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Subject:
From:
John Sproule <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 28 Jun 2000 08:05:06 -0400
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My two cents would be keep the focus on your main priority, gaming.  Get the
most bang for the buck you can find from the various Geforce2s available.
Best I can tell from reviews they all perform about the same, since they all
basically follow the reference design and are using the same memory chips
(exception being the 64mb models, but that's another story).  Many of these
cards have tv out or the option to add tv out, so I would get a Geforece2
with TV out and use software decoder to start with, before deciding whether
you want to give up another PCI slot and IRQ for a decoder card.  My brief
experience with a decoder card was not that good, so I am biased againt
them.  Besides it never really working right, it makes use of a pass through
cable (like the voodoo2), and with a large, high resolution monitor you may
notice a degradation in your image (I did), which led to me disconnecting
the card when it wasnt in use.  Since I only infrequently watch DVD on my
computer's monitor at this point, the DVD software has been the much better
solution for me.  Today's very fast computers have less need for a hardware
decoder than older slower ones did.

As far as watching DVDs in the home, I would say that one of the main
advantages of the DVD (given the low resolution of televisions) is the
upgraded surround sound audio.  But this opens another can worms, lol.

John

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