I am building a Linux-based HTPC for a friend who has been very impressed by my Kodi-PC.
I am specifically looking for suggestions for a recommended video card. I have had the best luck myself with an NVIDIA card (dual HDMI outputs including CEC and HDMI audio) that is a few years old. I recently experimented with replacing my NVIDIA card with a much newer AMD card that supposedly had quite superior specs, with disappointing results. Video playback with the AMD-based card constantly resulted in some very noticeable screen tearing that I could not get rid of no matter how hard I tried. I tried for weeks to find a solution before giving up and going back to my good ol’ NVIDIA card (NVS 300). Strangely, the AMD card, which is much newer and DirectX 12 certified, works quite well in a Windows-based gaming PC for applications that the NVIDIA card would definitely NOT work for.
I am tempted to stay with a middle-of-the-road NVIDIA card, just based on the fact that it’s what I have had best luck with anecdotally, but I don’t really have any experience with any other GPUs in HTPCs, so I would very much appreciate other anecdotal evidence from other Linux-based Kodi users.
Thanks!!