[mythtv-users] ATI fglrx MytTV issues [was Re: Looking for recommendations for PCI-E 1x video cards]

[Arthur Green]

Roger Heflin wrote:

[ ... ]

> Arthur,
> 
> You better keep trying to getting that build-in ATI to work then, 
> pcie-x1 cards are slow, rare, and expensive.
>
> Newegg lists *3* pcie-x1 video cards, and the cheapest one is $99 and 2 
> of them are ATI and the other one has a chipset I have never heard of 
> and is $120.

The cheapest I've seen this side of the pond is an NVIDIA 8400GS for 
something like EUR 90. Fleamarkets/eBay are light on them too.

[ ... ]

> Given the price, you could likely replace the motherboard with something 
> that has a x16 (or AGP) slot and buy a new video card for almost the 
> same price, and things be a lot less risky (you could use a normal 
> NVIDIA card).

The machine I have (for use as a combined FE/BE) is an Asus Pundit 2. 
It's SFF (they claim "book-sized") so a replacement motherboard isn't 
really an option. I kind of like the idea of a normal NVIDIA card, which 
is why I started exploring the 1x video card option.

There are two separate fglrx issues:

  1. Corruption in frontend and setup screens when the application is 
running full-screen

  2. "Stacked" video during playback - I get two identical images, one 
on top of the other.

The first problem can be resolved by specifying geometry as something 
other than full-screen, although then mythfrontend segfaults on exit if 
I viewed a program during the session.

At a guess, the second problem might be interlace-related, although the 
MythTV system is connected to my TV via VGA. Alternatively it's caused 
by a misconfigured X11 configuration - unfortunately definitive 
documentation on fglrx isn't easy to come by.

>                                 Roger

Arthur