Updated: DVD playback info confusing in choosing new vid card....Did you know?

[dbal]

Ok it's time to replace my Radeon VE cuz I am sick and tired of 1024x768x16 in 3D gaming but there is one thing to ask before upgrading. Which graphics cards from ATi or nVidia feature a built-in hardware DVD decoder like my VE since DVD playback will also be one of my favourites? Plus, if my card supports this feature, do I need an extra DVD decoder or it stands to no extra good for better image quality and framerates ? If so, is this the reason I see so many people selling their Creative DXR3s nowadays??

Thanx in advance gyus!
P.S: Main candidates in the 200$ (or even below) price point - GeForce4 Ti 4200, GeForce4 MX460, Radeon 7500, GeForce3 Ti200. We can flame about it later ok?

 

[Aragorn992]

I believe the Radeon 8500 has a built in decoder chip

 

[gregor7777]

The Radeon 8500 is the best buy on the markey ATM. At least IMHO.

 

[BFG10K]

All Radeon and GeForce based chipsets have DVD accelerated playback.

 

[Rand]

As BFG10K said, any Radeon/GeForce card has hardware accelerated DVD playback, though the level of support can vary quite a bit between cards.
If DVD playback capabilities is of prime importance then your best off with any ATi Radeon board, ATi has long had the industry's best DVD playback.
Besides that, nVidia's GF4 MX has slightly better DVD hardware support then past nVidia GeForce cards though it's still a bit behind ATi's capabilities.

 

[Slogun]

Very pleased with my Gainward GeForce3 Powerpack Card (pre-titanium) I bought in August for $300+ dollars. It came bundled with WinDVD Software which plays DVDs great. You can get that card nowadays for around a hundred bucks.

 

[hans007]

all ATI chips since the ATI rage pro have IDCT compensation. thats what is most important. the nvidia chips only recently added this, and its only on the geforce 4 / 4mx

 

[Instagib]

I think you can with the tnt2 ultra's as well.

 

[dbal]

<< the nvidia chips only recently added this, and its only on the geforce 4 / 4mx >>


I downloaded the GF2 series pdf from nVidia and it says:
"High-Definition Video Processor for full-screen, full-frame video playback of HDTV and DVD content"
"Motion compensation"

So, maybe this feature is available from the GF2 series and then?

 

[Hawk]

motion compensation and idct is different, the ati (and gf4) feature takes the load off the CPU a great deal. Motion compensation doesn't really do much.

 

[dbal]

Thanx a lot hawk! That means that my 3D poor VE with integrated motion compensation & iDCT plus built-in hardware DVD playback decoder is the best DVD package around for its money! Question is now which cards at my price range feature this stuff plus competitive 3D gaming....Only the GF4s? How about ATi models?

 

[Electro]

Nvidia didn't include DVD decoding in GeForce2. They include it in GeForce3 (hardware). Though GeForce2 Titans (software only) did have DVD decoding. ATI has the best DVD decoding that is embeded in a video card.

dbal, if you don't want any bumpy rides that the ATI cards give you. Go with Nvidia. Since ATI is selling thier chips to OEM manufactures. You can go with ATI but read the fine print at those OEM manufacturs. I think Power Color might be a good choice for picking ATI based video cards. However Power Color video cards are hard to find in USA.

 

[jaeger66]

The ONLY nVidia card with full MPEG-2 hardware decoding is the GF4 MX, and it presumably only works with NVDVD at this point. Older GF cards support some features in hw, but are not hardware decoders.

 

[Rand]

<< Nvidia didn't include DVD decoding in GeForce2. They include it in GeForce3 (hardware). Though GeForce2 Titans (software only) did have DVD decoding. ATI has the best DVD decoding that is embeded in a video card.
>>



The GeForce 2, and even the GeForce1 most definitely did have hardware DVD playback. It wasnt by any means as advanced or feature packed as ATi's hardware DVD implementation but there are numerous aspects of hardware DVD playback that nVidia has had for years in the GF2 and prior.
And the GeForce2 Ti (Ti does not mean Titan, where did you hear that?) shares the same feature set in every respect as the rest of the non-MX GeForce2 series, it differs only in core/mem clockspeed, and it's hardware DVD playback capabilities are also exactly the same as the rest of it's GF2 brethren.

I'm not sure why you consider the GF3 to have a 'hardware' DVD playback, when you say the GF2 does not as the GF3's DVD hardware implementation is functionally identical to that utilized in the GF1 & 2.

The only nVidia board with a hardware DVD implementation as fully features as that of ATi's Rage 128/Radeon series is the GF4 MX. Noteably the GF4 Ti actually loses out on some of the GF4 MX's DVD features. And so far as I'm aware even the MX's implementation is only fully utilized with NVDVD, and even then it still tends to fall a bit behind ATis standard in real world playback.

FWIW, the old Savage 2000 core had a pretty good DVD implementation as well.

 

[jaeger66]

<<

And the GeForce2 Ti (Ti does not mean Titan, where did you hear that?) shares the same feature set in every respect as the rest of the non-MX GeForce2 series, it differs only in core/mem clockspeed, and it's hardware DVD playback capabilities are also exactly the same as the rest of it's GF2 brethren.
>>



That's not true, the GF2 MX only has 2 rendering pipelines. The GF2 GTS/Pro has 4.

 

[Rand]

<<

<<

And the GeForce2 Ti (Ti does not mean Titan, where did you hear that?) shares the same feature set in every respect as the rest of the non-MX GeForce2 series, it differs only in core/mem clockspeed, and it's hardware DVD playback capabilities are also exactly the same as the rest of it's GF2 brethren.
>>



That's not true, the GF2 MX only has 2 rendering pipelines. The GF2 GTS/Pro has 4. >>



Hence the reason I said non-MX GeForce2 in the first part of the sentence, perhaps I should have clarified a bit more however.
The MX core differs from the full fledged GF2 core in many ways, the most obvious of which is of course having only half the pixel rendering pipelines as you mentioned.

 

[dbal]

Summing it up, would the Radeon 7500 be a good choice in terms of combining DVD and 3D gaming performance at my price range? Against which nvidia models the 7500 compares directly to?

 

[jaeger66]

<<
Hence the reason I said non-MX GeForce2 in the first part of the sentence, perhaps I should have clarified a bit more however.
The MX core differs from the full fledged GF2 core in many ways, the most obvious of which is of course having only half the pixel rendering pipelines as you mentioned. >>


Sorry, me big idiot no read carefully.

 

[dbal]

To state it better, what are the real life 3D capabilities of the Radeon7500? Meaning playable resolutions, applying FSAA etc....I know it's better than the GF2 series but not than any GF3 or GF4 and pricing is quite similar in USA but not here in Europe....

 

[DeathByDuke]

ATI - Best DVD playback ANYWHERE. Simple as that. Forget GeForce tripe about DVD playback, even my Voodoo3 'claimed' DVDmotion compensation, didn't help PowerDVD on a 450 though... neither did that bloody MX i had. Oh well, My GF3 Ti200 is doing OK.

 

[Blurry]

I think that ATI places their special "Rage Theatre" chips on their high end cards. So I would expect to see it on the Radeon 8500, Rage Fury MAXX, etc.

 

[tenoc]

dbal, what is the current price in Greece of an R8500 retail (made by ATI)?

In N.A. it offers the best bang-for-buck combo of high gaming capabilities
and excellent DVD. Here it is well under 180U$ most places.

 

[BFG10K]

Nvidia didn't include DVD decoding in GeForce2.

They most certainly did have hardware accelerated DVD playback.

To state it better, what are the real life 3D capabilities of the Radeon7500?

The Radeon 7500 sits between a GF2 Pro and a GF2 Ultra in terms of real world performance in most games.

 

[dbal]

<< dbal, what is the current price in Greece of an R8500 retail (made by ATI)?
In N.A. it offers the best bang-for-buck combo of high gaming capabilities
and excellent DVD. Here it is well under 180U$ most places. >>



Oh yes I know this would be the best choice for my demands, tenoc but average pricing for the retail 64DDR model is app. 290$....!! :Q That's why I turned my head down to the 7500....

 

[StormRider]

From what I understand, hardware DVD decoding can be broken down into several components:

Color Space conversion (to convert from YUV to RGB or something like that)
Sub-pixel blending (for sub-titles)
Motion Compensation
IDCT (Inverse Discrete Time Cosine Transform)
IQ (Inverse Quantinization)

Here's what I understand to be the DVD support from the following chipsets:

Color Space Conversion
Voodoo3/Banshee
Savage3D/Savage4/Savage2000
RagePro/Rage128/Radeon
Geforce2/Geforce3/Geforce4

Sub-pixel blending
Savage3D/Savage4/Savage2000
Rage128/Radeon
Geforce2/Geforce3/Geforce4

Motion Compensation
Savage3D/Savage4/Savage2000
RagePro/Rage128/Radeon
Geforce2/Geforce3/Geforce4

IDCT (Inverse Discrete Time Cosine Transform)
Rage128/Radeon
Geforce4 MX

IQ (Inverse Quantinization)
Geforce4 MX

I might have gotten some of the details wrong but I think I have the gist of it correct. There are also other quality factors, like video scaling quality (the Savage3D had the best video scaling -- both up and down -- of any of the graphics chips that I've tried)