[biker19]

Can anyone confirm my suspicion about my setup: any HTPC with a gaming and/or regular graphics score in Vista of less than 3.0 will not display a live HD ch from a tuner card in MCE?


I have AMD 690G based MB and the built in graphics score is 2.9 (the gaming graphics score is also 2.9) and it won't display live any HD ch - it will display SD chs. I also have an ATI Xpress200 based MB (2+ years old) with scores of 2.3 and 3.0 and it will display HD chs.


By not display I mean that when tuned to an HD ch the screen goes green (all the other overlay graphics are still there) and audio is still heard.

 

[walford]

The problme may be that your built in graphics card does not have 128MB of memory since 64MB is not enough to process the HD frame buffers required especially for 1080i programs.

 

[TurboTropic]

In the ATI Catalyst Control Centre, is your card being displayed as an x1200 or as it should, as a x1250? This may impact your score.

 

[biker19]

CCC does show X1200 - how do you get it to x1250?


I've alloted all the way up to 1GB of mem to the graphics section and it makes no diff. Playing of HD in MCE is not a problem, it's the live display that doesn't work. I can record and watch live HD (even time slip) in the TotalMedia PVR app that came with my card.


Does anyone with a 690G based MB have a score higher than 2.9?

 

[walford]

Does it make any differnce if you are trying to watch or record a 720p program(ABC or FOX) instead of 1080i program (all the rest)?

All you need is 128MB graphics memory with only a sigle high resolution monitor.

If you record a program can you play it in Media Player instead of in Media Center?

 

[biker19]

Resolution of the HD signal doesn't make a diff. Playback is not a problem - all recorded material can be played back in all apps. The only issue is watching live and recording in MCE.

 

[TurboTropic]



Quote:
Originally Posted by biker19 /forum/post/0


CCC does show X1200 - how do you get it to x1250?


I've alloted all the way up to 1GB of mem to the graphics section and it makes no diff. Playing of HD in MCE is not a problem, it's the live display that doesn't work. I can record and watch live HD (even time slip) in the TotalMedia PVR app that came with my card.


Does anyone with a 690G based MB have a score higher than 2.9?

What board do you have?


I'm using XP MCE 2005, but it sounds like you need to fix some things.


I just installed a Biostar T690G AM2 and was having a terrible time getting the supplied CD drivers to install or Catalyst to recognise the x1250 (it showed x1200). Last night I downloaded them from the Biostar site, removed all of the ATI crap on my system and loaded the new ones. Catalyst now shows correctly my card as an x1250 and AVIVO (which the x1200 does not have).


XP Driver link: http://driver1.biostar.com.tw/suppor...pset/WINXP.exe


Vista Driver link: http://driver1.biostar.com.tw/suppor...pset/VISTA.exe


Both are dated April 30, 2007. Be very patient - took me about 3 hours...


May help, may not, but give it a whirl.

 

[AnthonyB]

I've heard that anything above a 5.0 will have no problem playing HD in any application and any media.

 

[biker19]

This is an MSI MB and the BIOS is still the original 3/1/07 one (and none newer are available) - I was told all 690G based MBs will be getting new BIOS updates soon, so I guess MSI must be late with their update.


CCC shows x1200 series - not just x1200 - and it does have AVIVO.

 

[biker19]



Quote:
Originally Posted by AnthonyB /forum/post/0


I've heard that anything above a 5.0 will have no problem playing HD in any application and any media.

Yeah, I thought for sure I saw something somewhere that 3.0 is some sort of threshold below which Vista will behave differently - hence my suspicion why my other MB with a 3.0 score works but this one with 2.9 doesn't.

 

[jhoff80]

I have a 3.6, and I can play HD video with almost no problems, it'll stutter every so often but its tolerable. I'm actually limited by my processor, an Athlon XP 2700, which gives a CPU score of 3.6


RAM (1 GB DDR 2700): 4.2

Graphics (256 meg ATI x800xl AGP): 5.9

Gaming Graphics: 4.9

Primary hard disc (WD 120GB IDE): 5.0

 

[biker19]

Playing HD has never been an issue - just watching live HD is. That 3.6 score is about right as my Athlon 64 3000+ gives a score of 3.8 (and the Brisbane 4000+ is at 5.3). It still bothers me that my 2+ year old Xpress200 chipset based video has a better score than a brand new 690G based one. Since the score system is supposed to max out 5.9 and an x800 based card is already at max I wonder what this means for the scoring system for newer hardware.


This is a portion of the explanation of the scoring system at MS' web site:

Quote:
A computer with a base score of 3.0 is able to run Windows Aero and many new features of Windows Vista at a basic level. Some of the new Windows Vista advanced features might not have all of their functionality available. For example, a machine with a base score of 3.0 can display the Windows Vista theme at a resolution of 1280 × 1024, but might struggle to run the theme on multiple monitors. Or, it can play digital TV content but might struggle to play High Definition Television (HDTV) content

and

Quote:
Media Center experience. If you use your computer as a media center for advanced multimedia experiences such as recording HDTV programming, then high subscores in the CPU, hard disk, and desktop graphics categories are important. Subscores of 3.0 or higher are usually sufficient in the memory and 3D graphics categories.

 

[jhoff80]

Okay, well watching live HD works fine for me as well. I'm a little surprised that the A64 3000 only gives a 3.8, compared to the 3.6 on my Athlon XP2700, but still.


I didn't realize that the score maxed out at 5.9, a little surprising that a three generations old AGP part gives the max score.

 

[yekat]

Anyone know why my pci-e 8600gt (256 MB) is only getting 1.0 on both graphics and gaming graphics? It is 1.0 both with nvidia's latest official drivers 158.18 and with guru3d's 160.3 drivers. Yet, even at 1.0, it defaults to Aero.

 

[biker19]



Quote:
Originally Posted by yekat /forum/post/0


Anyone know why my pci-e 8600gt (256 MB) is only getting 1.0 on both graphics and gaming graphics? It is 1.0 both with nvidia's latest official drivers 158.18 and with guru3d's 160.3 drivers. Yet, even at 1.0, it defaults to Aero.

Did you re-run the test after the initial install?

 

[biker19]

Just as I suspected a 3.0 video score seems to be some sort of threshold for Vista - MSI just posted a new V1.3 of the BIOS for their 690G based MB and my Vista score went from 2.9 to 3.0 and voila - HD now works in MCE.

 

[Paul Bigelow]

I have a machine build around Intel D630 (P4 @ 3.0Ghz) paired with a VisionTek 1250pro w/HDMI (256MB RAM). This combo seems to be on the ragged edge of what will work. Other components scrore into the 4.0+ region but the prcessor is only rated 3.6. Simplfying the appearance of the windows background: no pointer shadows, etc does not help. HDTV is OK, WMV-HD is OK, but it chokes with HD-DVD. It'll play for about 30 seconds then the processor (pegged at or near 100%) just cannot hold it together. I'm hoping that if ever a half height 8600GTS gets released I can it another try. Otherwise, this machine is HDTV only.

 

[biker19]

To offload HD-DVD work from the CPU look for the new ATI x2400/2600 cards in a couple of months.

 

[yekat]



Quote:
Originally Posted by biker19 /forum/post/0


Did you re-run the test after the initial install?

Yes. It was still at 1.0 both times I re-ran it. But after running it the first time, it switched from Basic to Aero, but still showed the score as 1.0.

 

[biker19]



Quote:
Originally Posted by yekat /forum/post/0


Yes. It was still at 1.0 both times I re-ran it. But after running it the first time, it switched from Basic to Aero, but still showed the score as 1.0.

That's strange - I would expect a card like to score 5 or even higher. It must choke on something during its test.


Slight caveat to my setup - HD does still not automatically work. On live or recorded HD material initially MCE shows a green screen with audio - after I minimize MCE and then restore it, the full HD picture displays properly. I still think that this is a marginal setup since I do get an occasional stutter watching live HD - no problems on playback.