is the 128 mb card better than the 64, is the g force the best? do i need the pci or agp or what ever the initials were? sorry guys , really new to all this and i am really trying to learn. thanks
I'm assuming that you haven't got a graphics card at the moment on your computer? If that's the case, first you need to buy one. What are the specifications of your computer at the moment? How old is it? What processor/motherboard is it? Where did you get it?
bought 3 months ago. HP pavilion 304. 1800 processor runs at 2200. amd, 40 gig hard drive.mx 70 monitor.windows xp. loaded with video,codecs and audio controllers
is this your pc... http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/document.jhtml?lc=en&docName=bph07963 you bought it at Wal-Mart? Look at this picture here... is this your motherboard? Open up your computer and take a look... http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/docume...eg=na&cc=us&docName=bph07941&lc=en&#P212_1478 If it all looks good so far, we're in business. now here's the expensive part. you haven't got a graphics card in your pc. A graphics card is used by the computer to take the burden of drawing stuff on the screen away from the main processor. Not all pc's come with them, and you don't necessarily need one for many things as your CPU can do this work on its own, but they're essential if you want to play any kind of graphically intense games, or mess around with video. Unfortunately, if you look on the second link you'll see that you don't have TV-out capability on your pc, which means you'll need a graphics card. That doesn't have to be too expensive however. By the way... The long brown slot next to the three beige slots in the bottom right of the picture is the AGP slot. It's used if you want to add a graphics card to your computer. PCI slots are used for other add-on cards like sound cards etc. this is where your graphics card will go. Have a look here for some recent reviews,if you can be bothered to trawl through it all.. http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030714/index.html (that's a great site to read up on just about anything computer related anyway..) If you can't be bothered to trawl through this, and just want a good, cheap, serviceable graphics card, I'd go with either an ATI radeon 9200 or Geforce 5200. Make sure that the model you buy is the TV out model.. Follow the instructions, stick it in your computer and you're set. You then just need to run a coaxial cable from the video card to the yellow plug (video in) on you video recorder and you should be okay.
man you nailed my computer right on the head. i don;t mind spending some money to get what i want, i just don;t want or can afford to many mistakes when shopping. thanks for the info and fast reply. i think i will go with the g force. thanks again.
one more thing... just make sure you get a card with a video out socket. it may be a coaxial-type out (in which case you can plug it right into the video in socket, and it should work), but some cards have s-video out. You'll need to buy an s-video to coaxial converter, should be about a dollar or something. You might need to mess with the output modes as well, on my radeon 9000, you have to switch from monitor only to dual display mode. Then you often have to switch to tv output only (which can be a bugger to set back to monitor only). Good luck anyway.
ok, the 9000 it is. i will make sure to look for the coax out fitting on the video. thank you to all for their help and fast responce. peace
I know the problem with all Radeon cards (and some nVidia cards, apparently). See, they block out any video file immage on the TV because they are bunch of assholes. You can circumvent this by opening any old video with the media player you dont like, pause it, then open the movie you want to watch with your favorite media player. This works... they block out the first video file because they are nazis and want to stop the stealing of movies over the internet or something; but they werent smart enough to block out a second video file open at the same time. This works for every kind of video file as far as I know, but Ive run into another hitch: I want to watch a flippin dvd, and windows doesnt like having a video file and a dvd playing. I cant switch the TV to the primary display because windows / my radeon 9800 pro wont detect the tv for some god damn reason, so in the Display tab, I have to go to "troubleshoot" and select force tv detection (or whatever its call). Then, it just wont let me select the tv as the primary and shut the monitor off. Anyone else know some other solution to my problem? Because Im about ready to back to nVidia if ATI is going to be a bunch of losers. Sorry for the anger in my post, but Ive been fiddling with my display settings and found the PERFECT set up for watching movies, and now the program I use (TVtool www.tvtool.com) doesnt support radeon. So now Ive lost my cool setup and am in the TVout dark ages I was in when I first figured out how to set this up. << Watch the tone >> -Praetor.
