Asylum FX5200 Video Card Question

[DrewKaree]

Dunno if this is JUST for monitors or if video card questions work here too, but here goes:

I've already purchased two cards (Chaintech's FX5200 from NewEgg 128Mb) for projects, and was gonna prolly just buy another card later and use one of these now for my PVR project.

I came across 2 video cards at my local Wal-Mart I'm wondering if I should jump on RIGHT NOW or if it'll matter at all and I can wait.

The cards are Asylum FX5200's with S-video out, AGP 4-8x, 256Mb and they are in the clearance section for $60. 

I'm wondering if one of these will work BETTER for MAME than my Chaintech's, or will the performance be virtually identical and not noticeable to the naked eye, and I'm also wondering if I should snag 'em up at that price or hold off in hopes of a better card at a lower price later. 

My plan was to use the Chaintech's for two MAME projects (but now I wanna gank one for my PVR).  MAME won't run any better with the higher memory card, will it?

Opinions and suggestions welcome



*edit*
and a little cross-pollination in case some info is pertinent from one place or the other
http://forum.byopvr.com/dvr/index.php?topic=2445.msg11867#msg11867

[NIVO]

you wont see any performance diff in 256mb on that card versus the 128mb card you already have drew, atleast not visually. Both cards will give you equal performance if these are being used in mame(tm) or mame(tm) related venues as we are still talking 2d only and these cards wont help any in the 3d arena as mame(tm) doesnt take advantage of that(not yet anyways). Cheers.

[DrewKaree]

Thanks bunches for that.  I've been doing so much reading on stuff it's all starting to meld together and the only thing I have to sort it all out is that mushy stuff above the shoulders.

I thought so for MAME, seem to remember Paige saying even decent onboard video will work just fine for MAME, but it's good to see you confirm my feelings on the two cards and the differences.

Now it just comes down to the PVR angle

[richms]

PVR wont use 3d either, but a good support of overlays is essential, and thats something I have found lacking on low end ATI cards, which was a lot better on the low end nvidias.

PVR on a PC is still not as good as dedicated hardware unless you use the hauppague card with the MPEG2 output - reason being that windows cannot overlay interlaced video, so the software has to deinterlace the video, display it, then the video output re-interlaces it. This means you lose vertical resolution and have distortion between fields from them being blended together.

The only use for more memory over the current framebuffer size and any required for overlays is to store 3d textures, and you aint using that (yet)

[DrewKaree]

PVR wont use 3d either, but a good support of overlays is essential, and thats something I have found lacking on low end ATI cards, which was a lot better on the low end nvidias.

PVR on a PC is still not as good as dedicated hardware unless you use the hauppague card with the MPEG2 output - reason being that windows cannot overlay interlaced video, so the software has to deinterlace the video, display it, then the video output re-interlaces it. This means you lose vertical resolution and have distortion between fields from them being blended together.

The only use for more memory over the current framebuffer size and any required for overlays is to store 3d textures, and you aint using that (yet)

PVR will be done on an HTPC box, the more I look at it, perhaps with some flavor of Linux.  I've got the Hauppage 500 card. 

I got too many balls in the air right now, I think.  I'm starting to mess myself up, and I wasn't too good going in!