Video Card Recommendations

deuce25 wrote on 12/29/2004, 7:22 AM
I'm trying to decide on a video card to go with for editing in Vegas 5. Right now I have a Nvidia GeForce 4 MX4000 (128MB), AMD Athlon 2500+ (clocked to 2.34 Ghz), 1GB ram, WinXP, 60GB and 160GB drives. I was looking at the Nvidia QuadroFX family or the Quadro 4 980 XGL.

Right now I'm not happy with the quality and speed when viewing on an external monitor and since the manual states the video card can be the most important part of your system I figured that's where I would start since I think the rest of my system should be satisfactory for editing. I used to run an Amiga Toaster Flyer and I had full quality preview at any given second and would like to get back to that. :)

Any suggestions? Since $ is a factor I don't want to get into overkill but want nice 30fps full-frame NTSC and high def output.

To preview on an external monitor I'm currently just going through my camcorder but am looking at the Datavideo DAC-100 (for some reason it's not listed under Hardware Support although it is getting great reviews). Would that also affect the quality of my preview?

Thanks,

Deuce

Comments

FuTz wrote on 12/29/2004, 7:31 AM
With Vegas, you should be more concerned about the ieee1394 ouput than the actual graphic card. You can find a real good Matrox 550 card (or even an old 450 millenium) that will give you great crisp images.
BUT: if you're a gamer, you must choose another brand for a nice price.
Lots of topics on this subject on this forum. Maybe try the Search engine (top right) ?
deuce25 wrote on 12/29/2004, 9:14 AM
Thanks FuTz. In what aspect should I be concerned about the 1394 output? I'm using the 1394 port that comes with the motherboard. I also have one on my Soundblaster Audigy. Can one be better than the other?

I'm not a gamer so that doesn't matter. I was under the impression that the quality of the video card was very important for Vegas and using an external monitor.

Yes, I will try searching the forum (which I should have done in the first place! :)).
jetdv wrote on 12/29/2004, 9:24 AM
To connect an external NTSC monitor:

http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/viewtopic.php?t=87

http://www.vasst.com/training/vegasfaq.htm#1394
Former user wrote on 12/29/2004, 11:04 AM
First - get rid of your motherboard 1394 access and get a real card...there are a ton of good ones out there.

Also - Your impression of the quality of a video card is way off base. Judging by the money you dropped on the cards you have (and you are NOT a gamer?) - I would say...money totally wasted. Vegas doesn't use (or require) any of the fancy RAM and redraw capablilities of a 128MB or 256MB gamer card.

A Matrox G450 dualhead is still one of the best (and most stable) cards around. My Vegas editing is still razor sharp with this 2001 classic. Oh - it cost me about 50 bucks....

VP
deuce25 wrote on 12/29/2004, 1:41 PM
Vocalpoint,

What do you recommend for a 1394 card? What sort of difference is there between a separate card and the MB one? It seems to capture fine and the external monitor is working. Does the 1394 card affect the quality of the capture and external monitor? Sorry for all the questions but I'm new to Vegas and PC editing.

BTW, the video card that's in my system just happened to be the one that was in the tower when I bought if off someone.
farss wrote on 12/29/2004, 2:18 PM
The video card has zero effect on Vegas output and the same thing goes for the 1394 port, either they work or they don't. If the mobo ports work then there's nothing to be gained replacing them. Vegas simply uses the 1394 port as a conduit to feed data to the external D/A converter for monitoring. During capture again the 1394 interconnect and for that matter the VCR are just a mechanism for transferring data, nothing is done to the data by anything.
The most significant impact on perfromance (but not quality) comes from data throughput and CPU speed, faster CPU and fatter pipes means more data can be moved. There is however a quantising effect. Once the needed amount of data can be moved to meet the fps nothing is gained by more horsepower until you add more FXs.
The only exception may be some of Satish's FXs which from memory do use the GPU on the video card.
If you're using 3D packages like TrueSpace or Maya then GPU power does have a direct impact but does nothing for Vegas.
Bob.
FuTz wrote on 12/29/2004, 3:12 PM
Just be SURE this firewire card is OHCI compliant. Most of these cards are nowadays but, still, be *certain* the one you pick IS compliant. It will allow you to control the camera from the computer (play/pause/rew/ff...) and will simplify -a lot- the capture process.
The classic here: ADS Tech cards. (www.adstech.com I guess...) . Used to be around 50 bucks some time ago (1-2 years). Probalby cheaper now.
farss wrote on 12/29/2004, 3:58 PM
My point is he's already got 1394 on the mobo and it's working, someone was suggesting he needs a separate firewire card, that'll achieve nothing from what I know.
Bob.
FuTz wrote on 12/29/2004, 5:43 PM
Indeed, you're right, farss : if it's working, why buy another one?
(I read across these posts a little too fast; shame on me!)

... my point was: if you're buying another one, that is.


To my mind too ; the less hardware to make the job, the better. Why pile up a bunch of PCI cards if one (or more) of those is useless?
Former user wrote on 12/30/2004, 6:01 AM
If he can achieve what he wants with the motherboard 1394 - then great. On the other hand - I haven't seen a motherboard 1394 port that hasn't resulted in dropped frames, lockups and other weird transfer crap.

It will happen - it's only a matter of time.

VP
John_Cline wrote on 12/30/2004, 6:34 AM
My Gigabyte 8KNXP v2.0 motherboards each have three built-in Firewire ports based on the TI chipset. They work flawlessly. It is usually the motherboard Firewire ports based on NEC and VIA chips that have problems.

John
deuce25 wrote on 12/30/2004, 7:50 AM
Thanks everybody for helping this newbie along. There'll be lots more questions to come! :)

Why I initially posted this thread was from viewing stock footage on my external monitor. The footage was in DV QuickTime .mov format from my Time Image library and when viewed on my external monitor it looked like crap. I firewired in some of my own DV footage and the playback on the external monitor was great. Is it something to do with Vegas recompressing the .mov footage on playback? I assume the final rendered footage would look as it's supposed too?
FuTz wrote on 12/30/2004, 8:48 AM
John:
this Texas Instruments remark must be reaaally relevant since when I bought my ADSTech card, THAT was what I was looking for at that time...
John_Cline wrote on 12/30/2004, 9:16 AM
For example, AVID specifically states that they will only support Firewire cards with the TI chipset. My first Firewire card had an NEC chipset and it had some issues. Since then, I have used nothing but TI chipset cards and have never had a problem. One of the reasons I bought the Gigabyte motherboards and my Dell laptop is that they used TI Firewire chips.

John
FuTz wrote on 12/30/2004, 9:53 AM
Do you know if Asus mobos use it too? I know it's OHCI compliant but been too lazy to test it since I bought this setup (but soon I will check it up to check this dropped frames issue).
John_Cline wrote on 12/30/2004, 11:01 AM
I believe that the ASUS motherboards use the VIA chipset, but I'm not absolutely certain about that. They make no mention of it on their web site and I would think that if they were using the TI chipset, they would make a point of saying so.

John
FuTz wrote on 12/30/2004, 1:33 PM
I checked their site and didn't find anything bout TI.
Then I checked inside my case and you're right: it's the VIA VT-6307 chip that does the job.
(P4P-800 E Deluxe board)

reference:
http://www.vntek.com/en/products/1394/vt6307.jsp