Computers & Home Networking

[jb426]

I have a dell computor that is about 3 years old.  I started watchinh live hockey games on it a week or ago.  It has ok picture but someone said that if I upgraded my graphics card it would be better.  Is this true and if so what kind would i need.  Only watch hockey so don't want to spend much.

[Jacob-BBY Community Connector]

Hello jb426,

Hopefully I can get a little more information from you to help you out.  Are you watching the hockey game on a website or with a TV capture card?

If you are watching it on a website it is most likely a lower quality video stream.  How does it compare to other video sites?  Most likely it would not improve with a newer video card since the stream is a set quality and is not adjustable by your computer hardware.  If you have other issues with the video like freezing, frequent buffering or skipping, that may be sign of hardware problems.  In that case, it could be your internet speed or graphics card.

[hockeycanuckjc Trusted Contributor]

Analog Cable and Digital Cable will always look iffy on a connection due to the maxmium amount of pixels it can display. TV Tuner cards tend to overscale these images resulting in sparklies.  Until they come out with a TV Tuner with HDMI or Component with HDCP support, you are out of luck. An alternative is cable card but thats really hard to come across.