nVidia vs ATI video cards?

[barnabas1969]

Do you like chocolate or vanilla?

I like vanilla with chocolate syrup.

[LuckyDay]

I'd like to say I'm an nvidia fanboy. Never had any problems with nvidia and my brief forays into AMDland left me frustrated.

In fact I'd like to point out that this thread is going exactly the way most AMD threads go, they devolve into a "what driver works for you" thread, or "What reg hacks do you do to make it work" thread.

So why are AMD boards always recommended when someone asks the question "Which video board should I buy?"

Because AMD cards are a lot more reliable than a couple of people in a thread make it seem.

For a long time it was "ATI is cheaper and NVidia is more powerful/stable". The differences aren't as extreme as they used to be. AMD drivers are as reliable as they've ever been and NVidia offers a lot more options in similar budgets as the AMD cards. NVidia has its own quirks and disadvantages just the same as AMD does.

There are supporters on both sides that will swear by either one for whatever reason.

[Mike88]

HI,
I recently broke down and bought a copy of Windows 7 to get my WMC machine back online(I was running a cloned drive with Vista Home Premium from an old laptop before but it finally quit working). Now that i'm running Windows 7 i'm having video issues where as the video won't display and I have to restart WMC. Windows 7 doesn't exactly like the video card i'm running so I was thinking of replacing it. These are the specs on my machine and the card i'm thinking of getting any opinions would be appreciated.
PCV-RS420
PROCESSOR
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.80C GHz† with
Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology
CACHE MEMORY
512KB Integrated On-Die Level 2
FRONT SIDE BUS SPEED
800MHz
ATI RadeonTM 9200 64MB with VGA, DVI, and TV-out

Looking at replacing the video card with this one since Windows 7 is telling me my current card doesn't have enough memory.
EVGA GeForce 6200 Video Card - 512MB DDR2, AGP 8x, DVI, VGA, TV Out, Video Card
I found it at TIger DIrect for $44USD.
Or any other suggestions would also be appreciated. I only use this machine as a PVR and for mass storage no gaming.
Thanks.

Could it be the Pentium 4 that is causing problems? Most things that I've read typically suggest a dual core CPU. Of course that could be because most CPUs are at least dual core. Just a thought.

[newfiend]

Both NVIDIA and AMD have had their 29/59 issues with drivers in the past. I can say that the last few WHQL drivers from NVIDIA have been solid with no signs of 29/59 flicker. I have been using NVIDIA cards for years in my gaming machines and now in HTPC. I have found for the most part that they just work with not much tweaking. There are a few options that need to be set in NVIDIA control panel for better PQ but its been a set it and forget it card for me. YMMV.. STC prefers AMD as it has better PQ for him.. I haven't noticed any bad PQ with my cards so I'm staying with NVIDIA. Its really a subjective topic, some like NVIDIA some AMD. Both get the job done but it will depend on what your looking for in features and PQ as everyone's eyes see things differently.

Sent from my Lumia 920 using Board Express.

[leroys1000]

.

I would only consider HD5XXX or above for hardware accelleration and HD audio.

Haven't seen any of those in AGP.

[mcewinter]

.

I would only consider HD5XXX or above for hardware accelleration and HD audio.

Haven't seen any of those in AGP.

My bad, I missed that part.

Edit: In that case neither brand is going to save the day IMO.

[LuckyDay]

They made the 38xx series of cards in AGP, I think there might have even been a couple of 4xxx series. Either one would be a big step up over what you're running. Although neither are current, they'd both probably get the job done.

[foxwood]

Looking at replacing the video card with this one since Windows 7 is telling me my current card doesn't have enough memory.
EVGA GeForce 6200 Video Card - 512MB DDR2, AGP 8x, DVI, VGA, TV Out, Video Card
I found it at TIger DIrect for $44USD.
Or any other suggestions would also be appreciated. I only use this machine as a PVR and for mass storage no gaming.

Even at $45, it's still just good money after bad, and unfortunately, at this remove, you won't be able to find many people willing to make a personal recommendation.

You could buy a whole new Motherboard/CPU/video combo for not much more than a "new" AGP video card, but unfortunately, your hard drives are probably IDE, and your old RAM wouldn't fit, and knowing Sony, the PSU isn't standard, so it wouldn't work in your VAIO case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157247

There's a point at which it stops making sense to stretch out that old hardware. If you can't use the OS that the hardware was designed for (XP), pushing it only makes sense if you get your kicks out of doing that. If you want something that will sit there quietly doing the job you want it to do, you might need to spring for slightly better hardware.

[Crash2009]

Default_User8

I don't know why I didn't twig on this earlier. I think somebody mentioned Sony Vaio and that woke me up. I have a PCV 2252 running Win 7 32 bit. Win 7 griped about the existing card, and I just grabbed something out of the scrap pile that had DVI output on it. I just checked to see what card I ended up with. I am using an N6200 256MB DDR2, (Part Number 256-A8-N401-LR) One just sold on E-bay for 6 bucks. It's been almost a year since I looked inside that one, it appears that I jammed another stick or 2 of ram in it also.

My Sony Vaio runs fine with this card. I use the Vaio and WMC to playback "Unprotected" Recorded TV and Movies in my garage. Vaio does a pretty good job of it. Here is the link to the card that was just sold, there is probably lots more out there. http://www.ebay.com/itm/e-GeForce-N6200 ... 0616996461

Yeah, here are a whole bunch of them for sale. http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid= ... &_from=R40

[default_user8]

My setup worked fine with Vista in fact i liked the way it worked better than Windows 7. I only moved on from Vista after my cloned drive quit updating because it was actually an oem version of Vista. Windows 7 just says i dont have enough video memory and there arent exact drivers for this video card for WMC. VLC seems to work fine as well as any other video application. I was just wondering if anyone thought a video card with more memory that is Windows 7 compliant would help my problem.

[Crash2009]

My setup worked fine with Vista in fact i liked the way it worked better than Windows 7. I only moved on from Vista after my cloned drive quit updating because it was actually an oem version of Vista. Windows 7 just says i dont have enough video memory and there arent exact drivers for this video card for WMC. VLC seems to work fine as well as any other video application. I was just wondering if anyone thought a video card with more memory that is Windows 7 compliant would help my problem.

Have you ever looked into this? http://www.missingremote.com/guide/over ... a-center-7

[Mike88]

Both NVIDIA and AMD have had their 29/59 issues with drivers in the past. I can say that the last few WHQL drivers from NVIDIA have been solid with no signs of 29/59 flicker. I have been using NVIDIA cards for years in my gaming machines and now in HTPC. I have found for the most part that they just work with not much tweaking. There are a few options that need to be set in NVIDIA control panel for better PQ but its been a set it and forget it card for me. YMMV.. STC prefers AMD as it has better PQ for him.. I haven't noticed any bad PQ with my cards so I'm staying with NVIDIA. Its really a subjective topic, some like NVIDIA some AMD. Both get the job done but it will depend on what your looking for in features and PQ as everyone's eyes see things differently.

Sent from my Lumia 920 using Board Express.

When using Intel G620 integrated graphics I had the 29/59 bug with WMC7, but not with WMPlayer or MPC-HC. You would think WMC & WMP would behave the same but they did not. I only had the problem when watching some older OTA SD programs & never noticed it with HD. My problem was not a flicker but a stutter, like a frame or 2 was being skipped. It was quite noticeable when people were walking or running.

One website had a list of recommended video cards & one was the HD6450. I waited for a Newegg sale & got one for $14.99 after rebate. It fixed the problem.

MPC-HC has the ctrl +j function to view a whole bunch of performance stats. Before the video card the HD frame rate was continually changing. Not a lot, but is wasn't steady. And the Green & Red video & audio graph lines where not nice & steady & parallel. Again I never noticed a problem with HD. However after installing the HD6450 the frame rate & graph lines were nice & steady. So the card did improve the stats. Even though I could not perceive any difference with HD maybe someone else might. I'm sure other cards would have worked, but the $15 one sure made a difference with SD programs.

[jerky33]

See my post regarding this bug, it may provide an acceptable workaround.
http://www.thegreenbutton.tv/forums/vie ... 737#p57737