Looking for video card suggestions
#1
Hi all.

Currently, I am looking to get an nvidia card that can do vdpau for my htpc as well as play 720p/1080p content fine.. I was checking out the MSI G210 which looked pretty good till I read on the forums here that a lot of people have been having trouble with audio over hdmi even with the ALSA drivers.


Any recommendations would be helpful and hopefully ones that don't break the bank Smile (same price as g210 would be fine ~$50 if possible).

Thanks in advance,
-ddrj
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#2
ddrj Wrote:Hi all.

Currently, I am looking to get an nvidia card that can do vdpau for my htpc as well as play 720p/1080p content fine.. I was checking out the MSI G210 which looked pretty good till I read on the forums here that a lot of people have been having trouble with audio over hdmi even with the ALSA drivers.


Any recommendations would be helpful and hopefully ones that don't break the bank Smile (same price as g210 would be fine ~$50 if possible).

Thanks in advance,
-ddrj

Yeah, Geforce 2xx series cards are the future with their 7 channels of uncompressed audio and their ability to upscale divx. But unfortunately as you found the current stable releases don't support them without tons of alsa hacking (not) fun.

If you are willing to wait until the next stable release a Geforce 2xx is the best option. If you want to build today something like this is your best option:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-NA-_-NA

I have one. It allows you to push the motherboards SPDIF (so regular DTS/AC3) over an HDMI connection and can playback the meanest x264 content even on my ancient Pentium 4 box...
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#3
poofyhairguy Wrote:Yeah, Geforce 2xx series cards are the future with their 7 channels of uncompressed audio and their ability to upscale divx. But unfortunately as you found the current stable releases don't support them without tons of alsa hacking (not) fun.

If you are willing to wait until the next stable release a Geforce 2xx is the best option. If you want to build today something like this is your best option:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-NA-_-NA

I have one. It allows you to push the motherboards SPDIF (so regular DTS/AC3) over an HDMI connection and can playback the meanest x264 content even on my ancient Pentium 4 box...



I guess I'll just wait for the next stable release because the geforce 2xx card i was looking at is passively cooled, low profile (need it for my htpc Sad ) and hdmi out. I wonder how long it usually takes for stable releases, i think the last stable for ALSA was 1.0.23 if i'm not mistaken ?
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#4
ddrj Wrote:I guess I'll just wait for the next stable release because the geforce 2xx card i was looking at is passively cooled, low profile (need it for my htpc Sad ) and hdmi out. I wonder how long it usually takes for stable releases, i think the last stable for ALSA was 1.0.23 if i'm not mistaken ?

Hopefully the next XBMC live will have working alsa for those cards, but I don't really know.

Would you mind telling me what card you found? I sounds interesting. I have been waiting for a fanless 220 myself...
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#5
What codecs do i have to use to get HW-acceleration? Does it work with FFDShow or are there special codecs to use?

And about the fan. Even a very low-speed fan should make a big difference? Like a papst fan on 50%.
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#6
poofyhairguy Wrote:Hopefully the next XBMC live will have working alsa for those cards, but I don't really know.

Would you mind telling me what card you found? I sounds interesting. I have been waiting for a fanless 220 myself...



Hey everyone, sorry for the late update, here's the card I was getting poofyhairguy:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814127454

It's not a 220, but it's a fanless 210 and I searched the forums and other people are having great luck with it. I'm getting mine tomorrow, so I'm going to be crossing my fingers Wink
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#7
The msi 210 is a nice card, have one myself because I have had some HDMI problems with the onboard 8200. Beware it get hot! Also mine did not come with a low profile bracket :-( stil it is a low profile card. Waiting for the 220 from sparkel, the 220 is a bit better at deinterlacing.
Case: Ahanix MCE301 Mainboard: M3N78-VM :CPU X2 4200 MHz SSD: 2x OCZ agility 30G Ram: 2G Remote: MS MCE. MSI Geforece 210 & Asrock 330 ION.
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#8
voyager2 Wrote:Waiting for the 220 from sparkel, the 220 is a bit better at deinterlacing.

Me two.

But that fanless 210 does look sweet for now!
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#9
Zotac's fanless GT 220 just hit newegg ( 0 reviews so far):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814500159

Any info on the size of a fanless sparkle GT 220?
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#10
mekarls Wrote:if your going nvidia, wait for the 300 series to come out (in a month or so)

From what I've read the 300 series will be out as a high end card initially. That maybe good if you're a gamer but for XBMC that's way overkill and a waste of money.
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#11
mekarls Wrote:if your going nvidia, wait for the 300 series to come out (in a month or so)


Why?

A 220GT does EVERYTHING, and the 300 series cards will just be repackaged 200 series cards.

This is Nvidia we are talking about- they only actually change their hardware ever other generation and repackage in-between. The 200 series was new hardware, the 300 series will be repackaging.
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