Video Cards, Drivers and other ramblings

This is an FYI post...

After installing a new video card based on the nVidia 9500 GT GPU, Zinc refused to run. It would get to the initial content screen, the CPU utilization would jump to 90%, and the system would pretty much hang until I killed the zv process in task manager.

Windows 7 had graciously installed a 9500 GT driver that didn't work very well. The drivers from the nVidia website solved the problem altogether.

A note on video performance..

I have a dedicated home theater PC. It has a XFX 630i based motherboard with a built-in nVidia 7150 graphics processor, a 2.8 Ghz Core 2 duo, 2GB of RAM, and 2 1TB drives.

I thought it would be more than enough for Zinc and Media Center. I really didn't have a problem with it in Media Center until I installed a Blu-Ray drive. Blu-Ray just didn't work. Upgrading the video card solved that problem. HD content from Hulu, Fox, and pretty much everywhere else looked good, but there was just a little 'chop' to them. The new video card solved that too.

Before the upgrade, The Windows graphics performance index was 3.2. After the addition of this $29 nVidia graphics card, it's now 6.4. Double. For $29.

I had originally thought that I needed more CPU, but decided to try to save some cash and try a dedicated video card. I'm glad I did. A Core 2 Quad would have set me back about $145. Just thought I'd share..