Video Card Memory Question

[SmokyMtnz]

Hello Everyone,

I have done some research and many people have said that the TV output quality is very good with the GeForce FX 5200 cards. My main concern is with great TV out quality to my audio/video system and good MPEG decoding. I do not play games except for some MAME and PinMAME. My questions are:

1) Should I get an FX 5200 or FX 5200 Ultra card?

2) 128MB RAM or 256 MB RAM?

3) Graphics Processor Data Width of 128 or 256?

In a nutshell, will the higher memory, RAM and Data Width make my TV out look better and viewing MPEGs better?

Thanks for your advice and help!

-SmokyMtnz

[Brett]

Any current generation card will give similar results. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but all NVIDIAs use the SAME TV-out chip, so the output should in theory be identicallly.

Besides your not exactly in need of a cutting edge 256mb card!

-Brett

[gplasky]

Maybe not-but here's a thought. If you are outputtimg to VMR9 instead of overlay then the graphics capability, memory and pipeline would matter, wouldn't it?


Gerry

[SHS]

SmokyMtnz you don't cutting edge 256MB card or for matter 128MB card or 64MB but ideadeal size 32MB and don't help TV output quality any way but it dose have lot to do with Video DAC chip.
Unless your Hardcore Gamer you really don't need 256MB.

[_Shorty]

640x480x4=1200KB
Even if the output were triple-buffered you would only need 3600KB for framebuffer usage, and then whatever gets used for textures. Guarantee you for this usage even a 32MB memory bank is insane overkill. There is only one reason for cards with 64MB and more on them, GAMES. Or 32MB for that matter.

As for TV output chips on Nvidia cards, if it's of the GeforceFX lineup, then they are all using the same internal "MV" encoder chip and thus will have the same quality. So, get the cheapest one you can find with the least amount of memory if it's only getting used for PVR tasks. The Nvidia cards pre-GFFX can have any of a handful of tv encoder chips, as they do not have built-in tv out capability as the GFFX chips themselves do. The best being the Conexant CX25871. What a pre-GFFX card has on it is entirely up to the board manufacturer, and supposedly can even differ on the same card models from the same manufacturer.

[SmokyMtnz]

Thanks for the info folks!! Some great information.

-SmokyMtnz

[Cayars]

Good post _Shorty!

Carlo