Arch Linux

standsolid

Member

From: Carlsbad, CA

Registered: 2004-05-23

Posts: 54

Website

SiS 6326 PG80/DVD vs nVidia GF4 MX420

My current project is building my sweet media center PC that will conenct to my TV.  previously I was running 2 monitors and one TV off of one comptuer. I pulled my Nviida Geforce 4 MX 420 PCI out to use in a gneeric PC i scraped together for the viewer. I recently found an SiS 6326 APG w/ s-video and RCA outputs. which card would be best?

I plan on using the RCA output and just playing TV shows (recorded/downloaded on my main PC) and playing snes games.

//standsolid//

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ewwwwww Arch is all gooey

Greycloack

Member

Registered: 2004-03-05

Posts: 166

Re: SiS 6326 PG80/DVD vs nVidia GF4 MX420

I don't know if this helps but from what I know sis is has a rather limited support in linux while Nvidia has great drivers, even if not open source ones.

I had a laptop with a sis 650 on, based on the 6326, and it wasn't possible to get 3d accelration on it. I read around and there's a person, Thomas Winchester, who works on the X drivers for sis. He managed to get accelration in some of the cards but not all of them.

If you plan on using 3d accelration I would go for the Nvidia. if you just want the TV output, the sis should be ok, it will work but I wouldn't expect much from it...

phrakture

Arch Overlord

From: behind you

Registered: 2003-10-29

Posts: 7,879

Website

Re: SiS 6326 PG80/DVD vs nVidia GF4 MX420

I am going out on a limb here and assuming you'll be using MythTV:
most myth boxes use the Geforce 4 MX with TV out...
However, the Hauppauge PVR-350 (If you can spare the extra cash) has superior TV-out capability - only downside is that the FB device isn't initialized until after boot, so you don't get the boot message spam...

Anyway, Hauppauge cards are the best PVR cards for linux (IMO) - check out IVTV (IvyTV) at sourceforge for driver support.

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http://phraktured.net

skoal

Member

From: Frequent Flyer Underworld

Registered: 2004-03-23

Posts: 612

Website

Re: SiS 6326 PG80/DVD vs nVidia GF4 MX420

Anyway, Hauppauge cards are the best PVR cards for linux (IMO) - check out IVTV (IvyTV) at sourceforge for driver support.

I'll second that.  I had an "ATI All-In-Wonder" (oxymoron) at one time and soon switched to an NVIDIA/HAUPPAGE combo.  Hauppage is pretty much the commercial standard and is very well supported in almost any X app that could use those types of cards.

Since you have a spare card lying around, I would sell the SiS extra on eBay for a few bucks and put that money down as a deposit for a Hauppage PCI card (if that spare Geforce can't do what you want).  You can buy one for your needs for as little as $29 - SiS "rebate".

That's pretty much what I did with my "All-In-Wonder" card.  The time I saved by using a well supported Hauppage card in Linux versus a few extra dollars was well worth it.

Here's a quick eBay search link if you're interested:

http://search.ebay.com/hauppauge_W0QQso … 1QQfromZR8