I'm looking for a card with the best tv-out quality for under £30 (as cheap as possible really), be it used or new. It doesn't even need to be 3d capable as it will be mainly for MAME. I've read that I should get an ATI card with a Conexant tv-out chipset, but which specific card should I look for? Thanks!
early geforce cards have the conexant chip, my geforce2mx400 does... but DEFINATELY stear clear of anything Nvidia including and after geforceFX (gfFX gf6 and gf7 series). aside from poor quality it also had a nasty bug where your screen enlarges while using overlay, which is remedied by some registy hacks. i would say ATi is a good bet given that there arent bad chips to watch out for.. anyone else know? also ive heard matrox has fabulous 2d quality, but dont know if that quality is also present on tv-out, again, anyone else?
IIRC R100 was the codename for the Radeon 7200/7500 (with 7500 being much faster in 3D). So for example other Radeons to look out for are the 8500, 9000, 9100, 9200, 9250. The SE/LE versions (except 8500LE) are often much slower in 3D but functionality such as TVout should be pretty standard across the board. I'd suggest the 7500 or 8500 because at the time they were ATi's leading cards meaning corners were less likely to be cut. If you wanted nVidia then the GeForce4MX would be the best bet, you don't need the GeForce4TI's superior 3D, GeForce3 were all about 3D and the GeForce4MX had quite a few little enhancements over the GeForce2 (which it is based upon).
Im talkinig: Radeon SDR, DDR, VIVO. Old skool upwards. They all had the Rage Theatre chipset and they still use the same drivers unlike the older ATI Rage cards.
