HDMI output help

[donburkard]

Ok heres what i got,

i have this motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128341

I looked at the owners manual and im a little confused. I currently have a Nvidia graphics card in the computer but i dont want to use it anymore. Right ow im just using it for the svideo output. I would like to use the onboard HDMI output on my mother board. What do i need? Do i need to get a ATI graphics card in order to use the onboard HDMI?

The second part of my question is, if i do need to buy a new card, which one do i get? I use the computer as an htpc and do not do any gaming. I do have a bluray drive and use it alot. I dont really want to spend 300 bucks on a fancy graphics card if i dont need to so if you have any recommendations for me i would appreciate it.

Thanks for any input. Im havin a real hard time with this.

[jlreich]

If you want to use the onboard HDMI you need to remover the dedicated video card and drivers, then install the drivers for the onboard video. Or, you can buy a new video card with a built in HDMI. There are quite a few out there with HDMI built in.

Since you are using the system as an HTPC you may want to get an ATI card if this is one of the boards that can Crossfire a single dedicated card and the onboard card. I have almost this same model (GA-MA78GM-S2H) that also has onboard HDMI I just bought last week for my daughters system but haven't really looked into to it very much since she has a 7900GS and plays games.

MJC was recently looking into this king of stuff, hopefully he will stop by and give better advice.

[mjc]

Actually, you shouldn't even need a video card at all. That board, with that chipset should be able to handle the HD video decoding in 'hardware' with the on-board video card. Especially, if you grab a 128MB stick of DDR3 for the 'side-port'. With a video card added in, you are not using the on-board hadware decoding, so you are actually 'wasting' a major feature of the board.

And yes, it will allow 'hybrid' Crossfire with certain other ATI video cards...and not disable the on-board hardware decoding/HDMI.

Another great feature is that unless you have a very high-end amplifier/speaker set up you don't even need to add a sound card to get better than average 'theater' sound...the 8 channel built in sound is more than adequate for 'normal' use.

I would put that board into service with about 4 GB (min) RAM, the side port loaded and a 4850e and a super silent cooler for a great HTPC.

[donburkard]

Ok, i got it working somehow. To be honest im not even sure what i did but it works. kinda. for some reason i can see my desktop, and i can watch a .iso with powerdvd 7 bd edition but now whenever i try to watch a bluray .iso i cant see a picture, the menu for the dvd only half works, and i can hear the sound ok.
It worked when i just had it on a svideo cable so i dont get it. I looked in the configuration of powerdvd but i got nothing. any suggestions? i just bought hankock bluray and want to watch it real bad.

thank you.

[mjc]

What version of Windows?

[donburkard]

XP pro. SP2 + all the other updates

[donburkard]

So ahh... What else ya got?