Hey all, got my HTPC setup with my projector. I quite like MCE.

To get my best quality I located the computer close to the projector and use a short VGA cable. T

I primarily use it for playing DVD movies.

I was quite impressed how much diff a good MPEG2 decoder makes. The NVidia decoder for $20 made a ton of difference compared to the DivX one.

This makes me wonder: I am using the Dell onboard Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3000 - would a good graphics card make a difference with this projector? Any suggestions for a $150 card for this?

The projector is 1024 x 768 and has VGA, composite or component input.

thanks
Don

The graphics card (and the drivers it is running) can make a difference in the video quality since it must perform the final scaling of the decoded material to the output resolution of the display.

Depending on what your PC will take there are lots of good options available. Any of the 7000 series or higher cards from Nvidia or the HD2000 cards from ATI are good bets.

Update. I picked up the Sapphire 2600 pro agp card yesterday. I removed the old Rage 128 and put in the 2600. Turned on the comp and proceeded to use the install cd it came with. Installed fine from what I saw. Reset the resolution for my computer screen back to what I had it set with the old card (1280x1024) so my icons went back to looking normal again. I then ran Total Media 3 and turned on the hardware acceleration. It's still sitting at 100% and OTA HD still stutters just as bad as before. :(

I then went into the Catalyst Control Center and noticed that it said my AGP bus setting was turned off, so I went into one of the option pages and tried to pick agp 8x. Then I pressed "save" and it said it had to restart the comp for the setting to take effect. After it did that I went into CCC again to check. It was back to "off" again. :confused: I then tried setting it only to 4x, and the same thing happened. For some reason it's not turning on the AGP bus. This is that update thing isn't it

Anyways, I spent the last 2 hours trying to get the card working right and it's been impossible. :(

Does anyone know what I might have missed or did wrong?

Btw, I'm downloading the latest driver update from the web right now, but it's going to be awhile before it's done. If this new driver doesn't work, I'm going to start pulling out whatever hair I have left on my head. lol

ASA, the bundled drivers are always old and usually should never be bothered with.

Goto AMD.com and get the latest 7.12 drivers and see what happens.

To be sure there is no issues, you may want to make sure everything you installed from the CD is uninstalled before you put in the new 7.12 drivers.


I am using the Dell onboard Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3000 - would a good graphics card make a difference with this projector? Any suggestions for a $150 card for this?

If there is any extra benefit from what you have to a discrete card, it would be that there would be a lot of post processing run that could make for a notable improvement in image quality depending on the source material.

Jvincent's suggestions are fine, although I would suggest starting at 7600 and 2600.

To be sure there is no issues, you may want to make sure everything you installed from the CD is uninstalled before you put in the new 7.12 drivers.

I did that. When I run the new 7.12 from the ati website, it stops after awhile and states that proper driver is missing and it can not continue with the update.

That was both without and with all the old cd files on the comp.

I removed all the old files and rebooted. Did the 7.12 update, and nada. It stops.

I reinstall the cd one it came with, reboot, then try to run 7.12 (thinking that maybe the driver that was missing would be installed by the cd version). Nope, same problem pops up... driver missing.


Btw, with both the CD and the 7.12 update, I get a pop up window that says something like the AGP2600 card from Sapphire has not passed logo testing to verify it's compatibility with windows XP. In the update splash screen for both the cd and 7.12 updates, it says ight there in front of me that I have two choices for install.. WinXP and Vista. I picked XP of course and I get tat pop up warning. I press "continue anyway" and it proceeds to install everything without further problems.... except when I try the 7.12 update and it says that a driver is missing. ??

I did everything that the website said to do.

I uninstalled the old ATI software and then disabled the old card... turned off the comp and then put in the new card. When it came back up I ran the above stuff (without the cd and just the 7.12 by itself... nada..... then I tried installing the cd and then did the 7.12 update... nada.). I dodn't know why it's not working. ??

It's been a while since I looked at the CCC, but are you sure it's saying AGP is off or just that fast writes are off.

One other thing to try is the Omega version of the 7.12s. When I was still using an ATI card those were the ones I used. Much cleaner installs and setup. Available at omegadrivers.net.

It's been a while since I looked at the CCC, but are you sure it's saying AGP is off or just that fast writes are off.

Both. It said the speed was off (0X), and the write/read/? (there was three things that were off). The PCI part at the bottom said they were on... so I turned those off and then picked 4x for AGP and with the write/read/? boxes checked to "on". The comp reboooted and it reverted back to 0X and the boxes were back to off again.

Here's the funning thing now. After uninstalling, reinstalling (all the stuff i did above), the CCC no longer shows up in the bottom right of my tool bar. I even tried to go to C: and click on the program to manually start it, and it doesn't want to now. (my poor hair) lol

Have you checked the AGP settings in your BIOS?

Have you checked the AGP settings in your BIOS?

I did the first time when say that AGP box thing. I went into the Bios and was able to find it. I have only off or 4x available. I picked 4x.

Now when i go back into my bios i can't remember where that setting is. ?

Ok, I found it again. I turned it to 4X and turned on all the stuff below it (read/write..etc). Saved to Bios.

Booted up, tried to run the 7.12 update.. everything goes fine until it gets to the update the driver page.... then it says compatable driver could not be found and then it closes down.

ASA, it sounds like the ol' "the drivers aren't recognizing my vid card problem."

Easiest attempt will be to use device manager and install from there. First uninstall everything.
In Device manager, select your display adapter and update drivers. Choose manual install, select from list, uncheck show compatible devices and choose any 2600 AGP or 2400 AGP listed. Whether or not you need AGP is debatable. My install shows as 1950pro only, no AGP even though it is.

If that works then run the ccc install from c:\ati\support\driverversion\driver\ccc\setup.exe

There's another method that adds the gpu to the driver's ini which is more complex.

http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/#details

read through 1/2 to see driver install fix.
IF this doesn't work go to Rage3d.com and in the Driver Forum search for "2600 install".

Good luck!

I have been running it on Media center 2005.. with an EVGA dual tuner/encoder..

I had an ati all in wonder.. it was a while ago..
The EVGA model works awsome.. it has built in Encoder.. and record two channels simotaniously.. or you can record another channel whaile watching or time shifting another..
This card has exceptional quality in my opinion.. it was about $160 at NCIX in van. a few years ago.
it has a built in encoder, so it does all the work..
I can record 2 channels at the same time while kicking a$$ playing BF2 or COD4.. I don't notice it taking from my processors power.. my ATI used to use resources.. ATI may have now changed the way their All in WOnders work.. They are nice boards too..

The evga was the only dual tuner and had a much better quality than the others.. I have been warned on too many occasions to keep away from the Happag tuner/pvr cards.. from people who have used them, I have also seen the quality of recordings from them.. not good..

My girlfriend absolutley loves it.. easy to use and free tv program Guide makes it easy to record what you like.. you can even set it so it will find that show on any chanel and record it any time.. it usually won't record the same episode twice..

Throw away your VCR.. OMG I cannot even think of going back to that..

Any questions feel free to ask..

Update. I picked up the Sapphire 2600 pro agp card yesterday. I removed the old Rage 128 and put in the 2600. Turned on the comp and proceeded to use the install cd it came with. Installed fine from what I saw. Reset the resolution for my computer screen back to what I had it set with the old card (1280x1024) so my icons went back to looking normal again. I then ran Total Media 3 and turned on the hardware acceleration. It's still sitting at 100% and OTA HD still stutters just as bad as before. :(

I then went into the Catalyst Control Center and noticed that it said my AGP bus setting was turned off, so I went into one of the option pages and tried to pick agp 8x. Then I pressed "save" and it said it had to restart the comp for the setting to take effect. After it did that I went into CCC again to check. It was back to "off" again. :confused: I then tried setting it only to 4x, and the same thing happened. For some reason it's not turning on the AGP bus. This is that update thing isn't it

Anyways, I spent the last 2 hours trying to get the card working right and it's been impossible. :(

Does anyone know what I might have missed or did wrong?

Btw, I'm downloading the latest driver update from the web right now, but it's going to be awhile before it's done. If this new driver doesn't work, I'm going to start pulling out whatever hair I have left on my head. lol
Hey,

I have been follwing your research on this card.

I actually just bought this card yesterday. I installed fine, everything seemed to go smooth, but I have not tried to update yet.

Did you notice on the back of the box it says not compatible with HDMI?

n Device manager, select your display adapter and update drivers. Choose manual install, select from list, uncheck show compatible devices and choose any 2600 AGP or 2400 AGP listed.

At first it didn't have 2600 or even 2400 listed. I did a rollback of the driver and it eventually showed up. Rebooted and now it's showing.

If that works then run the ccc install from c:\ati\support\driverversion\driver\ccc\setup.exe

It wan't exactly listed in the same order, but I was able to find it and run it. It's now showing up in the bottom right of the screen. I can get into it now. The AGP option is not available though. ?

Did you notice on the back of the box it says not compatible with HDMI?

Yes, and it's an old sticker. Supposedly the latest update (7.12) addresses that issue. I don't have it hooked up to my Pani so there is no way for me to see if it works.

Right now I'm downloading the smaller driver update from ati (instead of the full cat/driver one). Once done I'm going to try updating the driver.... again. I just hope I don't go though all this trouble shooting once more. :(

I just tried to update the driver, I uninstalled like they said, and got the same error as you when reinstalling.

are you trying option two first?

I am pretty sure it erros because .net 2.0 is not installed.

I am installing the version that came with it because I know it works.

let me know how you make out.

Or if anyone has advice please let me know.

thanks

I am pretty sure it erros because .net 2.0 is not installed.

Yup, the ATI CCC drivers NEED .NET 2.0 installed before installing the drivers. It can sometimes say that you can install before but the reality is that you better have .NET 2.0 installed first.

Another thing that I forgot to mention, the hardware features of the ATI and NVidia cards requires software that is written to take advantage of it. The best example is that you need Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.3 installed even if you are not using it to play back directly. For me, the PowerDVD 7.3 codec is what I have set in SageTV and when I was running MCE, that is what I had set for it too.

I believe that WinDVD is written for AVIVO and PureVideo but I do not know any others off by heart.

it did not work, i downloaded .net 2.0 repaired it as it was already installed just to make sure and I get the same error.

It is not detecting the card.

biggest pain in the butt.

I did as the ati site said, uninstalled the ati drivers and then opened this program.

here is the answer.

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=20870