[mythtv-users] Need to buy a graphics card

Damian Surr damian at gingermagic.com
Sun Jan 21 13:08:34 UTC 2007


I've decided to buy either one or two Hauppauge Nova T cards to get my 
system going, but not sure what graphics card to get.

I'll list the rest of my kit, then tell you what I plan to do once I 
finally get everything together to take the MythTV plunge.

Old machine:

AMD Athlon 1.2GHz processor
512 DIMM memory
Abit KT7-Raid motherboard (think this has AGPx4)
USB2 additional ports card
ATI All in Wonder 128 Pro graphics card
300 Gb HD

add to that the one or two Nova T cards on my shopping list and a new quiet power supply if I can find one (see other thread)

Initially, I'll probably just set the whole thing up on an old monitor.
Medium term, I'd like to plug it into an old TV which just had an aerial connector and a scart connector.
Long term, I plan on getting a projector for the room.

When it's set up with the tv (and later the projector), I'd also like the monitor to be attached too so that we can use that for email and work and the TV/projector when watching films.

I plan on building all of this on top of Ubuntu unless I hear a good reason not to. I'm good with windows, but new to Linux, so want an easy'ish ride. KnoppMyth wont work for me because of the Highpoint drivers needed for the KT7-raid board (I think that's the problem it had).

In the short term, I could potentially use a laptop which has S-Video out as a front end, and plug that into the TV. But I don't really want to depend on that long term as it's on it's last legs. Think it'll die soon.

It maybe that the current ATI card will work for the output initially? Any idea if that's correct?
For any new graphics card, I don't want to spend too much.
I've not seen Myth with Open GL effects etc. If it looks good, then I'd probably love it, but I've not got a very powerful system here, so seems silly having a great graphics card. Playing the odd game on the projector would be nice, but I rarely play games these days really.

This has turned into a rambling email. Hope a few of you are still with me and can offer some advice. I've seen the nVidia 5200 recommended, but also seen problems mentioned with nVidia cards. I'm a bit lost and could do with some suggestions.

Oh yes, I'm in the UK if that changes anything.
Cheers
Damian




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