Do I Need to Update My Video Card For HD Movies? (NO GAMING)

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computermoron

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EDITED TO ADD UPON GETTING THE ANSWER:

QUESTION:

Would I benefit from updating my video card, if all I'm looking to do is improve the quality of movies and TV shows?

SPECS:

My video card is 6-7 years old (NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT). It was a good card for the time with no frills (around $80). It had 2 DVI outputs, but no HDMI outputs. It had 512MB VRAM.

My new LG monitor is 1080 HD (LG 27EA33).

Running Windows 7 with 16GB mid-tier ram, and a slightly better than average AMD FX chip and ASUS mobo.

ANSWER (Paraphrased from K1114's replies):

No, you would not benefit at all by upgrading your video card.



My concern was that my new 27" HD monitor didn't look as awesome as my brother's 40" HDTV. Not even by a long shot. It seems that this is easily explained by simply sitting only a few feet away from a smaller TV when you were sitting 6 feet away from a larger TV.

Here's the answer that k1114 wrote:

Hdmi and dvi can use different color space but this does not affect the monitors capabilities and it will still show the same color range assuming they're both 8 bit. Vram is irrelevant. The feeling is a combination of the larger size and distance. You'd easily notice any blocking, artifacts or even the pixels themselves from sitting closer. Being closer to the display may fill more of your vision area but you also realize (even if unconsciously) that the smaller screen will show people smaller and less life sized. I do know what you are talking about and I notice similar if I watch a movie from my pc monitor or if I change to my tv.

Feel free to read the rest of the email. You might have had other related questions that were answered below, but this is the main idea. It seems the bottom line is that HD Video is old hat for video cards that are even 6 or 7 years old. Unless you're a gamer or into video editing, you don't even need to consider buying a new video card when building an upgrade as long as it fits your new board and has a DVI output.

Thanks k1114!





Original post:

I know it's now a discontinued product and it was on the lower end cost-wise, but my new 27" LG monitor is by far the nicest computer monitor I've ever owned before. Model: LG 27EA33

My brother's 42" HDTV blew my mind when I first saw everything as clear as it shows on there. A 720 movie rip i brought on a thumb drive looked crystal clear on his TV... it was like watching a completely different movie than on my older 720 TV. I was naively thinking that I would be getting the same experience now, but even BluRay rips don't look that good on my computer.

I'm hoping the problem is that I didn't upgrade my video card when I put together a new computer. I'm rockin' a NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT that can't be a day younger than 6 years old by now.

Here's the specs: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-9600-gt/specifications

Basically, the card has only 512mb and only two DVI connections with no HDMI.

I don't remember the exact specs of the rest of the computer, but I'm running a quad core AMD FX processor on a decently priced ASUS board with 16GB (4x4) sticks of memory and Windows 7. I can find the exact model numbers if anyone really thinks that they're relevant, but I believe these components to be new enough and high quality enough that they're not causing any bottlenecks.


My question is, would it be worth it for me to upgrade the card? It seems like a lot of the cards on the market today would only cost me 30-40 bucks and would have 1gb VRAM and an HDMI port, but I don't even want to waste that money if people here think that my card should be good enough from the job.

Don't get me wrong, the video doesn't skip or anything and the picture is nice.... it's just not what I expected. After seeing what my bro's new TV can do with 720 rips of movies, I'm quite let down that a full bluray movie doesn't look as good on mine.


Any suggestions?

Thanks!
 
Solution
k1114
Hdmi and dvi can use different color space but this does not affect the monitors capabilities and it will still show the same color range assuming they're both 8 bit. Vram is irrelevant. The feeling is a combination of the larger size and distance. You'd easily notice any blocking, artifacts or even the pixels themselves from sitting closer. Being closer to the display may fill more of your vision area but you also realize (even if unconsciously) that the smaller screen will show people smaller and less life sized. I do know what you are talking about and I notice similar if I watch a movie from my pc monitor or if I change to my tv.
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k1114

k1114

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It really shouldn't make a difference and would depend more on if any post processing was enabled on the video player or in some cases the tv. By default post proc is usually disabled on every player and every card looks the same so it comes down to the monitor's capabilities or if the tv is doing something. Most players also default to cpu decoding so the gpu makes no difference. Could you be any more specific on how it looked different as that monitor is not low end. Low end cost-wise are half the price as that. And what model is the tv? I Also have to ask, how far away were you sitting from the tv?
 
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computermoron

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Thanks buddy, and happy Easter if you celebrate it too :)


More about the experience (I kept this real short in the intro to keep my post from being 3 pages, so thanks for asking).....

I brought that 720 movie on my thumbdrive to my bro's about a year ago. My parents had also come over to see the TV for the first time. I was absolutely amazed how crystal clear everything looked... almost as if the only thing separating you from a completely real "other world" was a piece of glass. This wasn't the first time I'd seen the TV, but it was my parents first time and I think they were so amazed by the quality of the movie that they barely even paid any attention to the movie itself. It wasn't long after they went out and bought a pricey flat screen of their own, making me one of the last hold-outs in my family to upgrade. (Needed house repairs, or awesome Superbowl Party?)

I was amazed at how that particular file looked on his TV. This same movie I had watched a few days back on my last-generation Hitatchi Rear Projection was not nearly as an amazing experience, and my TV is 12" bigger than his.

There's just no comparison.... My monitor DOES seem to be able to display 1080 rips quite beautifully and on a level above what my TV can do, but I've never felt that "WOW I'm in the room with them" feeling I did when watching my brother's TV. I've honestly only ever spent more than 5 seconds watching HDTV like that unless it was the few movies I've come over to watch since, so I hardly think it's the case of me just being jaded to it already.


The specs...

His TV is a Samsung 40" 60hz 1080p, and according to him it's about 2 1/2 years old. That's probably when it was first out, because I can't believe he's had it that long now. He will check on the model number for me, so I should be able to provide that soon if it's necessary.

The distance....

Where I usually sit no more than 1 1/2 feet from my monitor unless I'm lounging back to watch a movie, we were probably 6' to 7' feet away from his 40" TV.

Maybe the distance alone is the reason? I "heard" that mentioned once or twice in the dozens of threads I managed to find that were somewhat similar to my question, but I've heard so much information that a lot of it even argues with each other, so that's why I wanted to ask the pros personally for my specific situation.



My bottom line is, I am just a little disappointed at how my computer upgrade has panned out so far because I'm not getting the effect I was going for. In the end, it wasn't bad. My computer was as old as the video card before it took a crap and it needed to be upgraded. I bought a mobo, CPU and memory in the "sweet spot", although I admit I did probably spend about $50 more on the CPU/MOBO than necessary and I did go for a full 16GB of mid-tier ram instead of just buying 8GB of bargain basement ram that I usually would have bought.

I was just hoping that the fact this card only had 512mb and/or there is no HDMI port and/or it was old enough where NOTHING had an HDMI port when it was made were a factor here. I see some cards on newegg that people in similar threads recommend for cheap guys like me that don't do any gaming and they're going for 30 bucks and have 1gig memory and an HDMI port. I admit that I don't know if HDMI is any better really for Video than DVI was. I also realize that the amount of VRAM can be very misleading and that I truly don't know enough about anything to make a truly informed decision on it. I've tried to teach it to myself more than once, but my self-diagnosed ADHD seems to manifest itself when I start trying to read about that kind of stuff. :)

If I can't fix it, or if this is the best it gets for now, that's okay too. It turns out that Windows XP was discontinued only a few months later, so that made me finally go out and upgrade to 7 with 64 bit architecture so I can finally see all 16 of those GB at work instead of just around 2.6 of them. If the monitor isn't ever going to look as good at my brothers, I know it's looking better than my older one did. In the mean time, it is 6" bigger than the old one too.

I just know that the monitor was a Black Friday impulse buy when I was buying the other parts. I know I got a good deal on it... I just have to squash that nagging voice in the back of my mind that keeps reminding me of how much more I would have gotten for the same cash a year or two from now. :)


I do hope my reply wasn't soooooo long winded that you got bored and forgot what we were talking about. I have been trying to work on that, to varying degrees of success.

Thanks again for your help, Mod!
 
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k1114

k1114

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Hdmi and dvi can use different color space but this does not affect the monitors capabilities and it will still show the same color range assuming they're both 8 bit. Vram is irrelevant. The feeling is a combination of the larger size and distance. You'd easily notice any blocking, artifacts or even the pixels themselves from sitting closer. Being closer to the display may fill more of your vision area but you also realize (even if unconsciously) that the smaller screen will show people smaller and less life sized. I do know what you are talking about and I notice similar if I watch a movie from my pc monitor or if I change to my tv.
 
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computermoron

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Interesting, and thanks again for the reply.

So, in your opinion then, the 6-7 year old video card is not the problem here, even though there is no HDMI port and it only had 512mb of ram? (It cost me about $80 bucks back then, so even though it wasn't close to being top-tier, it wasn't a bad little GPU for the time).

If that's the case I'll just call it a day and I won't bother shelling out 30 bucks for something I already have.

Man... I can't wait until I win the Lotto and can just pay somebody 10k to put together the Ultimate Computer/TV system for me :)
 
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