DVD DECODER

[westhoops04]

Is there a hardware DVD decoder on my video card (visiontek gf2mx) or should i buy win dvd for 6 bucks with my new pioneer 16x dvd. I only have a limited amount of money.

[SickBoy]

what kind of CPU power and RAM do you have behind that video card? (Judging by your name) If you have a P3 700 or better, soft decoding should be fine. I have a Duron 700 with 128 MB of RAM and it'll play DVDs very smooth (almost an unnoticable difference from hardware decoding). A good DVD decoder card (Hollywood or Creative) is going to run you about $50 so if you have the CPU/RAM power I would just go with the $6 soft decoder, for now at least.


SickBoy

[westhoops04]

I have a Celeron 566@850 and 192 megs of ram. Should that be sufficent or not.

[Shadow ÒÓ]

I think it'll be very close.....I think PowerDVD and WinDVD have demo versions for their software. Seems to me PowerDVD would allow you to download and install.....but would only play 5 or 10 mins of the movie before shutting down. Should be enough to see if you can go without a hardware decoder.

Go here to download the Power DVD demo:

http://www.gocyberlink.com/english/products/powerdvd/powerdvd.asp

[Nomis]

IHATEAMD (Apr 30, 2001 10:10 p.m.):
I have a Celeron 566@850 and 192 megs of ram. Should that be sufficent or not.

More than enough, plus when you use PowerDVD, you can enable the hardware accelerator option with the use of your video card.