After chatting with one of the techs where I purchased the card, he was convinced it was some sort of codec problem. I have since deleted all codecs from my computer (only had a few, since it was a fresh install) and completely replaced them all by installing one of those "all in one" codec packages you can download (K-lite full, this one was called). STILL crappy video playback.System Specs:
Athlon XP 2200+
Shuttle MN31N MOBO w/NVIDIA nForce 2 chipset
640MB DDR400 RAM
Windows XP Pro W/SP2
160GB IDE Western Digital HDD
Last week I installed a new 160GB HDD, along with a brand new NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 video card w/128MB of DDR. I performed a fresh install of XP Pro w/SP2 slipstreamed into it. No hiccups during install.
Everything seemed to be great...my desktop looks fantastic. I'm not really a 'gamer', but I have no problems playing several N64 & Neo-Geo emulated games. Pictures look fine, perfect resolution.
My issue is any video file I play (MGP, AVI, DivX, DVD, etc) only appears to be about 8 colours (primarily yellow & red) and the resolution is horrible! It's as if I were playing it with the windows default VGA drivers or something. It doesn't matter what program I'm viewing with (Media Player, Jet Audio, PowerDVD, etc).
The original XP drivers for the card were dated circa 2004, so I loaded the drivers which came with the card, which brought them up to July 2005, no change. I downloaded the latest NVIDIA drivers here at Major Geeks and installed them, they now show Nov 11/05...still no change. I downloaded & installed the latest motherboard chipset drivers (NVIDIA N-Force 2), with no change.
I'm not sure what to do next. I've checked for firmware updates for the card through the 'Live Update' utility which came with the card. It reports I'm using the latest firmware. I also have the latest BIOS for my MOBO.
If I remove the card & use the integrated video on the MOBO, everything works fine, movies are perfect.
Can one of you guys think of anything else?