Graphic Card for HD

Iconic

I have asked this question a couple of times and nobody seems to be able to give me an answer. Perhaps it is a daft question..... if it is can someone tell me why?

I have a Shuttle XPC 22 HTPC that is about four years old. It plays my pictures,videos,DVD's,music great now that Richie-from-the-Boro sorted out my Vista WMC problem.

I want to upgrade it to play Blu-ray/HD and I assume the Radeon X300 graphic card in it will need to be upgraded before I fit a Blu-ray drive. It appears that it will only take a single slot card and I have found a Sapphire HD 5450 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/199434 which appears to fit the bill

Could someone could tell me if the above would work and if it does would I also notice any improvement on SD playback?

gonzo127

the big thing you need to check is if your motherboard is AGP or PCI-E as this will change what graphics cards you can look at ~4 years ago AGP card were still pretty common

having had a quick look it would appear the x300 is a PCI-E card which is very good but worth double checking if you can

Iconic

gonzo127 wrote: »

the big thing you need to check is if your motherboard is AGP or PCI-E as this will change what graphics cards you can look at ~4 years ago AGP card were still pretty common

having had a quick look it would appear the x300 is a PCI-E card which is very good but worth double checking if you can

Does this help:
Motherboard
Manufacturer Shuttle Inc
Model FS30V10
Chipset Vendor SiS
Chipset Model 662
Chipset Revision 01
Southbridge Vendor SiS
Southbridge Model 966
Southbridge Revision 59
BIOS
Brand Phoenix Technologies, LTD
Version 6.00 PG
Date 11/10/2006

Further Details

Operating System
MS Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2
CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 @ 1.86GHz 31 °C
Conroe 65nm Technology
RAM
2.0GB DDR2 @ 334MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard
Shuttle Inc FS30V10 (Socket 775)
Graphics
Generic Non-PnP Monitor @ 1024x768
128MB CONNECT 3D RADEON X300 (Connect3D)
CONNECT 3D RADEON X300 Secondary (Connect3D)
CrossFire Disabled
Hard Drives
244GB FUJITSU MAXTOR STM3250820AS ATA Device (IDE) 41 °C
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H42N ATA Device
Audio
Realtek AC'97 Audio

gonzo127

hm i cant seem to see the specs for that motherboard ggggrrrr although having looked around i can only see the x300 as a PCI-E graphics card, maybe someone else will have some more luck getting some more information about the graphics capability of your motherboard.

this being said i have spotted another potential issue with upgrading this system to be Blu ray capable and thats currently your optical drive is on an ATA and not a S-ATA connection and i am not sure if you can get a blu ray drive which will run on the ATA connection

edit - just wondering if the expense of buying a new GPU at ~£40 and then the blu ray drive at ~£40 would it not be easier to just buy a blu ray player seperate

Iconic

gonzo127 wrote: »

hm i cant seem to see the specs for that motherboard ggggrrrr although having looked around i can only see the x300 as a PCI-E graphics card, maybe someone else will have some more luck getting some more information about the graphics capability of your motherboard.

this being said i have spotted another potential issue with upgrading this system to be Blu ray capable and thats currently your optical drive is on an ATA and not a S-ATA connection and i am not sure if you can get a blu ray drive which will run on the ATA connection

I was thinking of getting this http://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-BH10LS30-AUAU10B-Internal-BDRW-Software/dp/B00366LT82/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287625339&sr=8-1-catcorr nad putting it in this http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?nav=&product=TEMPEST-01001&title=Sumvision+Tempest+5.25+Inch+Blu-ray%2FDVD-%2F%2BRW+Sata+To+ESATA+%26+USB+Enclosure+ so hopefully the ATA/S-ATA will not be a problem. The reason I am going to use an enclosure is so I can produce Blu ray DVD's on my desktop!

spakkker

Same m/bo here - pci-e - http://s560.photobucket.com/albums/ss45/nerrr/?action=view&current=NerrrSpecs.png

Iconic

I am a bit lost here.

The graphic card already fitted is the 'RADEON X300 which fully supports the 'newest'(then) PC architecture standard - PCI Express' http://reviews.cnet.com/graphics-cards/connect3d-radeon-x300-pci/1707-8902_7-31092412.html

Does that mean I do not have to upgrade it even though it does not have HDMI out to play Blu-ray/HD?

It will save me a few quid but I don't want to buy a new drive and enclosure and then find my Shuttle cannot handle it.

AHAR

This article is a bit old but should still be useful for your situation.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2132/1

I think to be sure of having the oomph to play all Blu-ray disks and output to a HD display, a new graphics card which can have the processing offloaded onto it is required. What are you going to view these on? I notice your specs show a 1024 x 768 display? An [STRIKE]ATi[/STRIKE] AMD 5450 would be fine.

Iconic

AHAR wrote: »

This article is a bit old but should still be useful for your situation.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2132/1

I think to be sure of having the oomph to play all Blu-ray disks and output to a HD display, a new graphics card which can have the processing offloaded onto it is required. What are you going to view these on? I notice your specs show a 1024 x 768 display? An [STRIKE]ATi[/STRIKE] AMD 5450 would be fine.

Many thanks for the link. I notice the article was published four years ago, about the same time as I got the Shuttle, and only now am I trying to bring my machine up to the spec in the article
I see the article seems to confirm my CPU will have no trouble handling the HD content which is quite pleasing because I don't want to spend money on an upgrade and then find out it will not work.

The display is a Sony 32" Bravia (KDL-32V2500). I am aware I need to upgrade this to get full 1080p via Blu-ray but with the HDMI in from the new graphics card I will get 1080i or 720p. The 1024 x 768 display is via the DVI PC input from my current card.

I have never fitted a new graphic card before. Can I assume Vista will find the drivers for it. I have read horror stories about graphic card drivers.

spakkker

Drivers will come with a new card . Reading that article it sounds like hdmi has proprietory "keys" which are licensed,for a fee.So a non hdmi card may not play bluray because maker didn't pay for keys, even tho' it can output HD???

AHAR

Iconic wrote: »

I see the article seems to confirm my CPU will have no trouble handling the HD content

Well, not always...
"To sum up, while MPEG-2 is relatively easy to decode, H.264 enables smaller files with better image quality. On the down side, the time it takes to encode a movie using H.264 is much higher than required for MPEG-2, and the processing power needed to decode H.264 without dropping frames can be very large. Without GPU acceleration, not even an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 can play X-Men: The Last Stand without dropping frames."

Graphics cards have come on quite a bit since that article so even current entry level cards can deal with any Blu-ray movie.
Computer outputs need to be HDCP compliant to output to HD displays I think. I'm sure any recent card with an HDMI port will be compliant.