend money on a new video card since PTE 5 is using this now when rendering so if an upgrade in Video card would speed up work it would be nice (while ease of work would also be better if 2 monitiors could be used). Of course, the CPU should also be capable of following: I guess it makes no sense to increase the performance of the Video card if the additional power can't be used because the CPU is not able to follow.

Has someone had similar experiences (before going to the other end: a new PC...)

Thanks in advance,

Bart

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Bart,

I would say that it is worth upgrading the video card, especially if you are happy with the performance of your present system on other applications. You should even be able to find a second-hand video card with at least 128 or 256 Mb of VRAM that would be compatible with your system. Make sure you determine first whether your present card uses PCI or AGP control. I suspect it's "AGP".

The only other upgrade that might be worthwhile would be to add another 512 Mb of system RAM.

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Thanks Al,

I'll take the suggestion of the system RAM, I can go up to 1G without spending too much (I only have 2 banks and going to 2G is a rather costly step up...).

Is it possible to quantify what a change in Graphics card will bring? The card indeed uses AGP as reported by PC wizard:

  > AGP Bus : Yes

>> Bus Information
Number of AGP connectors : 1

>> AGP Bus
Device : 82845/E/MP/MZ Brookdale CPU to I/O Bridge
Version : 2.0
AGP enabled : Yes
Mode AGP3 : No
4GB : No
FW Transfer : Yes - Disabled
SideBand : Yes - Disabled
Command Queue : 1 (max. 32)
Transfert Rate supported : 4x
Transfert Rate : 4x

>> AGP Bus
Device : GeForce3 Ti 200 [NV20.1]
Version : 2.0
AGP enabled : Yes
Mode AGP3 : No
4GB : No
FW Transfer : No
SideBand : No
Command Queue : 32 (max. 32)
Transfert Rate supported : 4x
Transfert Rate : 4x

>> Bus Information
Device : GeForce3 Ti 200 [NV20.1]

  > Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200

>> General Information
Manufacturer : Nvidia Corp (Micro-Star International Co Ltd (MSI))
Model : GeForce3 Ti 200 [NV20.1]
Bus Type : AGP
Total Memory : 64 MB
Texture Memory : 176 MB
Processor : GeForce3 Ti 200
Converter : Integrated RAMDAC
Refresh Rate (min/max) : 60/75 Hz

>> GPU Information
Number of GPU : 1
Codename : NV20
Revsion : A5
Bus : 128-bit
Memory Type : DDR-SDRAM
GPU Frequency : 175 MHz
Memory Frequency GPU : 2 x 200.45 MHz
Memory Bandwidth : 6414 MB/s
Texels : 1600 MTexels/s
DirectX Support : 8.0

>> GPU Configuration
GPU Core : 174 MHz
GPU Memory : 400 MHz

>> Video Bios Information
Date : 09/18/01
Version : Version 3.20.00.18.08
ID : Version 3.20.00.18.08

>> i2C Bus Information
Number of Bus : 2

>> General Features
Width : 337 mm
Height : 270 mm
Pixel per inch : 96x96 dpi
bits per pixel : 32
Colour Bits/Planes : 1
Brushes : 4294967295
Pens : 4294967295
Markers : 0
Device Fonts : 0
Device Colours : 4294967295
Clip Output to Rectangle : Yes
Hardware Acceleration : Yes

>> Blend and Shade Capabilities
GradientFill Rectangle : No
GradientFill Traingle : No
Per Pixel AlphaBlend : Yes
Premultiplied Alpha : No

>> Raster Capabilities
Banding : No
Transfer Bitmaps : Yes
Bitmap >64 KB : Yes
Fonts larger than 64 K : Yes
DIBs : Yes
DIBTODEV : Yes
Flood Fills : Yes
Scaling : No
StretchBlt : Yes
StretchDIB : Yes

>> Curves Capabilities
Chord Arcs : Yes
Circles : Yes
Elipses : Yes
Interiors : Yes
Pie Wedges : Yes
Rounded Rectangles : Yes
Styled Borders : Yes
Wide Borders : Yes
Wide, Styled Borders : Yes

>> Lines Capabilities
Interiors : Yes
Markers : Yes
Polylines : Yes
Polymarkers : Yes
Styled : Yes
Wide : Yes
Wide, Styled : Yes

>> Polygonal Capabilities
Interiors : Yes
Alternate Fill Polygons : Yes
Winding Fill Polygons : Yes
Rectangles : Yes
Scan Lines : Yes
Styled Borders : Yes
Wide Borders : Yes
Wide, Styled Borders : Yes

>> Text Capabilities
Stroke Precision : Yes
Stroke Clip Precision : Yes
90° Character Rotation : No
Any Angle Character Rotation : No
Independant X-Y Scaling : No
Double Weighted Characters : No
Italic : No
Underline : Yes
Strikeout : Yes
Raster Fonts : Yes
Vector Fonts : Yes

>> Color Management Capabilities
CMYK : No
Gamma Ramp : Yes
ICM Device : No

Here's what I want to do:

  • Use PTE to make smooth slideshows using P&Z and the other object animations (I was waiting for that and wnsoft has done a marvelous job on that - worth waiting for)
  • Save these 'small' projects as AVI
  • Include them with video fragments to combine them into one big project using Vegas SW and burn a holidays souvernir DVD that I can watch on TV.

What I seem to notice is the time it takes for the transitions effects between 2 slides (the opacity change from 0 to 100 in the object animation seems to be fast however so I'm not too sure about this feeling.

Resizing the pictures to a more decent resolution then how they came from the camera also makes a big difference.

Regards, Bart

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Bart,

Where you will notice the biggest difference is where you have several transitions close together, and also where you use several objects in O&A, with many PZR actions happening at once. It should also smooth out the little glitch in PZR action at the point where a transition ends, or the next one begins.

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