Asus M3n-H/HDMI Sli with 8400GS for Freeview HD

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Asus M3n-H/HDMI Sli with 8400GS for Freeview HD

WaffleMakerMan

138 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#25912 5-Sep-2008 22:16

Hi All

I recently built my HTPC using the Asus M3N-H/HDMI board with a integrated 8300 chipset, I had hoped I could do freeview HD without an extra video card (I was willing to take the gamble as I only have satellite at my place so it doesn’t matter for me at the moment, just for the future). I tried the freeview HD samples but unfortunately it struggles to cope on Hardware acceleration (30% cpu very jerky picture on TV3 sample). Its better with HA turned off with cpu loading at around 60-70% but still jumps every now and again. I was wondering what people think if I get a cheap asus 8400GS card and Hybrid SLI it with the 8300 chipset if it would get it working nicely and hopefully with HA to keep the cpu load down. The Other option would be to replace the 8600GT in my main pc with a 9600GT in a year or so when the price comes down but I recken the 8400GS could do the trick, Its the cheaper option anyhow HaHa

eXDee

4033 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1070

Trusted

#162577 5-Sep-2008 22:24

Apparently an 8400GS can cope by itself, so Hybrid SLI with your 8300 should be easily enough. Make sure you're running vista though.

Regs

4066 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 206

Trusted

Snowflake

#162584 5-Sep-2008 23:05

the 8400GS works fine with freeview for me under XP but I was having troubles under vista.... i havent kept trying with vista yet, i might have sorted it if I spent the time sorting it out

i get 3-5% cpu when watching .mkv h.264 files and when tuning DVBT through a usb tuner

under XP it uses the cyberlink decoder

Are you running Vista? Perhaps you should try an XP install and see if you get better results with XP and the cyberlink product....

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

Nety

2584 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#162613 6-Sep-2008 09:49

OK that is really strange as the 8300 chipset is based on the 8400GS. So the performance should be the same.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

widerruflich

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#162699 6-Sep-2008 23:22

Not to thread hijack, but I've bought the same motherboard and have also ought a 9500GT. I've connected my tv to my mobo's hdmi, however watching HD TV (like the Truman Show on TV3 now) is really jerky. I have enabled hardware acceleration and CPU usage is <20% (Running an AMD dual core athlon 5200+). Would it help if I used the HDMI port on the 9500 GT? Personally, I didn't think there would be a difference as both 9500GT and 8300 are SLI'd (or so i think).

WaffleMakerMan

138 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#162814 7-Sep-2008 16:21

Yeah im running vista, do you find you need to use EVR to get Hardware Accleration to work, I always have even on my main computer. That worked well with though with 3% cpu usage (It was a 6000+ X2 with a 8600GT). Thanks for the replys Its good to have confirmation that its got the grunt to do it :) I hate not knowing if somthings going to do the job (like this chipset lol)

Nety: OK that is really strange as the 8300 chipset is based on the 8400GS. So the performance should be the same.

Yeah Ive read that too so maybe some tweeking could help, Im only running it with 256mb ram, maybe that or a future driver update?? either way its just easier to Sli it with a 8400gs and have some power to burn as its not an expensive card.

Not to thread hijack, but I've bought the same motherboard and have also ought a 9500GT. I've connected my tv to my mobo's hdmi, however watching HD TV (like the Truman Show on TV3 now) is really jerky. I have enabled hardware acceleration and CPU usage is <20% (Running an AMD dual core athlon 5200+). Would it help if I used the HDMI port on the 9500 GT? Personally, I didn't think there would be a difference as both 9500GT and 8300 are SLI'd (or so i think).

I don't think you can use hybrid sli with another series of card from what I understand, but the 9500GT should easily be able to handle Freeview HD on its own so u just need to plug you HDMI into that card and set you BIOS to use the PCIe slot as the primary graphic adapter (its in the manual on where to find the setting :) )