G400 MAX v.s. G550

[northdan]

Witch one of these two should i buy, or witch one is better (overall)?
I'm mainly going to use this for DVD output to my TV.

I've been reading some posts but did not get the answer i was searching for!

My system:
K6-2 500MHz
256Mb RAM
YMF744 sound card
DVD-ROM Pioneer 105S
Promise Ultra 66 Controller
Etc..

Thanx

[Maggi]

Welcome to the forums and get a G400 ...

[Maggi]

I just noticed your dated CPU and it might be hard to get smooth DVDplayback with a K6-2, but I don't know for sure.

[Indiana]

I had no problems with DVDs on my Celeron300a@450, so I guess the K6-2 @ 500MHz should be enough.

[Wombat]

Maybe. I'm under the impression that a large chunk of DVD-decoding is FPU work, and a Celeron would handle this much better than a K6-2.

[northdan]

Thanx Maggi for your welcome message


I tried two cards (from friends) on my system, AIW Radeon and Marvel G400.

Like i said i want to use this mainly for DVD playbak on my TV. The playback with the G400 was excellent compare to the AIW that was not so good (on my TV and monitor).

So i guess that there is no problem to play DVD on my system.

So the only thing i need to do now is find a place to buy a G400 MAX.

Thanx

[Wombat]

Why not get a DVD decorder card? They're cheaper than a MAX, you don't have to worry about CPU usage, easily output to TVs, and come with nifty features like a remote.

[Seaspray]

I'd second that. If you're serious about using your PC to watch DVD on your TV a hardware decoder is the best way to go. They are very cheap now. I only paid about £50 for mine. You don't have to worry about having enough CPU / RAM / whatever for software playback. You don't have to worry about what the DVD playback is like when you buy a new graphics card for games / 2d / whatever.

I've used a number of graphics cards for DVD playback on my TV. First off was a G400MAX. This was good, very good in fact, until a driver so called "update" caused a stuttering problem with DVD playback on the secondary monitor (TV). The ReadMe file had the cheek to say that if this "stuttering" was annoying, you should watch your DVDs on the primary monitor, instead of the secondary monitor (TV). Errrr no thanks Matrox! The whole reason I bought my G400MAX was so I could watch DVDs on my widescreen TV. It was just fine with the old driver, but then you had to go and update the driver and you made things worse!

I was not happy. Anyway, I thought I needed more 3d horsepower so I bought a "Twin view" GeForce 2 MX. Do not even bother with this for DVD playback on your TV. Trust me. The picture quality is awful! Pretty soon I went back to the G400MAX and the older drivers.

Not long after I got myself a hardware DVD decoder. This is fantastic. Even with the G400MAX you sometimes get problems where the picture does not completely fit or fill the screen on the widescreen TV. No such problems with the hardware player. Its so much easier to set up and get the picture sized just right full screen on the TV. Witht he G400 I had to fiddle around with the settings to acheive this (don't even mention the MX, lets not even go there!).

Also I don't have to worry about DVD playback when I buy a new video card. I now have a Radeon 8500 and I haven't even tried the DVD playback yet!

Best of all I think you only need about a ~300MHZ processor to get flawless playback with hardware DVD.

You'll never look back and save a lot of money in the meantime.

[northdan]

Thanx for the advice.

Seaspray, witch DVD decoder do you recommend me for my system?

One of my friend had an Hollywood plus card and he had a lot of garbage in the picture, heven Sigma said that there was no cure for this and he had to take it back'.

Thanx for your help

[Seaspray]

DVD decoder

Northdan, unfortunately that is the card I am using, unless there are different versions. Its reported in system manager as a REAL Magic Hollywood Plus. I have never had any problems with it but if your friend has had problems with one I can understand how that would put you off.

Its a shame your friend sent his back otherwise you could have tested it in your system!

To be honest I think that most of the other hardware DVD decoders you can buy use the same chip as the REAL Magic anyway. Eg Creative, Videologic players so far as I know all use this chip.

Anybody know if this is correct or if there are any other hardware decoders out there?

As far as the graphics card you mention are concerned I can't comment on the G550 as I have never had one. As I mentioned in my previous post the G400MAX I had was excellent, until a "stuttering" problem with a later version of the Matrox drivers. This may have been fixed now, I don't know as I'm not using the matrox card anymore. You could check the ReadMe file that comes with the driver maybe to find out.

However I don't know where you could get a G400 from now anyway, unless you can get one second hand from somewhere?

[northdan]

Thanx Seaspray

I know that the G400 MAX is going to be hard to find, i got a friend that is working at Matrox and it seems that even them can't get any G400 anymore. Matrox got some on there web site but it's pretty expensive, i also had no luck finding a second hand one. Now i'm searching for some online-store that still got them.

For the Hollywood, maybe i'm going to try to find a store that gives me some kind of satiffaction garanty so if it does not work i can take it back.

Thanx for all your help

[Wombat]

The sigma chip does its job well. My roommate had one of the Hollywood+ cards, and it was really nice.
I think the potential of problems sizing/centering the Gxxx display outweighs the potential of problems with the Sigma setup, and you can use the remote!

[DominicusMajere]

hea Seaspray which drivers are you using with your G400MAX?
Which are the best to use with it and such?