Best Vid Cards for P4 Sys?

[Dante]

Helloo, I just registered today and am getting the DVX at the end of the month and have been following everyones progress here.

Ok, Im running a P4 Dual Processor and Im in a HUGE debate. Which video card I should go with to get the best results. I'm aware... realtime fx's may be an option to pass up and i won't get everything all in 1 card. But im looking for quality, efficiancy and reliabilaty. The cards im looking at are:

Matrox, Canapus Storm and... what else would you recomend. Its going to be used strickly for NLE purposes. No gaming. I will be having dual monitors.

If anyone could, please help a newbie.

Thanks for the help.
Jamie

[Flintstone]

Matrox, Canapus Storm and... what else would you recomend

By mentioning Canopus Storm, are you saying that you want a realtime editing board? Or a video graphics card? If you want a realtime NLE board, none support 24p. I have a Matrox RT.X100, although good, it does offer me some grief, and always at the worst possible times. AND, did I mention it doesn't support 24p?! If you have a Dual P4, I suggest you do with the software only route; less problems this way! I could go on and on about hardware NLE boards, so I'll stop there.

Now, if you are looking for a video card, then an interresting card is the Matrox Parhelia tripple head card. For editors like us, you can hook up 2 monitors, and a TV (ref monitor) on the third port. This allows for WYSIWYG in various applications such as After Effect, PhotoShop, 3D Studio Max, and more. The Matrox is not a dire pixel pusher though, and if you are looking for the creme-de-la-creme in OpenGL cards today, then look no further then the ATI 9800 Pro TX. And of course, there are always the good old classic nVidia cards.

I've said a lot, but your choice really depends on what you need, and of course your budget. Do you want to do 3D stuff? Or just 2D and video? In which case you can always go the cheap and stable way with a Matrox G550.

[Dante]

I was looking at other threads and came across this personaly built syes... what do you all make of it?


ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe MB
Pentium 4 - 3.0GHz HT Processor w/800 MHz FSB
Antec Tru550 - 550W PS
1GB Kingston DDR400 PC3200 Ram (2 X 512)
Matrox G550 32MB DDR 4X AGP Display Card
Dual Display - (2) ViewSonic VP181b (18" LCD)
Western Digital 120 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache - System Drive (Primary Master)
Western Digital 120 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache - Export Drive (Primary Slave)
Western Digital 120 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache - A/V Drive #1 (Secondary Master)
Sony DRU510A DVD Burner (Secondary Slave)
Western Digital 120 GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache - A/V Drive #2 (Promise P-ATA Controller on MB)
Samsung 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Logitech Cordless MX Duo - Keyboard/Mouse
Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96 Sound Card/Interface Box
Kingwin KT-424-BK 10-Bay Mid Tower Case
Windows XP Pro - SP1

Video/Audio Editing:
Matrox RT.X100 Extreme Pro
Adobe Premiere Pro
Adobe Audition
Adobe Encore
Adobe After Effects
Adobe PhotoShop

[Dante]

[quote author=Flintstone link=board=Links;num=1069302601;start=0#1 date=11/19/03 at 21:33:23]

By mentioning Canopus Storm, are you saying that you want a realtime editing board? *Or a video graphics card? *If you want a realtime NLE board, none support 24p.

-- I thought that would be the case with those cards not supporting it.


*I have a Matrox RT.X100, although good, it does offer me some grief, and always at the worst possible times. *AND, did I mention it doesn't support 24p?! *If you have a Dual P4, I suggest you do with the software only route; less problems this way! *I could go on and on about hardware NLE boards, so I'll stop there.

-- Could you actually elaborate on NLE boards.

Now, if you are looking for a video card, then an interresting card is the Matrox Parhelia tripple head card. *For editors like us, you can hook up 2 monitors, and a TV (ref monitor) on the third port. *This allows for WYSIWYG in various applications such as After Effect, PhotoShop, 3D Studio Max, and more. *The Matrox is not a dire pixel pusher though, and if you are looking for the creme-de-la-creme in OpenGL cards today, then look no further then the ATI 9800 Pro TX. *And of course, there are always the good old classic nVidia cards.

-- Will the ATI support 24p.

I've said a lot, but your choice really depends on what you need, and of course your budget. *

My budget right now is standing at 2,000. I will be doing only video and some 2D.

Do you want to do 3D stuff? Or just 2D and video? *In which case you can always go the cheap and stable way with a Matrox G550.

All this is driving me mad...... i guess its a part of life.

[Zoomforce]

G550 is crap.. get a dual headed ATI or a Geforce fx. Either way, most of them come with dual heads.
Nowadays you dont need a realtime card.. unless you do intense compositions or crazy transistions in which case you should be shot.

Most NLE's now do realtime effects.. to some degree.

ATI supports 24p.. but it is a "gamers" card.. doesnt do the realtime effects. But procs now can handle the realtime stuff without the added hardware.

[Flintstone]

unless you do intense compositions or crazy transistions in which case you should be shot.

All this time I though that heart shaped transisions were the way to go with each scene changes for a 3 hour video? :

[tt]Go back to bed Flintstone, you only had 4 hours of sleep! You should really get a life![/tt] ;D

[Zoomforce]

yeah Im a Nvidia guy myself, but the Quadro is a little overkill unless your do alot of 3d Stuff.

[Dante]

this should be a whole seperate area into itself.

Some many diffrent views on cards... hmm... now im stuck. :-X

[Jive]

I don't think this was asked yet, but what exactly to you mean to do with your computer?

Since you're asking on a video-centric forum, I'm assuming you'll be interested in editing you videos. What video card to get (or whether you even need one for this purpose) largely depends on what NLE you'll be using. Many current NLEs are considered "software only", meaning that the load is handled by the software and the CPU. None of the load is taken by the graphics card. NLEs like Vegas are software only.
There are other NLE's like Premier that can use certain video cards specifically made to speed up editing in premier. However, premier doesn't natively support 24P, and these cards ONLY work with premier, they don't contribute to anything else.
There are also NLEs like Avid that use a special box that accelerates editing/effects so that it's more realtime.
Finally, though I have yet to try it out, Pinnacle Edition is supposed to be able to divert some of the load to the GPU on the video card where effects are rendered in the background. This is supposed to effectively make pretty much everything realtime when used in conjunction with a fast CPU (a dual 3GHz should suffice ;)). But, like I said, I have yet to use this program so I couldn't say how well it works in this respect.

On the flipside, if you're going to be doing motion graphics, compositing, and the like, you might be using programs such as after effects or combustion. AFAIK, these programs don't benefit greatly from video cards during rendering. However, there is supposed to be a performance benefit when using a good GL card during the composing phase (where you create your animations animations, etc.)

Video cards like the ATI 9800 are meant more for gamers and don't offer a whole lot for editors in terms of price:value.
Unless you're doing high level 3d work, where a $1k+ video card would come in handy, you would be better off with a simple card with a fast GPU and lots of video memory (at least 128, but 256 would be ideal) to aid in screen refresh, etc. But as noted above, the NLE you'd be using is more a determinant factor as to what vid card you should have.

[Zoomforce]

That's basically what I ended up telling Jamie.. Save the money on video card and spend it on CPU and mem.