Do fast systems need a hardware decoder?

[mghidorah]

Do decoder cards such as the Hollywood Plus just take the mpeg2 decoding load off your CPU, or does it also give you a better picture? How much better? I am getting a Geforce3 Ti500 which does not do iDCT. I plan on using its TVOUT for DVD playback.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: mghidorah on 2002-01-05 12:41:38 ]</font>

[devinemi83]

It depends on the card, some say Hardware DVD decoding. This means that the card does the MPEG2 decode and thus lifts that weight off of your CPU, some on the other hand only do rendering,which means after your CPU decodes it,it draws it.
Many cards come with software the in a dvd player,most of the time the cpu and the software do the hardwork.

A fast system may or maynot benefit from a hardware boosted card. As a rule from what I understand, hardware rendering usually looks the best since the card is specially designed to handle that task.

But since you are getting a Geforce3 card,and you have a fast system I really wouldnt worry since nomatter what type of decoding you use it will look AWESOME!!!!!!!