9550 or 9600xt???

[phantomfsoc]

I know its obvious which is better, but I'd like to know what the Sage Gods think.
How much better is the 9600xt than the 9550.
I love the way Tv looks on my HDTV when I use the Nvidia decoder.. Beautiful
but because my 9550 is in my HTPC I can't watch sage with that setting, I'm forced to use VPP.

Soooo if I took my 9600xt from another PC, would I be able to use the actual Decoder???

I ask because I don't want to take apart 2 computers for nothing. I never understood video cards that well, or, life, or relationships, or women, or sex, or..... sorry wrong forum

Thanks Peps

[stanger89]

You'd have to go to an nVidia card to get any real benefit if you're talking using the hardware VPP. The 9600 won't get you anything except maybe a little better VMR9 performance (less tearing or higher resolutions).

[korben_dallas]

Can you describe in more detail your problem? I have a 9800 Pro, and I use the default Nvidia decoder with hardware acceleration enabled and set to Pixel Adaptive.

It looks great w/ SageTV recording quality DVD Standard Play on most shows.

Are you running new Catalysts 4.x? Your sig says you have the ATI dongle, so is there some resolution issue?

[phantomfsoc]

Ya I'm running at 1700x1400, the res is fine, its the quality and smoothness thats an issue. It studders quite abit, and its very "bland" looking. I know I can tweak settings for the "bland" part, but when I play around with the decoders settings and crank them up, they automatically look sharper and better, but it studders.
So I figured I'd try the 9600 cause its a better card.

And yes I would love to get an Nvidia, put these computers are killing my wallet.

[stanger89]

The 9600 may help the studder problem at that resolution.

[phantomfsoc]

Thanks Stanger. I think I'm gonna just do it.
What res are you running your 6800? and is that the way to go, or you think its too much?

[korben_dallas]

1700 x 1400 !!! I'm surprised the 9550 will even go that high.


But.. I thought the ATI dongle limited max resolution to 640x480 with an output of 1080i

[phantomfsoc]

No it took many months of playing with my dongle to get it just right, but I finally got it up and running.

Now its just the quality of it all.

[mdmint]

Personally I just recently replaced my HTPCs ATI 9600 (non XT) with a GF 6600GT 128 AGP and couldn't be happier.

[stanger89]

I'm running 1776x1000i.

phantomfsoc,

The dongle only limits you if you're watching something Macrovision protected. Although I didn't think the dongle supported >1080i timings

[phantomfsoc]

I just re-read my post.... sorry I meant 1776x1000i.
Anyways, I just swaped cards. So far I can go through all the diff settings in Nv decoder control panel, and in sage and nothing seems to studder (at least in the 30mins I've been looking) But on some of the settings, theres alot of ghosting on fast movments, and of course it happens on the best look settings. So now I just have to watch TV and keep trying new things.