@TBird: Schoen, dass dein Quad PPro noch funktioniert. Man soll die Technik ja mal alle Jahre anschalten
. Wie weit bist Du eigentlich bei Giana Sisters - Twisted Dreams ?
Ich habe mir letztens mal fruehe Beschleunigerkarten zur DVD-Wiedergabe angeschaut und ein paar kurze Vergleichsvideos aufgenommen.
Ich linke direkt mal rueber zu Vogons, wo ich den Thread eingestellt habe:
VOGONS :: View topic - DVD accelerators compared
Hier ein Auszug (Achtung Englisch ;-) ):
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I just did a session to compare various DVD accelerator solutions (may be extended later).
I recorded a brief footage from the 5th element movie that shows some slow moving scenes in the beginning with fine structures on the book and in the end some faster scenes with higher brightness dynamic.
You will see also the interface of the players briefly. They are specific for the used DVD accelerator solution. Some allow to playback also mpeg2 files.
The system I used was a P2 233MHz on a 440LX chipset (MSI-6117 board) with Win98SE.
1)
i740 AGP 8 MB SDRAM with Sigma Designs Malibu daughterboard with Realmagic EM8220 2MB, SB16
graphics mode 1024x768 24bit color depth
Richard already posted photos of it here:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/p.birch73/richard/vogons/card.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/p.birch73/richard/vogons/db_removed.jpg
Comparison Video footage:
ftp://78.46.141.148/videos/dvd_decoders/sigma_designs_malibu_on_i740_em8220.mkv
my notes:
The decoder seems to have problems with the format of PAL 4:3 resolution.
If the movie is 16:9 with less vertical lines it seems to work.
Audio sounds as if capped with a low frequency.
Conversion Quality Setting in Windows was set to high though.
The daughterboard is mapped through the i740 resources.
2)
Creative PC-DVD-Encore Dxr2
Matrox G200, SB16
graphics mode 1024x768
The card:
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/creative_pc-dvd_ct7120.jpg
Comparison Video footage:
ftp://78.46.141.148/videos/dvd_decoders/creative_pc_dvd_encore_dxr2.mkv
The Dxr2 uses a VGA Loop Through cable and uses analog chroma keying.
This also reduces the normal vga signal quality
I didn't recorded audio, but you get german subtitles instead.
The average dynamic of the video playback is rather bad.
The decoder chip has problems with PAL resolution that have more vertical scanlines.
It is not as corrupted as the Malibu daughterboard but the lower part will be cut off, including subtitles.
The card uses I/O and an IRQ.
The Dxr2 has SPDIF out, so I didn't record audio from it. As it is digital no quality loss is expected.
3)
Quadrant CineMaster C3.0
Voodoo3 3000 AGP, SB16
graphics mode 1024x768x32 bit
the card:
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/cinemaster_c3.jpg
Comparison Video footage:
ftp://78.46.141.148/videos/dvd_decoders/quadrant_cinemaster_c30.mkv
The CineMaster card uses a VESA feature connector cable for rendering to the graphics cards framebuffer.
It didn't seem to work on a Matrox G200A (crashed in 24 Bit and reported unuseable mode for 16 and 32 bit color depth)
Audio was routed from the CineMasters analog Audio-Out to SB16s Line-In.
Still you will hear a difference compared to the Malibu daughterboard f.e.
DVD Menu seems to be slightly corrupted on top. Crackling of Audio in the Menu is gone if the movie starts.
Tried also "Serenity" DVD, where Menu is also corrupted and showing just a few scanlines of it in the upper area.
Audio does not crackle in menu.
If it works the video quality is better than with the other solutions.
The card uses I/O and an IRQ.
Overall: It was quite a hassle to get the cards running. Sometimes it simply doesn't work, i.e. system freezes when starting playback. DVD player crashing, no video just sound or no sound just video or the graphics card does not work together with the accelerator card...
The system was tested before for stability and everything else worked fine. Most of the player applications seem to have been never updated. The accelerator card support was probably dropped as soon as the average PC could play DVDs by software.
If I get a VGA Loop Through for the Creative dxr3 done I can add it too.
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Vielleicht hat ja noch jemand einschlägige Erfahrung mit den Karten.