Tv-outs.....

[pertek]

how are they nowa days, preferably would like one on the nforce2 if not gfmx420/440 if not equivalent ati card.
few q's;

1. does it give a full-screen, no black boarder around the picture

2. Do you need drivers to enable the tv-out

3. does it show the pc booting up.

thx

[Austin]

Hasn't really changed all that much, ATI's TVout is still much better than nVidia's. nVidia with the GF4 (inc MX) standardised the TVout implimentation which is a bonus and AFAIK they also tweaked the drivers a little with the Dets (44+?) to overcome things like the black border without having to resort to 3rd party stuff like TVtool. nForce2's onboard gfx are basically GF4MX, MX420ish if you have single channel DDR and MX440ish if you have dual channel DDR, they rarely come with the AGP plugin for TVout though (AFAIK). So anyway if gaming is a mute point then GF4MX or any Radeon are top cards for you. So...

1. YES although a little tweaking is often needed. Would still steer clear of GF2/3.

2. Certainly nVidia's TV controls are built in to the std drivers but usually with ATI you install the Control Panel seperately (it does a lot mroe than just add TVout tools).

3. Pretty sure you can see it but most cards probably default to the US+Canada std of NTSC and in any case it won't be tweaked until you hit Windows. If it's for using the TV as the primary display device I'd defintiely rec having an old CRT or LCD to call on as necessary.

[pertek]

thx

[Bindibadgi]

Originally posted by Austin

3. Pretty sure you can see it but most cards probably default to the US+Canada std of NTSC and in any case it won't be tweaked until you hit Windows. If it's for using the TV as the primary display device I'd defintiely rec having an old CRT or LCD to call on as necessary.

No you get PAL or NTSC bois' ofr europe or the US. If the TV is clever itll detect the input and display it, otherwise youll have to enable it in windows.

[Austin]

I tested it out with my Radeon. It shows POST and only the WinXP splash screen is in b&w. Reason I said about the NTSC things was firstly that I recalled some B&W while watching the PC boot on my TV screen (32" widescreen) and that most of time when I install a new driver it resets the TVout back to NTSC rather than PAL IIRC. I do now recall tlak of NTSC and PAL BIOS' but I assume that just dictates the default or booting mode perhaps? Anyway problems/quirks aside it would seem I could use a TV for my primary display device (but I would keep an old monitor stashed away somewhere).