Questions regarding OpenGL and video playing

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hi,
I am getting a new box with Athlon64 3800+ (512KB L2 @ 2.0Ghz) and a NForce 4 Ultra motherboard and 2GiB DDR400 RAM.

I am using Linux and I DON'T play games.
I believe NVidia supports OpenGL 2.0

I want to get an NVidia card that supports OpenGL-2.0 because I can see a difference when playing my movies with using video output OpenGL rather than using an X driver.
(use mplayer -vo gl2 or mplayer -vo gl or change the video drive in xine to gl2 and see the results )

So does OpenGL cards really affect the video output ?
Is OpenGL 2.0 much better than OpenGL 1.5 ?
References on HDTV are welcome

Does L2 cache size of the processor and/or RAM matter when I use OpenGL ?

Any suggestions appreciated

Well mplayer -vo gl2 simply uses a different way of GL output (using multiple textures and dirty rectangles) and in no way seem related to OpenGL 2.0 : both gl and gl2 need OpenGL >= 1.2

Any cheap modern nvidia would work anyway (ati gl drivers for linux are improving but still not that good)

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thanks for the answer.

So there is no need for a NON gamer like me to go buy now an expensive card that supports OpenGL2.0 since now there is no reason.

I'll go get some card that support OpenGL 1.5 like a NVidia 6600 PCIe and I believe I am gonna be just fine Thanks again for the answer.

If anyone or you xyz has any other comment to make please free to do so because I am going to buy the damn card in a couple of days

[ZbuffeR]

... nvidia 6600 actually support OpenGL 2.0 :
http://delphi3d.net/hardware/viewreport.php?report=1603

You can go ahead and buy your card

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Originally posted by ZbuffeR:
... nvidia 6600 actually support OpenGL 2.0 :
http://delphi3d.net/hardware/viewreport.php?report=1603

You can go ahead and buy your card

I was thinking of getting the NVidia 6600 and not NVidia 6600GT. I think only 6600 GT models support OpenGL 2.0 and not simple 6600 models.

The link you give I think it reffers to NVidia 6600GT.

all 6xxx cards do support opengl 2.

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Originally posted by <xyz>:
all 6xxx cards do support opengl 2.

For sure NVidia Geforce 6600 card (_NOT_ GT but simple one) does not support OpenGL 2.0

I read about here
http://delphi3d.net/hardware/listreports.php

and also on manufacture's specifications online.
Up to now i have checked Asus,MSI, gigabyte

[ZbuffeR]

check better. it also depends on the driver version ...
http://delphi3d.net/hardware/viewreport.php?report=1603

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Originally posted by ZbuffeR:
check better. it also depends on the driver version ...
http://delphi3d.net/hardware/viewreport.php?report=1603

I was looking at the sites bellow:

http://uk.asus.com/products3.aspx?l1...&slname=GF6600
http://msicomputer.co.uk/products.aspx?cat_id=78
http://uk.giga-byte.com/VGA/Default.htm

All the cards (even 6800GT) claim to support only OpenGL 1.5 and that got me confused.
Does this mean that 6200/6600 card or 6xxx as written by xyz support in their hardware OpenGL 2.0 but it's up to the drivers for the rest ?

Please clear things up a bit if you can.

[ZbuffeR]

yes.
from the NVIDIA forceware release notes :
"release 75 : added opengl2.0 support".

Compare :
http://delphi3d.net/hardware/viewreport.php?report=1467
http://delphi3d.net/hardware/viewreport.php?report=1466

Same hardware, but newer driver means new extensions and GL 2 support.

And please learn to use info from links people give you.