Video out of Radeon8500 and GF4 Ti

[CoolAsAMoose]

Can you use the video out (S-VHS and composite) outputs of GF4 Ti and Radeon8500 card to view the same image on the TV as on the main monitor? Is there a limit on the resolution that you run on the monitor for the TV-out to work?

What I'm looking for is a way to get a professional/semi-professional video-output of a game while it's actually being played. I have a Matrox G400 that works this way but the 3D performance is too bad.

Which card has the best video output?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

It depends on how they use their TV Out.
TV-Out can either be an independant feed whose resolution and refresh rate can be independant from the CRT, Matrox G400 Max can support this, it can also do some quite nifty features such as a Zoomed in version of the Primary display or show the contents of an overlay. They can also use this to just display a mirror of the Primary display, however this will really screw over your bandwidth, more so if you are displaying the same data as the memory interface will break page even more than normal.

The other option is to have the Primary and TV display locked to the same resolution and refresh rate, this has no affect on your bandwidth but means you are limited to the resolution and refresh rate of the TV encoder, typically this will allow you upto 1024x768 , and you will only get PAL and NTSC refresh rates so 50Hz and 60Hz respectively.

Most cards will support the locked display, but I cannot say about specific cards, generally if it does not have multiple CRT capability it will be the locked display type of TV Out.

Hope this helps.

CC

 

[MPI]

Can you use the video out (S-VHS and composite) outputs of GF4 Ti and Radeon8500 card to view the same image on the TV as on the main monitor? Is there a limit on the resolution that you run on the monitor for the TV-out to work?

No. Not on the GF4Ti's at least. But the resolution is limited to either 800x600 or 1024x768 on the TV-out, so if you run a larger desktop area you "pan" the tv-screen when you move the mouse around.

IMHO, it's easier to have a separate 800x600 or 1024x768 desktop for the TV-output.

What I'm looking for is a way to get a professional/semi-professional video-output of a game while it's actually being played. I have a Matrox G400 that works this way but the 3D performance is too bad.

Which card has the best video output?

Thanks in advance!

Even though I haven't seen it, I think ATI kills in this department. I've seen the TV-output from two different GF4Ti's, one with the Connexant chip and one with Philips. Neither was spectacular. Both produces fat black borders on the TV, and the Connexant(almost all GF4's have this one) had quite bad tearing when playing movies. If you really are looking for semi-pro, this definitely isn't it.

 

[CoolAsAMoose]

Thanks for the explanation Captain Chickenpants!

Both the GF4Ti and Radeon8500 have support for two independant displays, but I haven't found any info if it can be used the way I need to. Matrox G400 is really flexible here, but too slow in 3D.

I would like to be able to run the monitor at higher refresh rate than 50 Hz while at the same time outputting a PAL S-video signal.

I guess the Matrox Parhelia-512 will be able to do what I want while giving good 3D performance, but I would like to have a solution today.

 

[Bambers]

The 8500 will run a game or desktop at 1024x768 on both the TV (svideo or composite and PAL or NTSC) and the CRT with indepentant refresh rates. It can be a little fiddly to set up sometimes but I've had RTCW running on my TV in 1024x768 @ 50Hz and on my monitor at 85Hz.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

One thing you could try is this
http://tvtool.info/index_e.htm
It supports NVidia cards and allows you to choose non-standard modes etc. Including PAL60
It will also let you put it into Overscan mode (No Borders) rather than the Underscan mode that NVidia drivers seem to default to.
It sounds like the 8500 is running a dual output system so you will get a performance hit if you use it as Bambers suggests, will probably still be better than the Matrox though.

 

[Bambers]

Nope, no hit on games as the screens are clones of each other (dual display can be set but I don't think games can be run at independant resolutions on each display), the refresh rate is independant. I don't think I can set over 1024x768 but I havent tried as I only have a 15" monitor and 1152x864 is blurry.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

Have you tested this?
If they are running at independant refresh rates then I would have thought that the memory access behaviour would have some affect,.
I.e. not only are you reading all your framebuffer data twice, but as you are reading the data at different rates the access will be interleaved, with many of the access causing page breaks (unless it has a 1024x768*2 byte page size which I think unlikely)

Perhaps as you are being forced to run at 1024x768 you are hitting a CPU limit before bandwidth can become an issue.


CC

 

[Tahir2]

I have tested it.

You can set up the monitor to run at an independent Refresh Rate to your TV screen using the Radeon 8500 and the 6071 drivers (only ones I am using right now). You can also select resolution from 640*480 to 1024*768... not that I noticed any difference!

Going online and letting my wife watch a DVD through my PC on a TV is worth the Radeon 8500 TV Out on its own.