NVIDIA and ATI HDCP Compatible Graphics Cards Roundup
by Josh Venning on November 16, 2006 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Test Setup
Since we have so many cards here to test, we wanted to keep things fairly simple, rather than have a large number of games and resolutions in our performance graphs. We chose two games which offer a good example of the current generation of gaming and tested the cards with benchmarks from each of them. The games we chose are Battlefield 2 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. We chose to run our gaming benchmarks at 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 resolutions. We also kept AA and AF off, and sound was disabled. Here is the testbed we used for our performance tests:
Since we have so many cards here to test, we wanted to keep things fairly simple, rather than have a large number of games and resolutions in our performance graphs. We chose two games which offer a good example of the current generation of gaming and tested the cards with benchmarks from each of them. The games we chose are Battlefield 2 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. We chose to run our gaming benchmarks at 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 resolutions. We also kept AA and AF off, and sound was disabled. Here is the testbed we used for our performance tests:
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz/2MB) |
| Motherboard(s): | Intel D975XBX (LGA-775) |
| Chipset(s): | Intel 975X |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 7.2.2.1007 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Cards: | Various |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 6.10 NVIDIA ForceWare 91.47 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1600 x 1200 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
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DerekWilson - Thursday, November 16, 2006 - link
To be honest, this article was a very long time in production ... we got a hold of the drive almost two months ago iirc. It just took a whole lot of time and energy to get the tests done and the article written. We did go back and add the 8800 and 256mb 1900xt, but the x1950pro seemed to slip through the cracks.Sorry about that. We didn't exclude it on purpose, and we will try to include it in any future articles we write on HDCP protected content and high definition movies.
photoguy99 - Thursday, November 16, 2006 - link
If the article was done a while ago, does that mean it's now possible to playback h.264/vc1 Blu-Ray on a PC?It would be good to know what the missing link is to make sure we get it if we want to get playback on our own systems.
DerekWilson - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
All BD movies are currently MPEG-2 -- and probably will be for a while.HD-DVD movies use VC1.
peternelson - Friday, November 17, 2006 - link
Wrong, the initial BR moves were mpeg-2 encoded content.
There now exist BR discs with content in the other two main formats.
Also discs with dual layers while original releases were single layer.
The wikipedia page for bluray contains titles, launch dates of the non-mpeg-2 discs.
DerekWilson - Saturday, November 18, 2006 - link
I stand corrected. Thanks for the info.balazs203 - Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - link
Thanks for the great review.At this link in the review of the new Panasonic BR player they mention a few non-MPEG2 BD titles they like quality wise:
http://www.ultimateavmag.com/hddiscplayers/1106pan...">http://www.ultimateavmag.com/hddiscplayers/1106pan...
I would be very much interested in an extension of your review with non-MPEG2 titles as obviously I would like to buy a computer which can play back all these titles and MPEG2 is the easisest type. Info about the other types is much more important for me when I consider what parts I want to buy.
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 16, 2006 - link
The article wasn't *done* a while ago - it was *started* two months ago. It took that long to get to this point, which says something about the state of the technology.lujack26 - Monday, October 31, 2011 - link
I was looking around the web for HDMI video cards after I read this article and came across this website E-bargainz.com. They seem to have great prices, a large selection, and reasonable shipping. Here is the direct link to their selection of HDMI video cards http://www.e-bargainz.com/index.php/cPath/143. I also found a coupon code "Thank You" for $5 off your first purchase. I'm going to try them out. Anything to keep from putting another dollar in Jeff Bezos pockets.