[soder]

Ok, once and for all:


8400GS is NOT 8200/8300. 8400GS is a plugin card previously based on G84 (NO vdpau at all), but virtually all cards sold nowadays have the G98 on board which features FULL acceleration for h264, vc1, mpeg2. however there's a hardware bug with that chip. It cannot display/accelerate some weird resolutions which really nobody cares of.
8200/8300 have the same issue. Have a look at the nvidia readme i linked below.

He recommended the 9xxx because it's simply equally priced as the 8400. IMHO the 8400 is the better card for a htpc because it uses less power, thus less heat and noise and has full acceleration (that's really completely unimportant, read motd2k's post again). as there's no onboard gpu (igp) from the 9xxx series for AMD you either have to stick to 8200/8300 or plug in a card or move over to intel.

Further readings (yes i googled FOR YOU)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_...sing_units
http://us.download.nvidia.com/freebsd/18...dix-g.html

Thanks. I just didnt know what to google for, and I'm glad you did it for me. =)

/Söder