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PC to HDTV Video Card Recommendations

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bishmasterb:

I'm looking for a decent video card to output to my HDTV. It'll need to support 1080i or p, and have HDMI/DVI output.

I'd really like to hear from people that have actually used a card to do this, and what type of picture quality they achieved with it.

Thanks!

bishmasterb:

Oh, and I don't have the PC that I'll be using for this yet, so I don't have any requirements as to the card bus type. And if you happen to be aware of a good system that already comes bundled with an HDTV output card, that would be great as well.

I'll be using it mostly for gaming, some emulation and some new games such as WoW. It needs to have decent performance, but by no means state of the art.

gonzo90017:

What's wrong with using the vga input?

MonMotha:

I have yet to find a PC video card with DVI that can't do 720p off the DVI output.  Some older cards can't do 1080p, but anything in the nVidia FX5000 series or newer should be able to hit any ATSC mode other than 480i (standard res) on the DVI output (and some can even do 480i).  I've tested at least a FX5600 Ultra and a FX5200.

In other words, grab whatever is cheapest that meets your needs.

You'll need to find some way to force that mode choice.  Depending on how your TV reports capabilities, Windows may not offer what you want.  You can use powerstrip or a modeline in Linux.  http://www.linuxis.us/linux/media/howto/linux-htpc/video_card_configuration.html has all the timing information you could possibly need to hit a mode your TV will support.  While most TVs will scale just about anything, but it's always best to hit a native mode, so pick whatever is native on your display.

Picture quality is excellent.  It's as good as you're going to get out of your display, assuming you use a native mode, not something scaled.  Be sure your TV is set to overscan the display.  It'll crop off the edges, but if you ask it to crush to fit/underscan, the scaler will be invoked and weird artifacts can crop up.

SpeedEng:

2 cards I have used in my htpc

geforce 6200
able to push 720p (99% of the times)

geforce 6600
720p without a problem

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