Hey folks. I have a feeling I'm about to commit technical suicide here, so I'm looking for some advice. *grin*

I have a perfectly good working KnoppMyth R5F1 setup on some older hardware. I just upgraded my desktop PC, and now I'd like to use my old desktop parts as my MythTV box. Only problem is ... The motherboard I want to use for Myth only has a PCI-X video card slot. I have a few extra AGP cards with TV-Out, but no PCI-X. Sooo, to make a long story short, a friend gave me an older (but fully functioning) ATI video card that is PCI-X.

If money wasnt so tight, I'd just purchase a cheap NVidia PCI-X video card, swap the parts over, and everything would "just work". I'm confident of that.

However, the switch from NVidia to ATI worries me a little bit. The card is an ASUS brand card with a Raedeon X300 SE chipset, which has DVI, Analog and TV-Out outputs.

Has anyone done this? What should I expect? Am I making a stupid move?

THANKS!
--Eric

A little bit more information, incase anyone is wondering:

The current Myth hardware is fast enough for what I do with it, however its an older AMD Athlon XP processor that runs hot which means I gotta use more cooling to keep it working properly. The CPU fan attached to it is a smidgen loud, plus I have to keep an extra case fan in the box to keep circulating air around.

The proposed new Myth hardware is a newer Athlon64 which is faster, yet runs much cooler. The CPU fan I have on it is much quieter. Plus, the faster processor will allow me to make archives quicker, and run jobs faster.

Sure, I could buy a new CPU cooler for the XP, but I'd rather not spend the money, when I have a perfectly good motherboard and processor that will run better and cooler just waiting to be tossed into my Myth box.

As I said, if $ wasnt an issue, I'd just buy an NVidia PCI-X graphics card, and be done with it... but I was given the ATI card, and I dont want to let it go to waste when I could certainly use it.

heheh

Thanks,
--Eric

I changed from an nvidia geforce4 mx to a radeon 9600 by just changing the driver line in xorg.conf from nvidia to radeon and rebooting

I am using the VGA out not the svideo connector so i dunno if it will just work as easily.

Yeah, the TV-Out is what concerns me.

Anyone have any other thoughts? I might just "jump in" over the weekend...

--Eric

I recently did a test on an ATi Sapphire X800 Pro in the hopes that I would be able to use a custom TV out modeline. But NO it seems to me that ATI TV out is broken and Proprietary. I recommend staying with Nvidia if your using Tv out...

This is really too bad. My Myth box has been acting up the past week, my time keeps slipping, *bad*, like nearly a minute over the course of an hour. I replaced my CMOS battery, and its still doing it. I even have NTPD running, and I'm still having the issue. I'd really like to just get rid of that cheap motherboard and upgrade, I guess I am going to have to bite the bullet and buy an NVidia-based PCI-Express graphics card.

Poot.

~~Aryq~~

$30-$60 on ebay. Or make a new post asking in the title if anyone has a spare card to sell cheap or donate.

Well, I bit the bullet and found the $$$ to purchase a new NVidia-based PCI-Express video card from NewEgg. $30+shipping. SO not too bad.

Thanks everyone for the posts. Perhaps now that AMD has started releasing the details of the ATI cards -- this wont be an issue in a years time.

Thanks!
--Eric

I don't want to be nit-picky here, but I'm going to.



PCI-X and PCI-E(xpress) are NOT the same/interchangeable. These are two different PCI standards. I was pretty confused when I started reading this thread, but now I understand what you mean.

_________________
Mike
My Hardware Profile

Whoops, My bad. I guess I didnt realize there were two.

Sorry for the confusion!

--Eric

Well, just as a follow-up, I received my NVidia 7200GS card today, swapped motherboards, put in the new video card, and viola, all is grand.

--Eric

You must have picked up the Gigabyte brand one I recently got on Newegg. All I had to do is plug it in and boot up in R5F27.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125073

I liked it because I could reclaim my PCI slot next to the video card. I also think the picture quality is better via S-Video than my old card (Nividia 6200 LE).

Yep! Exact same one. Sure does get warm, but I have pretty good ventiliation in my MythBox, so its not a huge concern.

Neat, too, that it comes with the little adapater to convert from svideo to component video. My TV has component inputs (even though its just an old SD TV), but since I'm just recording standard cable, I figure whats the point, svideo looks great.

Thanks!
--Eric