DVD hardware decoding

[stu]

I have the creative DVD with the Dxr3 decoder card. Question is, do i need this card??? I am wunning Win 98SE with 1.2 athlon and an asus gforce 3 deluxe.... what is the advantage of using the Dxr3 card????

[Cody]

Well, in most cases, it will give you a clearer, more detailed picture, and that also means you will have more cycles left over, which means:
1) less heat from CPU
and/or
2) more cycles for something else

--Cody

[stu]

thank you

[griobhta]

I thought that the problem with decoder cards was they gave superior picture on a tv but inferior picture on your monitor. this is due to the fact that most of the pass-through cables that they are supplied with are of fairly poor quality.

Might not still be the case. I have a Duron 700 with a GeforceMX and have no problems watching with PowerDVD. So I would think that you should have no probs with out the card. Card can be handy if it has a tv output as I think you can use the computer as well as have dvd playing on tv. Really comes down to if you have the room for it why not. You could always only use the card for tv output and use software decoding for watching on your monitor. Don't realy have my machine doing all that much while watching DVD's so extra cycles are little use.

Griobhta

[ragtop]

A decoder card is used to get a smooth picture on an older computer that can't software decode fast enough to keep up.

I don't think you need to worry with a 1.2 TBird - you could probably software decode two DVD's at the same time without dropping any frames.

[Imperion1]

Ragtop has it right.

To add, a GeForce3 is DVD supported. So you really don't need the hardware decoder. Software will work just fine. And PowerDVD is the best DVD software out there.
If you want to watch DVD on the tv, just use the tv out on the back of the video card and change your device selection to TV.