I drive myself mad with PC issues

The most a 9600 can handle in HD reliably is around 720p, and even then thats only in dx9 fullscreen exclusive mode and mpeg-2 only. If you eventually planned on AVC or HD you need a pci-express card period.

I will say if you go with anything ATI make sure its made by ATI. I had too many problems with off brand cards either being DOA like yours or the card was actually meant for the european market (thus, tv-out was in pal and the screen would roll until you get into windows where the driver would switch on NTSC support)

if you planned on just plain mpeg-2 hd the minimum I would get on the ATI side in AGP is an x700 pro. Thats what I run (but the pci-express version) That was the minimum suggested by Microsoft for HD in MCE and IMHO it has better tv-out than the 9600. You may need to replace the fan with a zalman or silencer however. the PCI-express one from ati was pretty loud, however another x700 I put in my dad's pc for xmas was a newer revision and it was damm near silent.
 
The most a 9600 can handle in HD reliably is around 720p, and even then thats only in dx9 fullscreen exclusive mode and mpeg-2 only. If you eventually planned on AVC or HD you need a pci-express card period.

I will say if you go with anything ATI make sure its made by ATI. I had too many problems with off brand cards either being DOA like yours or the card was actually meant for the european market (thus, tv-out was in pal and the screen would roll until you get into windows where the driver would switch on NTSC support)

if you planned on just plain mpeg-2 hd the minimum I would get on the ATI side in AGP is an x700 pro. Thats what I run (but the pci-express version) That was the minimum suggested by Microsoft for HD in MCE and IMHO it has better tv-out than the 9600. You may need to replace the fan with a zalman or silencer however. the PCI-express one from ati was pretty loud, however another x700 I put in my dad's pc for xmas was a newer revision and it was damm near silent.

well thats the thing. I have a crappy K-Mart TV and the only thing i really intended this box for was watching my movie "backups" and MAME type stuff. Later this year i hope to get a nice 1080p LCD TV and wanted to go ahead and get a card with DVI since the geforce 2 was dying. When i do get the nice TV, i also plan on getting a decent DVD player if my PS2 wont cut it by then.

I did ponder the idea of a 7600GS since i could get a fanless one (and in AGP). Would that be good enough for decent DVD playback through the PC to a 1080p set?

Im not real worried about running stuff off the PC in super-hyper-mega-HD since all i really want to do is play OLD games off of it with the secondary purpose of playing DVD rips and other various movie formats off the web.

so basically it will do Emulators and Divx. I dont forsee being able to upgrade it to PCIe anytime in the next 5 years unless i can get stuff super cheep or free. So AGP will be my bedmate for a while. Once i upgrade my main box, i can throw my X800XT AIW into it, but i'll have to get a new cooler.

For now i'll just RMA the 9600 since it is definetly dead. S-video still doesnt work on the TV anymore. I'll hook up my main PC to see if its the Media PC or the TV that borked.

I'll look for something on the cheap for a replacement for the GF2. Perhaps a nice FX5200... oh boy!
 
well thats the thing. I have a crappy K-Mart TV and the only thing i really intended this box for was watching my movie "backups" and MAME type stuff. Later this year i hope to get a nice 1080p LCD TV and wanted to go ahead and get a card with DVI since the geforce 2 was dying. When i do get the nice TV, i also plan on getting a decent DVD player if my PS2 wont cut it by then.

I did ponder the idea of a 7600GS since i could get a fanless one (and in AGP). Would that be good enough for decent DVD playback through the PC to a 1080p set?

Im not real worried about running stuff off the PC in super-hyper-mega-HD since all i really want to do is play OLD games off of it with the secondary purpose of playing DVD rips and other various movie formats off the web.

so basically it will do Emulators and Divx. I dont forsee being able to upgrade it to PCIe anytime in the next 5 years unless i can get stuff super cheep or free. So AGP will be my bedmate for a while. Once i upgrade my main box, i can throw my X800XT AIW into it, but i'll have to get a new cooler.

For now i'll just RMA the 9600 since it is definetly dead. S-video still doesnt work on the TV anymore. I'll hook up my main PC to see if its the Media PC or the TV that borked.

I'll look for something on the cheap for a replacement for the GF2. Perhaps a nice FX5200... oh boy!
"Decent DVD playback" is extremely subjective. It all depends on how tolerant you are of watching a movie that is 1/6th the native resolution of the monitor you intend to watch it on. Some people will think it looks great. Others will see the artifacting and think it looks terrible. I will tell you that watching signal over DVI/HDMI lends a certain sharpness to a picture that most people aren't used to. There is zero analog blur, which isn't always a good thing. You can do software scaling and other trickery to help that, but that will most likely still require you to buy another PC.
 
"Decent DVD playback" is extremely subjective. It all depends on how tolerant you are of watching a movie that is 1/6th the native resolution of the monitor you intend to watch it on. Some people will think it looks great. Others will see the artifacting and think it looks terrible. I will tell you that watching signal over DVI/HDMI lends a certain sharpness to a picture that most people aren't used to. There is zero analog blur, which isn't always a good thing. You can do software scaling and other trickery to help that, but that will most likely still require you to buy another PC.

so what you're saying is i should either get a stand alone DVD player or upgrade the PC to make DVD's look acceptable on the new TV?

to the DVD player store!

guess ill make the PC strictly an EMU box.
 
so what you're saying is i should either get a stand alone DVD player or upgrade the PC to make DVD's look acceptable on the new TV?

to the DVD player store!

guess ill make the PC strictly an EMU box.

Um no. I'm saying that any DVD on a 1080 set is going to look much different than it does on your current one.
 
Um no. I'm saying that any DVD on a 1080 set is going to look much different than it does on your current one.

well yea. going from a crappy 640x480 to 1080p will be a huge jump. But i also have watched DVD's on 1600x1200 monitors and wasnt really bothered by the picture.
 
well yea. going from a crappy 640x480 to 1080p will be a huge jump. But i also have watched DVD's on 1600x1200 monitors and wasnt really bothered by the picture.

CRT or LCD? There will still be a difference. That and the sheer size difference will bring out differences. But its a good sign that you've already seen lower res stuff blown up on a higer res monitor and found it acceptable.
 
CRT or LCD? There will still be a difference. That and the sheer size difference will bring out differences. But its a good sign that you've already seen lower res stuff blown up on a higer res monitor and found it acceptable.

20" LCD at 2 ft distance

the TV i want to get is 37" LCD at 8ft viewing distance

my biggest worry with the hi def set is regular tv. if its set right it wont be that bad, but ive heard (and seen) some awefull stuff.
 
Are you sure the problem is with the card and not the s-video jack on the tv?

well.. after dicking with it for the past 2 hours i now know the problem.

The god damn riser card is the issue. i was able to get both cards to work with a little finagling.

I was all fat and happy. Got the 9600 in, powered it up, finished securing up the case... then all of a sudden... video signal lost. Powered it down, wiggled it around a little. Powered it back up... *POOF* burnt out the blasted trace on the main riser.

So thats going back to newegg for replacement. Stripped the entire box down (PITA because everything has to be taken out in a specific order) so i could test both cards on the board. Both tested fine ao i only lost the riser in teh wonderful puff of smoke.

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