Selecting a good video card (dvd playback)

[dinkob]

Hi everyone.

My system has following specs:

Pentium 2 333 Mhz, 192 RAM, 2 80Gig 7200rpm Hard drives, 3dfx Vodoo 4 card (PCI card, I believe it's 4500).

Recently I had the opportunity to get a cheap burner DVD combo unit so I did.

Under dual boot system currently my DVD playback is much better in Windows 98 second edition as opposed to Windows 2000 HOWEVER the most I can get is probably about 20 fps playback and picture looks more like a good SVCD (I am thinking it's gotta be because it's most likely software encoder).

1st question: Would getting a different card improve the performance (I am thinking maybe I could invest a few bucks for a card IF IT WOULD help). I saw GeForce 2 MX 440 for 50 bucks at Best Buy 64 megs I think but no words on DVD playback capabilites. Once and for all can someone verify for me that in order to get the *proper* dvd playback one should HAVE a Video Card that has hardware decoder built in (please verify this).

2nd question: If I get a video card that has hardware decoder (I presume that would be MPEG-2 decoder on the card) would picture of SVCDs improve as Well?

3rd question: (relates to 1). With these kind of specs would I be able to get 30fps on dvd at all regardless of the card? (My mobo is old and some cheap acer board and it's impossible to PUSH (overclock) the CPU even up to 350 Mhz - I tried finding some software but no luck since hardware wise it's impossible; also the bus speed of my board is 66mhz and no higher CPU will work (400 Mhz (I have one that is just sitting arround) was recognized as 233))

Btw I tried Looking at Google and visited at least 15 pages that has tremendous info and I did run into one comment where they say that
P3 300Mhz (that exists?) is enough / minimal but I couldn't find any info on video cards. Would that make my 333Mhz OK I couldn't also verify?

Anyways thanks for any info.

Dinks

[pharlap]

i'd be looking at upgrading if i were you

[b1tchm4gn3t]

I DEFINATLY agree with pharlap, I used to have an old p2 333 and I had NO luck getting it to play a dvd worth a _ _ _ _! And that was with a video card upgrade too. No offense, but you NEED to upgrade.

[dinkob]

I definitely agre with you that it's time for upgrade (Which should have been done 2yrs ago anyway).

I just found a card that looks like could do it. Playback looks like it stutters a little bit (very little) but it really looks good.

I got Visiontek 9200 SE (powered by ATI) and it ONLY works properly in Windows 98 SE (I use dual boot anyway). Windows 2000 can't do it probably cuz of all the services running.

Card cost me 70 bucks and it is a PCI but I could use it anyway in the future (note: This is a third card I upgraded (first Vodoo 3, then Vodoo 4, then this now).

I think it's a keeper and my PC upgrade; well I think I could give it one more year.

**EDIT** if anyone is interested.

Movie DVD's play almost fine; 2 fast 2 furious looks excellent so does Daredevil. My old DVD The Rock looks great too. However my 2 WWE dvd's, Royal Rumble 2003 and Bloodbath DVDs have some frameskipping so I have to select Force weave mode, which also has some rather small stutters. I think this has to do with aspect ratio or possibly the interlaced video.

Oh well I am ok either way.

In conclusion it looks like for DVD playback probably 300 mhz is a minimum 333mhz looks at about 85% as it should be whis is quite fine with me.

Dinks