Best Video Card (w/tv Out) for the Buck?

[tecmo]

Hi all....

Looks like I skimped a bit on the video card portion of my MAME project and now I need help.  I ended up buying a GeForce 2 MX card off Ebay cheap and thought it would get me by for my project.  When I fired it up connecting to my 27 inch tv using the s-video leads, the picture is incredibly blurry to say the least.  At 640x480 resolution I am still pretty blurry and it is not nearly the picture I had hoped.  The games play decent, but again, I'm looking for that crisp picture.  Overall price kept me in the tv market, but I think I can do much better on picture quality with a better card.  Any suggestions?  Has anyone used a Radeon 8500Le?  They seem to be reasonably priced but reviews have been good.   128 mg card for around 100 bucks seems like a good deal.  Any thoughts or experiences to share?

[lightspeed]

You don't need a high powered card for MAME.  Buy an early model Radeon card, such as the VE or 7200.  Just make sure it is "Built by ATI" as opposed to "Powered By ATI"

You should be able to find one of the above cards for less than $30.  

[SirPoonga]

Yeah, even my old ati 3d rage 2 had awesome tv out.

[bionicbadger]

I have to agree with SirPoonga.  I've got an older 16MB Rage Pro card and the S-Video out is great.  Look on eBay, there are a ton of older ATI cards for cheap.

[SirPoonga]

part of it is when nVidia and 3DFX were battling for best gaming card, ATI was making some of the best business cards.

[sattlewj]

I have an ATI Radeon 32MB SDR PCI Video Card/TV Out, and I'm dissapointed as well, are these cards you mention better then what I got? Thanks.

[android]

I have an ATI Radeon 32MB SDR PCI Video Card/TV Out, and I'm dissapointed as well, are these cards you mention better then what I got? Thanks.

Dissapointed?!?!? I got the exact same card and it is as good as my previous Xpert@Play, also by ATI. Based on the experience of many people, not just mine, ATI's video-out (S-Video in particular) is the best on the market. So unless something in your setup is wrong, that's as good as it's gonna get (you were not expecting SVGA monitor quality were you?).

[Distortion]

You can't expect much from a computer image on a TV screen.  Most of the time, it's your TV, not the card.  99% of 27" TV's aren't going to look great running windows.  What matters is how it looks when you're running MAME.

[lightspeed]

I have an ATI Radeon 32MB SDR PCI Video Card/TV Out, and I'm dissapointed as well, are these cards you mention better then what I got? Thanks.

I have that same card, and am satisfied with the performance.    Is yours Built By ATI?  

Again, it may be the TV itself - have you tried the card with other TVs?   Keep in mind that you will not get VGA quality on a low-res TV screen.    Thats a limitation of the TV, not the card.