SnapStream Blog

One of the most frequent questions we get is how to choose a graphics for your HTPC. In our system requirements, we state:

Video Card:

nVidia GeForce 2 and above

ATI Graphics Radeon 7500 and above

Others with 16 MB RAM, 3D Acceleration, DirectX 9.0 compatibility

And for HDTV, we specifically recommend:

ATI Radeon 9550 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 or Higher

Because new graphics cards are released at such a dizzying pace (if you don’t believe me, take a quick browse through all the Engadget articles about new products from ATI and nVidia), it’s difficult to recommend a particular card. So here are some tips that might help with evaluating a graphics card for your Beyond TV HTPC:

1. Avoid integrated graphics: As long as integrated graphics have to share memory with the mainboard, problems are more likely show up. These will be the most visible when you’re trying to playback newer content like h.264 HD or ATSC HD recordings that are interlaced. An AGP or PCI-e 16x card will always be superior.

2. Know your TV: This could be a hard one if you’ve never tried to put PC video on to your specific television, but it’s critical to choosing the right input.

First, know the age of your TV: the older the TV, the less adaptive the circuitry will be to the types of signals a pc can output.

Second, find out the types and different limitations of the inputs available. For instance, your TV may have component, VGA and HDMI.

Finally, know the native resolution of your TV and if it will actually accept a video input at that resolution (and, if so, over which input(s)).

In a perfect world, you’d use – in order:

1. HDMI
2. DVI
3. VGA
4. Component
5. S-video
6. Composite

(Some limitations and footnotes:

HDMI/DVI

• Some TVs may only expect HDMI to be “consumer electronics” format. This means they may overscan the image or display colors wrong (I know this from personal experiance). ATI and nVidia’s driver software can usually be tweaked to overcome these effects.
• Some TVs won’t accept their “native” resolution
• Some TVs need to support “HDCP” in order to playback some DRM’d media (like blu-ray or hd-dvd)
• If your TV expects audio over HDMI, the video card will need a way for your to connect the digital audio from your pc into the card.

Component

• As with HDMI, some TVs may only expect component to be “consumer electronics” format.
• Can technically have signal loss, as it’s an analog signal
• ATI Cards may not allow DVD playback above 480p. (This really sucks)

S-video/Composite

• For “regular”, non-hdtv sets, this may be your only option. Use s-video unless you just can’t.

How do you know which one will work? Sadly, you may not until you play with your card, computer and TV. Generally, if you have an HDTV, get a card with HDMI that says it supports HDCP (you can choose if you want audio passthrough or not) and that also has the component breakout cable included. This will give you the most options.

Then scientifically play.

Get test video files.

Write a matrix to take notes (driver version, driver settings, decoder settings, results).

Try things. Change things like driver versions, decoders and settings, resolution, overscan compensation.

Compare your notes and then watch some “real” tv with it.

You may be surprised that your first guess is wrong. An example: I’ve discovered that my “EDTV” plasma looks better at 1280×720 than at native 848X480. This is due to the image scaler that it uses.

3. What will you be watching?
Options from easiest to hardest: Youtube, Windows Media, AVI (generally speaking), Standard MPEG2 (dvd), HD-MPEG2, Standard h.264, HD-h.264, Blu-ray/HD-dvd

Video cards will support “assisted decoding” where they will take the workload off of the main cpu. You’ll have to read up on your specific card to find if it will decode the format you want to watch. Be wary with marketing though. Just because the box says it will play Blu-Ray, it may mean “on a quad core processor”. You must do your homework to know the differences.

Generally newness in chipset, not price, changes how much better one card will be from the next. This is due to the fact that each new revision gets more decoding power.

4. Will you be gaming?

If you really, really, play games, you should look elsewhere to find the “right” card for your needs. Otherwise, most “middle of the road” cards will play the Sims2 just fine. Remember that your tv (if 1080p) may need to run at a lower-res to actually look descent.

5. Cooling.
Look for fanless solutions. Fans make noise and die. For an HTPC, the only way to go is fanless.

6. Addons
Steer clear of addons like video encoders/ tv tuners. Buy those things as separate cards. If you’ve read this far, you need to just trust this.

7. Shop in the middle of the road.
As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. A cheap card won’t be as reliable or well made as a more expensive one. A cheap card also won’t have the most recent features in the video decoding section.
Look to spend between $100-$150

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 5:58 pm by Rakesh and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.