Weak performance Nvidia 8400 GS - help pls?

this is on a HP DC7600 running XP Pro, 4GB RAM, fast serial drive etc...
I removed a good Nvidia 7300 GS card and moved it to machine 2, then installed a new Nvidia 8400 gs based card. removed prior driver stack, installed new software/drivers from Nvidia.

Everything works I guess as it should, but the performance seems a tad worse than the previous. Have any of you experienced this?
I notice it the most on high def movies with fast motion - the edges can look raggedy and the images seem a bit 'grainy'... If you back off about 6 feet or so it looks pretty good. The older card seemed to have much smoother textured images, though it was not capable of some of the higher HD specs [was not Bluray-ready, for intance].

all help appreciated!

 

There's very little to separate those two cards performance wise you won't see much if any improvement.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...q3-2008/3DMark06-v1.1.0-3DMark-Score,794.html

You should try playing around with the performance settings in the nvidia control panel,especially 2D settings for your movies,increase visual quality settings to see if it clears the movies up,movie quality is very subjective at best,it can depend on the quality of the movie,the settings in your video player,the quality of your monitor, video card settings,the codec/decoder all of these must be taken into account and the settings played around with.

Run a benchmark such as 3dmark available in the benchmark section here at MG to check your getting full performance from your new card and work from there,compare with the chart,make sure your the performance/quality slider is all the way to performance for the benchmarks and all the way to quality for your movies.

 

Thank you Rikky for responding.
as to marking, would I compare my results with what's on toms site?

and, generally I like PowerDVD but not so sure that the newest version delivers better picture quality,
If you're familiar with the package, is it generally better to use the Nvidia facilities or to allow PowerDVD to control everything?

 

i should have noted in passing: the reason for these two particular cards is they work well in low-profile systems and require little power compared to most. I can't use the big hefty cards

 

No problem and yes.

I haven't used power DVD for about 4 years and then only briefly so I can't walk you through the menu options but most are the same go to preferences or options then video settings and play with them,if you have the same grainy problem in different video players try adjusting the nvidia settings,if its just with one video player use the in built settings.

Now I only use VLC,its the most popular video player out there and plays EVERYTHING and there are options to change just about everything.

http://majorgeeks.com/VLC_media_player_d4674.html

If you would like more options for adjusting your video card settings try Riva tuner,you can adjust options at the software and hardware level in both 2 and 3D.

http://majorgeeks.com/Riva_Tuner_d737.html

 

tanx!
didn't know VLC was worthy...
will give it a shot on the same stuff and see how compares

H.N.Y.!!

 

You could also try SMplayer, My machine can't play most HD movie files even with using vlc it chokes up but with SM player i can play 480p and some other that i normally couldn't.

 

I've had no issues with overall HD display - it pops right up at full 720p in the native fullscreen resolution of my 22" hd monitor. once the buffer is fully loaded the performance is relatively smooth [assuming i've killed every other process that's killable]. its the over-revving of colors and lighting, and odd edges of images, and occasional odd jerkiness that separates the newer card from the older [or the interaction thereof, or something...].

I probably need to post this separately, but it leads to a discussion of 'best video cards for low-power, low-profile, with Blu-Ray support'. that set of criteria is what led me to this particular Jaton PX8400GS_LX card. it is very cool, quiet, consumes little power, and is small. all that is thumbs-up if I can just get happy with video demands

if you guys know of a better candidate, lemme know. I have not tried any of the ATI family though I hear a lot of the Blu-ray crowd favors their chipset/hairball