Can AGP cards play HD DVD on a computer?

[sleepydvdr]

I have a Radeon X1650XT 256MB that technically should play HD video fine. It plays it right now, but with slightly choppy motion. I think I need to upgrade the CPU (it is a Celeron 2.66 Ghz). Also, I have 1Gb of RAM.

Does anyone know if I also need to upgrade to PCI-X or if I can upgrade and still use my AGP card?

 

[cleeve]

If it's playing choppily, the X1650 XT's hardware acceleration is probably not enabled for HD DVD playback.
THis acceleration should work on the AGP bus as well as PCIe.

There are only two players that will accelerate HD DVDs on newer Radeon and Nvidia cards: Cyberlink's PowerDVD ULTRA and Intervideo's WinDVD 8 PLATINUM edition.

These players will use the power of your Radeon to accelerate HD DVDs, should be much less choppy, and even have some visual quality enhancements.

THe problem is, Cyberlink's player is buggy and they're fixing it for Radeons. I haven't been able to try WinDVD PLatinum to see if it works.

On a final note, if your X1650 XT isn't HDCP compliant, you will only be able to watch HD DVDs through your VGA output, not your DVI output.
And if you're using a DVI output, you'll also need an HDCP compliant monitor...

 

[sleepydvdr]

Thanks, Cleeve for the useful info. I will give your suggestions a shot when I get home tonight. All my equipment is HDCP compliant, so I don't think that will be a problem. If I get the right settings to work, I'll post them here so other people can see.

 

[sleepydvdr]

OK, I found my solution. I tried playing with the video card settings. I have been using PowerDVD 6.5 but upgraded to version 7.3. I also tried WinDVD 8. None of those things worked. One stroke of luck for me was that my MediaCenter PC supported my Core2Duo from my main system. So, I switched processors. BAM! HD DVD worked perfect. And I mean PERFECT!

So, the answer to my question is HD DVD CAN play through an AGP card! But not to mislead anyone, not just any AGP card. I did my research before buying and found a list of cards that are supposedly capable. My particular Radeon was one of them. I have the list back in the office. I´ll post it when I get back in on Monday.

Thanks, Cleeve, for your suggestions. They were insightful and fun to play with. I saw differences with every change I made. But in the end, my hardware just wasn´t fast enough. But now I know I just need to order a faster CPU.

Hope this helps others who may have similar problems...