Thanks for all of the info, it was a great help.
The point of the upgrade is that I wish to buy the ATI HDTV Wonder, but
it requires a video card that supports DirectX9.0.
I'm not at all fond of ATI's TV oriented products because
their drivers seem problematic, but even so if you want one
then you might buy it and go from there. Perhaps it would
work if you merely had DirectX 9c (available from
Microsoft's website, you'll need it anyway if your system
isn't running it yet) installed first. Many TV tuner cards
will work with integrated video. If there is another HDTV
card you were considering, you might check on it's
requirements as they may be more relaxed.
I already bought an
AGP 8x video card (XGI Volari V3), and it works, mostly, but it has
some problems (DVI interface unstable, resume from standby freezes
computer, doesn't work with Linux).
Unfortunately it seems XGI hasn't been in the PC card market
long enough, hasn't put enough work into drivers, or it
could simply be that their products aren't tested as much by
others (or a combination of these factors), such that they
aren't a good choice for most purposes.
That's when I checked the specs on
my motherboard (FoxConn SiS 760GXK8MB-RS) and saw the recommended
cards. As you said, they showed the cards that were tested, others
should theoretically work.
Well they tested them, but almost certainly not with the
drivers you'd use today, nor against use with other products
like the ATI HDTV card... so they can only be sure what
limited things they did test, worked (0r didn't). It could
even be that another card does better than FX5200 for your
purposes... this is an unknown variable.
I realize I'll probably also have to upgrade my CPU. I have a Sempron
3100+.
Why do you feel you'd need this? There is no need to
upgrade to watch TV. For recording, I can't say if it is
enough for high resolution encoding of any particular
format, but this is something that could wait till after
you'd tried the HDTV card to see the results in your
intended uses.
I didn't even think about the power supply. It's only 300 Watts. I
guess I should try to stick with the integrated video (I think it can
actually do DirectX 9.0, although it doesn't have a DVI output for my
LCD and it uses shared memory) in order to keep the power down with the
HDTV PCI card too. Any suggestions?
Shared memory can do ok, up to a certain resolution- I don't
know what res. your LCD uses natively. The PSU could be
an issue, or might be ok, depends a bit on it's quality and
how power hungry the video card is.
Since the HDTV card is by ATI, I would try an ATI video card
as that might increase the odds in your favor- the HDTV card
is bound to have a few bugs, that's just typical and with an
ATI video card I think your odds are better not because the
ATI video card is better, only that they are more likely to
have tested more with their own products. I'd suggest
something like a Radeon 9600, not the Pro or XT version as
they are higher clocked, more power hungry and produce more
heat. One with a DVI connector of course. If your case has
poor airflow, it might be prudent to get one with a fan, as
many of the lower-speed (per base model #) cards had
passive, fanless heatsinks which might run rather hot in a
case with poor airflow... or perhaps your airflow is fine,
we can't see this variable.
On the other hand, Linux can be an issue too. I don't know
if ATI has viable Linux drivers, in the past nVidia had the
better support IIRC. An FX5200 (cheapest one you can find
is probably least heat-producing and power hungry, based on
slower variables for the speed and memory as I'd mentioned
previously), or an FX5700 LE, not plain FX5700 or GT version
as thoese latter two also use more power, more heat.
