Do I need to upgrade my graphics card?
October 10, 2005 7:57 AM Subscribe
I've recently got into watching sports webcasts but find that the picture quality isn't great. My internet connection is 400Mb/sec so I suspect that the problem lies with my graphics card which is a Mobility Radeon 7500. Is there some way to confirm this before I splash the cash and upgrade it?
I'm running on Windows XP and have 512Mb RAM. I'm not sure what else is relevant.
DAYYMMM, thats a fast connection. Can I have?!?!
I am happy to inform you that you don't have to spend any money, as even an 5+ year old graphic card would be able to handle streaming video without any quality difference. Pretty much what odinsdream said. Of course the bad news is that you won't be getting a quality improvement unless you find a better webcast.
posted by Sonic_Molson at 8:04 AM on October 10, 2005
I am happy to inform you that you don't have to spend any money, as even an 5+ year old graphic card would be able to handle streaming video without any quality difference. Pretty much what odinsdream said. Of course the bad news is that you won't be getting a quality improvement unless you find a better webcast.
posted by Sonic_Molson at 8:04 AM on October 10, 2005
What is the actual transfer data speed of the stream? Even if you have a 400mb connection, the streamer may not want to send you anything faster then 150kbps or something.
posted by delmoi at 8:30 AM on October 10, 2005
posted by delmoi at 8:30 AM on October 10, 2005
People use Radeon 7500s even for playing HDTV on their home theater PCs, so the card should be more than up to it.
If you truly are getting ultra-high-bandwidth video to play and the video quality is bad, maybe you aren't using real video card drivers and are using the built-in Windows VGA drivers, which are terrible for video. ATI usually wants you to download Mobility drivers from the notebook makers, which oftentimes don't make them available or have very out-of-date drivers. You can download drivers from ATI and use the Mobility Modder to patch the drivers so they work on your Mobility card.
posted by zsazsa at 11:25 AM on October 10, 2005
If you truly are getting ultra-high-bandwidth video to play and the video quality is bad, maybe you aren't using real video card drivers and are using the built-in Windows VGA drivers, which are terrible for video. ATI usually wants you to download Mobility drivers from the notebook makers, which oftentimes don't make them available or have very out-of-date drivers. You can download drivers from ATI and use the Mobility Modder to patch the drivers so they work on your Mobility card.
posted by zsazsa at 11:25 AM on October 10, 2005
If it's choppy, I'd upgrade the RAM before the video card.
/my 2¢
posted by softlord at 11:17 PM on October 10, 2005
/my 2¢
posted by softlord at 11:17 PM on October 10, 2005
It's almost certainly the stream, not the card. Video that's compressed for live streaming, even at high bandwidth, is going to be capped for a lowest-common-denominator speed: ESPN GamePlan, for instance, streams at 400kbps, and I can't think of many live streams that demand more b/w from users, for the reasons that b1tr0t mentioned.
(What video resolution is the stream? What resolution are you viewing it at? A 480x320 stream expanded to full-screen is always going to look chunky.)
posted by holgate at 1:17 AM on October 11, 2005
(What video resolution is the stream? What resolution are you viewing it at? A 480x320 stream expanded to full-screen is always going to look chunky.)
posted by holgate at 1:17 AM on October 11, 2005
Response by poster: The picture's blurry rather than choppy. I contacted the webcaster and they're transmitting at 450kb/sec so I guess that's the weak link. Looks like I'll have to stop watching in full-screen.
Thanks to all who took the time to answer.
posted by PurpleJack at 12:46 PM on October 11, 2005
Thanks to all who took the time to answer.
posted by PurpleJack at 12:46 PM on October 11, 2005
This thread is closed to new comments.
If it's choppy, you either have a software problem or are in need of an upgrade. Not sure if you CAN upgrade a video card in a laptop(?).
posted by selfnoise at 8:03 AM on October 10, 2005