Re: Media Center directx direct3d problem?

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Dana,
thanks for your response. is there another way to check this? I entered the
BIOS and although I am not a tech wiz I am comfortable enough to poke around
in the BIOS config- and I did not see any setting anywhere regarding the RAM
allocated to the video card. The system has 2GB RAM and I believe the video
card is supposed to be set from the factory to share up to 256mb of that. In
response to Giovanni- thanks as well for the advice. I'm just having trouble
seeing the connection between all of the problems in relation to the powerdvd
vs video card drivers conflict. With the Media Center screen displaying all
garbled (i mean even the home screen user interface, not only video playback)
and also web streaming video that uses WMP to play- all these things are out
of whack and pretty much all of it goes away, except for the video playback
from within media center (sample/calibration videos or DVD playback) when i
lower my hardware acceleration settings (in display properties, settings,
advanced, troubleshooting tab) enough to disable directX and direct3d. Sounds
like an easy sol'n to keep the settings low, but with a good integrated card
and plenty of system resources I shouldn't have to deprive myself of that
much performance or capability.

"Dana Cline - MVP" wrote:

You might also have a problem with the integrated video...while that
_should_ work, it sounds like it clearly has issues in your case. How much
RAM does the graphics adapter use? You may need to check your BIOS to find
this out, as there should be a setting where you allocate memory to it. If
it is set at 64Mb, try bumping that to 128Mb.

Definitely get the video drivers from nVidia, not from MS or Gateway. Get
the MCE-specific ones...

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"Darren" <Darren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:B8EC4BC4-A3A9-4D6E-BA36-27505BED8F8B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have a new media center PC and as far as i know i have all the proper
updates and drivers installed (via windows update, gateway bigfix). OS is
windows media center edition 2005, AMD X2 3800+, 2 GB RAM, Nvidia Geforce
6100 integrated graphics. No TV tuner, i'm not using it to watch TV. Out
of
the box I've had problems with video playback (all sources I've tried so
far), as well as some weird behavior of the media center interface. I
think
the two are related.
What happens in streaming web video playback is the top part of the screen
is normal but a bit squashed vertically, and the bottom part looks smeared
downward in perfectly vertical lines. I have screenshots to email someone
if
need be. And DVD's using cyberlink power dvd get horizontal lines through
the whole screen putting everything out of proportion. Now when I click on
the media center icon from the start menu it opens but the welcome screen,
or
any screen for that matter, are garbled or disjointed- like it was printed
on
a glass panel
that was broken and then put back together wrong. Everything is all askew
and
i can barely make out enough of it to close the screen and get back to my
desktop. I tried different resolutions and everything else works fine on
this computer so far. I've updated my video card drivers. I can try
gateway
support but from experience these things are so time consuming and
unreliable- the hardware mfg blames the software etc- I have had better
luck
in newsgroups and forums.
Here's the thing: when i reduce the hardware acceleration in my display
properties to the level where directx and direct 3D are disabled
everything
works ok for most videos, streaming web content or DVD. However i still
get
an error message when i start the media center something like
my video card or drivers are not compatible with media center but then it
starts
normally despite the message, and the screen is finally not all broken up.
But when I try to play any videos from within media center i get a message
that the files
needed to display video are not installed or working correctly. please
restart media center or your computer. I know its only integrated video
without discrete memory but i have directx 9c and ran the dxdiag tests and
it
shows everything is fine (although the spinning directx cube in the tests
shows kind of disjointed and choppy like the media center screen when i
have
the hardware acceleration at full), but with 2GB of RAM and the nVidia
Geforce 6100 (should be pretty good as far as integrated graphics go)
basic
video and 3D graphics should in my mind play smoothly. Any suggestions?




.

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