Premiere / G400 -> Leadtek A280

[asdk]

Having a Marvel G400 which is not compatible with Premiere (choppy playback),
I would like to know if a Leadtek Winfast A280 Ultra TD MyVIVO is compatible with Premiere 6.5.
Would it in general be nVIDIA GeForce4 types that are compatible?

Regards
asdk

[Technoid]

The marvel G400 might be a bit old but it is NOT incompatible with Premiere!

What you are describing is probably some configuration problem.

Nvidia cards in general are something to avoid in capture situations!

[asdk]

Hi Technoid,

you are just saying not to use Nvidia cards, but not telling why and not telling what else to use..... :-(

[Technoid]

If would tell you what tou use I'd tell you to stick with your marvel.
Even if you dont use its capture functions its still a good vidcard to use while editing.

Q. Why Nvidiacards should be avoided?
A. The nvidia cards use a PCI clock of 248, the highest recomeded per spec is 64 (the marvel, and all other Matrox cards use 32).
This casues the PCI bus to choke.

In a system where everything are set to 32:
|Vid---->|Sound---->|HDD---->|CPU---->|Sound---->|Vid---->|CPU---->|HDD---->| (simplified )
Al devices get an equal share and don't have to wait.
In a system with a Nvidia card:

|Vid---------------->|Sound---->|HDD---->|CPU---->|Sound---->|HDD---->|CPU---->|Sound---->|Vid---------------->CPU---->|HDD---->| (simplified )
Other devices have to wait untill their "time" in line and when given the oportunity have to unload all they have been waiting to do.

I solved this problem with Powerstrip and forcing my nvidia card to "only" use 96 clocks wich gives it a slightly higher priority than other devices but not ridiculusly much.
unfortunatley that is in my gaming system, on a capture machine you want to awoid "hickups" as much as posible!