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Hardware

ATi's All In Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro 272

Posted by timothy from the sound-of-expiring-ndas dept.
FlippedBit writes "ATi has taken the wraps off their latest Swiss Army Knife 3D Graphics Card with TV Tuner and Remote Control capabilities, that rival most discrete solutions. The All In Wonder Radeon 9700Pro packs a ton of A/V features and is driven by their new R300 VPU. HotHardware has a look at this new beast and all its bells and whistles, right here."
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ATi's All In Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro More

ATi's All In Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro

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  • So where's the Mac version? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @12:58AM (#4365419) Homepage
    I hate to sound like a whiner, but this card would be perfect on my Mac. Between my game reviews, this would do it all - render by OS X games great, for my console reviews I could plug the svideo cables in for screenshot captures right to Quicktime/iMovie video.

    At the moment I ue a Formac Tevion, which works well through the Firewire, but as someone who believes that less hardware is better, ATI should really think about making a Mac version of this card. I can't imagine it would be all that hard - the hardware is AGP on both platforms, so it would just be someone at ATI writing some OS X drivers for this device.

    Not sure if anyone else cares about this, but I've been annoyed by ATI's lack of good video capture tools on the Mac since - well, since I started using Mac's in February of this year.
    • Your right, this card is Perfect for the MAC. ATI seems to write better MAC drivers than Windows. I'm seeing alot of bugs on websites for the 9700 and games. It looks like the new patches/files coming out, most are for the 9700.

      I was hoping ATI would get the drivers in order for the release. My friends who bought the 9700's, loved the speed with AA, but some games (UT2K3 Demo has problems, fixed with the newest patch..)

      But what I really want for video in, is a divx/mpg4 capture device (card or firewire).
      -
      [independent.co.uk]
      Bernie Ebbers, the former chief executive of WorldCom, and four other telecoms executives who allegedly made a total of $28.2m (£18m) by "profiteering" in hot initial public offerings were sued last night by New York state.

    • Re:So where's the Mac version? (Score:5, Informative)

      by benh57 ( 525452 ) <bhines@alumn[ ]csd.edu ['i.u' in gap]> on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:21AM (#4365491) Homepage
      Well, you're in luck. (maybe). According to Think Secret [thinksecret.com], ATI is developing an All-In-Wonder card for the mac.

    • Re:So where's the Mac version? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:55AM (#4365582)
      I hate to sound like a whiner

      It's alright. Most Mac users are whiners.
    • What about flashing the ROM of a PC ATi Card? Does anyone know how to do this? It used to work on PC Voodoo cards...PCI versions would be especially cool. I'm looking for a second video card, natch...

    • You want to complain about lack of ATI tools on Mac??? Tell you what, come over to FreeBSD, and see the utter lack of a single option... See ATI video cards with TV/SVideo out capabilities that go totally unused...

    • Acording to this [cybercoment.com] Site flashing a new BIOS to use PC cards in a Mac is mostly harmless (tried it myself with geforce)
    • Never mind the Mac version, where's the Linux version? The list of included software sounded suspiciously Windowsy. Will there be free drivers for this card?
    • I can't imagine it would be all that hard - the hardware is AGP on both platforms, so it would just be someone at ATI writing some OS X drivers for this device.

      HA HA HA HA HA HA!

      Oh, that's rich, suggesting that ATI would make an effort to provide drivers for anyone beyond the greatest common denominator!

  • Fantastic! (Score:3, Informative)

    by cybercomm ( 557435 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @12:59AM (#4365426) Homepage Journal
    This is great progress for ATI, especially considering the weakness of it's main competitior in "home cinema" field...

    Now if they could just get some **decent** drivers to go with this card (catalyst is a great step towards the goal, dont get me wrong, but ATI has always been a little weak in driver field)
    • Now if they could just get some **decent** drivers to go with this card (catalyst is a great step towards the goal, dont get me wrong, but ATI has always been a little weak in driver field)

      Some may call the above post Flamebait, but it is true. Jeesh, I remember this same complaint being lodged against ATI back in 1992. Apparently, they are doing something right to still be alive today, despite this constant driver criticism.
      I am not a hardware junkie, but I have been following recent "build your own home theater in a PC" sites, and the jury says: build your system around the limitations of your chosen graphics card. The ATI line of "do everything" cards offers unmatched versitility in the home theater PC market, yet you have to carefully match your requirements with your choice of hardware and software (and driver capabilities).
      IOW, do your homework, build for today, and don't expect your ATI card to do anything wonderful outside of the scope of your current DIY project.

  • but its just hard to justify wanting this until Doom III is out and we all know exactly what works well with it.
    but then again, like they say
    If ATI were a Winston Cup NASCAR, we'd say that the company is efficiently firing on all eight cylinders.

    so it better work cuz this is good stuff...

  • more reviews here... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Maditude ( 473526 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:01AM (#4365433)
    Anandtech has a review [anandtech.com] and TechReport as well [tech-report.com].

  • Looks interesting (Score:4, Insightful)

    by yobbo ( 324595 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:02AM (#4365437)
    The performance on these things is fantastic. Of course, being the cruel world it is, ATI's linux drivers prevent me from even considering purchasing a card. I'll wait for NV30, thank you.

    • Yep (Score:2)

      by bogie ( 31020 )
      you said it. If you need 3D ATI gets ruled out. Its too bad, since this weekend I could have bought a ATI 8500LE 128MB for only $99 at Compusa, but knowing that I'd like the option to be able to play UT2003 or Doom III when it comes out, I'm going to be spending $40 more and buying a GF4 4200.

      What ever happened to that project funded by the weather channel to make a DRI driver? When its done is anyone even going to be buying these cards anymore?

      • Re:Yep (Score:5, Informative)

        by chefren ( 17219 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:47AM (#4365559)
        The DRI-project [sourceforge.net] have 3d-support available in CVS and binary snapshots with semi-friendly installers available. I'm using a snapshot now. Remember that this is not yet stable code (whatever that means). Look for 'r200' snapshots on their download page.

      • Re:Yep (Score:3, Informative)

        by nihilogos ( 87025 )
        What ever happened to that project funded by the weather channel to make a DRI driver? When its done is anyone even going to be buying these cards anymore?

        You can download the source for a beta here [sourceforge.net]. The cvs files are updates regularly. I think there is a binary somewhere on the Tungsten Graphics [tungstengraphics.com] site.

    • Re:Looks interesting (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @02:20AM (#4365627)
      That's too bad, because I was looking for another 3D card to buy for my system.

      After asking around what options there were for good 3D support under Linux, I bought an nVidia GeForce 4. Problem is, I'm having some severe issues with it. Running anything OpenGL that has some intense rendering (Return to Castle Wolfenstein, for instance) will do one of two things: 1) cause X to lock up, flashing Scroll Lock and Caps Lock at me once every second, or 2) spontaneously reset my machine. Obviously, this is not a good thing, and I'm actually quite disappointed.

      It appears to be something deeper than a driver issue, though, as I get RTCW to crash under Windows in the exact same manner, and under the exact same conditions as under Linux. (Windows bluescreens, while X locks up.) I've tried Quake3, RTCW, and other simple OpenGL apps (glxgears, fsv, etc.), and all cause my machine to shit itself.

      It's not a problem with the card, either, as I bought two separate GeForce4 cards from two different manufacturers, and both had the exact same issues. Plus, my system doesn't contain any backwoods generic parts; Intel SE440BX-2 Motherboard, PIII Processor.

      I just don't get it. It's a shame, too, because my previous card (3dfx Voodoo3) was a pain in the ass to get working with 3D in Linux. I e-mailed nVidia and posted a message to their forums, both of which have gotten me no replies.

      I can't recommend nVidia at this time, and I've heard worse things about ATI's Linux support. Since Linux is my primary OS (I only installed Windows to test out the above scenario), I honestly don't know what to do.

    • Too bad the nVidia's driver aren't stable under Linux on my machine.

      Dinivin

  • Warning to all males (Score:5, Funny)

    by Schik ( 576085 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:02AM (#4365438) Homepage
    Beware - owning this will be a DEAD giveaway that you have a very, very tiny penis.

  • Whoa... (Score:4, Funny)

    by fireboy1919 ( 257783 ) <(rustyp) (at) (freeshell.org)> on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:04AM (#4365443) Homepage Journal
    Games. And TV.

    The latest All-in-Wonder Value edition has the thing they've been missing: beer. Yes, it actually has a small microbrewery/breakout box, so that your computer can be all that you need; it even does it by remote control.

    The full package includes an IV breakout box from which cola is fed interveinously (and blood removed), effectively eliminating any and all need to leave the computer for any reason whatsoever.

    The next edition is expected to be fully sentient, allowing those eccentric geeks who feel the need for friendship (for some strange reason). This new edition will be dubbed "All-in-Wonder: Heroin Edition," crediting the fact that heroin users want for nothing but the drug, just as All-in-Wonder users should want nothing else.

  • Video Recorder (Score:5, Interesting)

    by atrus ( 73476 ) <atrus AT atrustrivalie DOT org> on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:07AM (#4365454) Homepage
    I was struck by this phrase from the review:

    Should you be interested in a particular word or phrase from a captured show, you can search the close captioned database and playback will begin at the section of the stream.

    That feature makes my day :) Kudos to ATI for adding something useful to the video recorder program.

    • It's had that for awhile. The crappy crash-a-minute Cinema package that comes with the ATI WinTV had it too.

      Another cool thing is "magazine mode" which records the closed captions and still pictures taken when the frame changes significantly to make a TV guide-like telecast.
    • The Quicktime format has this ability as well. It takes a bit of tweaking, but it can be very effective for searching for certain terms inside an instructional video for instance.

  • It's neat to have, but...... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FaasNat ( 522755 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:07AM (#4365456)
    This is a cool gadget to have on the computer with the instant replay/time shifting Tivo-like capabilities and it's there on my list of "toys" to have. However, I don't think sitting at a desk in front of a computer with a TV tuner card and a monitor will be able to replace the comfort and convenience of plopping down on the couch to watch TV.
    • However, I don't think sitting at a desk in front of a computer with a TV tuner card and a monitor will be able to replace the comfort and convenience of plopping down on the couch to watch TV.

      Then do what I did, get a large monitor (or a good quality TV), hook it up to secondary output , and shove a couch in your computer room.

    • However, I don't think sitting at a desk in front of a computer with a TV tuner card and a monitor will be able to replace the comfort and convenience of plopping down on the couch to watch TV.

      Agreed. And here's the answer: a VGA to Component transcoder [digitalconnection.com]. Use that HD-compatible TV as a monitor for your computer. Now the only issue is whether or not ATI has added better custom resolution support for the 9700. The 7500 AIW I have sucks quite hard, as I can't get a custom resolution that gets rid of excessive overscan. nVidia can do it, so why can't ATI?


      And as long as I'm making a wishlist, how about somebody make a VIVO card that accepts HD signals via YPrPb component input? I'd pay good money for that.

      • Actually the Radeon 9700 Pro comes with a standard set of component cables (feed off the TV-out) that can work at 480i/480p/720p/1040i on a TV capable of receiving HD resolutions.

        The overscan issue seems to have been from the cable conversion the AIW Radeon 8500's had & the fact your using a non-Ati device to do the same on a AIW Radeon 7500.

        Unfortunately thier is still no component in though... I could make use of that as well...
    • However, I don't think sitting at a desk in front of a computer with a TV tuner card and a monitor will be able to replace the comfort and convenience of plopping down on the couch to watch TV.

      Um, that's sort of the point of getting an All-In-Wonder over just a plain TV capture card. Since the card also has TV-OUT you can just run your cable to the room with the TV in front of the couch and watch there.
  • Gnashes his teeth and tears his hear out...
    Aaarrrggghhhh, only 3 months after I bought my latest and greatest GC, yet another one comes out which is better. I'm becoming obsolete... Sinking into oblivion... Nnnnnnnoooooo......!
    ;-)
  • Stable drivers?

  • huh...Is it an advert (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:33AM (#4365523) Homepage Journal
    "If ATI were a Winston Cup NASCAR, we'd say that the company is efficiently firing on all eight cylinders. The Mobility RADEON 9000 rules the mobile market, the well publicized RADEON 9700 Pro delivers the best performance to gaming enthusiasts, and the RADEON 9000 Pro is a solid mainstream card. Further, ATI's latest round of hardware has been complimented by relatively stable drivers - a first, as far as the gaming community is concerned."

    This is kind of irresponsible journalism, the reviewer has simply lost the objectiveness, and the article seems to be biased, infact heavily biased.I know many wouldnt agree and swear by ATi, its not about ATI being good or bad, its about over hyping a product.

    Infact while reveiw, the whole commentry is manufacturers spec sheet. Where are the facts buddy!!? No comparison, as if it were the only card in the market?

    I am sure it must be a good card but we need hard specs actual figures, not sensationalist journalism.

    • Infact while reveiw, the whole commentry is manufacturers spec sheet. Where are the facts buddy!!? No comparison, as if it were the only card in the market?


      It might as well be the only card on the market. Is there anything even *close* to the performance and featureset of the AIW 9700? Does any other company have the same reputation for quality in this segment that ATI has? As far as I have seen, the answer to both questions is a resounding no, yet one single company has managed to combine both into a storied series of outstanding products.

      I'm starting to sound like an ATI ad myself, but your objections seem totally out of line. You want specifications? Read the numerous Radeon 9700 - that part of the card is identical. And what specifications would satisfy you as regards the AIW features of the card? The review discusses both hardware and software in this area, and I expect the product will be as shiny and glowing as the review was. You want benchmarks or something? How would you propose benchmarking a TV card? You're pretty much stuck at 29.97 fields per second (or 25 for PAL), no matter what you do.
    • It may be a little over the top, but he is correct.

      ATI's Radeon 9700 is faster than anything current from nVidia. (nVidia will ship something soon that takes first place back, probably, but right now ATI has the hottest board.)

      And that last part is almost damning with faint praise: "after years of sucking, the ATI drivers are less sucky than formerly." His actual words: "relatively stable". Compared to ATI's older drivers, "relatively stable" is high praise.

      So his point was simply that at the moment ATI has their ducks in a row. And they do. I hope they keep it up. (And I also hope nVidia keeps up what they are doing.)

      steveha
    • ATI has their share of problems, but the All-In-Wonder line is the only decent card to include a tuner.

  • Actually.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by cdf12345 ( 412812 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @01:43AM (#4365544) Homepage Journal
    The All-In-Wonder RADEON 9700 will likely sell for $100 more than the 9700 Pro itself, but that $100 will add an entirely new level of functionality to your computer. Can you say that about your car's optional trunk mat?

    Yes, yes I can.

  • Benchmarks (Score:2, Informative)

    by Adam9 ( 93947 )
    Tom's Hardware [tomshardware.com] put out a review for this back in the middle of August. Complete with the usual benchmarks and neat screenshots. It can be found here [tomshardware.com].

    • Re:Benchmarks (Score:2, Informative)

      by sveinhal ( 469879 )
      Tom's Hardware put out a review for this back in the middle of August.

      That's not the same card! We're talkning about the ATi All-in-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro, not just the Radeon 9700 Pro.
      We're all familiar with the Radeon 9700 Pro card. It's the All-in-Wonder version that's new and interesting.

  • Meanwhile... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Drakker ( 89038 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @02:03AM (#4365593) Homepage Journal
    ATI announced today that they are hard at work on their driver to support the original Radeon under linux! Expected release date is 4th quarter 2003.
    • Tell me about it...
      After a few happy weeks of having TV-out support under X 'mostly' working (via Gatos) I received the happy news that Gatos development of TV-out support would be stalled indefinitely while ATI considered 'legal issues'. So now I have to reboot with the S-Video connector plugged into my Radeon 64MB DDR VIVO to activate TV-out, and then it only works for the console. I can run mplayer, which luckily has vesa drivers, but that's about it.
      And then there's 3D support.
      I have had to get myself an old Geforce 2 MX 400 just to play the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo under Linux, because of S3's patented S3 Texture Compression. Now I know this is at least partly S3's fault, but I would like ATI to be a bit more pro-active in defending their customers' rights. They pay S3 to make cards which support S3 Texture Compression, right? And I paid them for my Radeon, right? But I can't play UT 2003 with my Radeon, and ATI don't seem too bothered. I'm not a current customer, I'm a past customer.
      Now after all this bitching, I'd like to complement the Gatos & DRI teams on the excellent work they've done so far to support the Radeon. I have nothing but respect and admiration for them. if only they were allowed to implement all the features I'd paid for....
      • But I can't play UT 2003 with my Radeon, and ATI don't seem too bothered.

        Of course you can't, no one can... UT 2003 isn't even out.

        Dinivin

  • Bad drivers.... BAAAAAD! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Zakabog ( 603757 ) <john@NoSPam.jmaug.com> on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @03:33AM (#4365737)
    If ATI were a Winston Cup NASCAR, we'd say that the company is efficiently firing on all eight cylinders.

    Jeez, if the Radeon was a car, it'd beat all the other car's in 1/4 mile times and top speed, but in a 500 lap race, at lap 200, the paint would peal, the doors would fall off, and the engine would fall out.

    Further, ATI's latest round of hardware has been complimented by relatively stable drivers - a first, as far as the gaming community is concerned.

    I hope they mean a first, as in, first time ATI released relatively stable drivers. What bother's me though is "Relatively stable drivers." well, stable in relation to what? In relation to a blind man balancing a chair on his nose while juggling chainsaws?
    • Jeez, if the Radeon was a car, it'd beat all the other car's in 1/4 mile times

      Nah, the drivers suck. It would probably crash.

    • In relation to the crappy drivers Nvidia makes... I used to own Nvidia based cards exclusively and the have a number of problems just like Ati! What a shock! With all the fanboys claiming Ati's drivers suck and all you'd think they somehow had it better...

      But no, in reality neither card has perfect drivers (I mean come on how many driver revisions has Nvidia had in total?)... In fact I don't think perfect drivers will ever exist in the life of the product... Sure Nvidia's drivers do certain things better (OpenGL support for modeling apps comes to mind), but Ati's drivers do a range of things that Nvidia's cards don't (like just about every single card has TV-out, or how about more MPEG2 decoding capability)...

      Lets all face reality: no drivers for any video card company are perfect.
  • Will it do digital TV? HDTV over the air? Analog is scheduled to go off the air. What good is a tuner if there is nothing to receive?
    • By the time Analog goes off the air, your grandpa won't want this card or the system it works in let alone you.
      • Don't you mean his grandchildren? :-)
        • Heh, well, I was operating under the assumption that grandparents get by with what we all consider junk equipment (P166, Win95A, etc etc). I didn't think that the grandparents would be dead by the time analog went off the air....

      • I was thinking this might be a good PVR for DTV ahd HDTV. Alas, there is an analog only input for broadcast signals. If only it would input the same HDTV signals it can send to a HDTV monitor.

        I guess that old article was right. The studios are broadcasting DTV, but nobody is watching. Duh, nobody has a tuner and antenna!

  • The big thing missing (Score:2, Interesting)

    by swb ( 14022 )
    ...is hardware MPEG capture. Decode they seem to have, capture would be ideal. The $149 Hauppage WinTV-PVRs have it.
    • Via the "Cobra" engine on the R300 chip itself, the AIW Radeon actually has MPEG-2 encoding hardware. It doesn't do the whole process in hardware, but enough to offset between 1/5 and 1/4 of the processing overhead from the CPU. This is typical ATI - their first DVD decoding hardware assistance in chips (I believe in the Rage Pro line circa 1997) had enough hardware to offset a chunk of the processing overhead from the CPU. In the following generation, the new chip had essentially full hardware decoding. Expect the next generation of AIW to follow suit.
      • 25% at best doesn't cut it, neither does expecting the next generation to do 50%.

        I'm not sure how you can use the engine on the Hauppage cards (if its just a direct pipe from the capture portion of the card or general purpose engine that can compress a stream sent from the CPU), but full hardware assist would rock for editing MPEG2 streams on the fly without decoding to AVI and then back to MPEG2.

        Doing MPEG2 totally (or even mostly) in software sucks on my dual PIII669 box, with the one advantage that you get total control over the encoding process. I'd kind of wonder how tweakable the MPEG2 output is from a $150 card.
    • Hmmm.
      The Hauppage page says the $149 board uses a software decoder. The upcoming board (WinTV-PVR-250) does mpeg in hardware, it's $100 more.

  • it rivals nothing... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @05:19AM (#4365952) Homepage
    that rival most discrete solutions
    Until they come out with HARDWARE MPEG encode and decode on the card it rivals nothing.

    My DV500 video capture card hardware encodes so my processor doesnt have to waste time doing it. My Hollywood+ and my DV500 card both hardware decode. (Cat a mpeg stream to the hollywood+ card and magically that mpeg 1 or 2 file is displayed.. the newer Hollywood cards do Divix (mpeg4) on the card. while the DV500 will do mpegs 1&2 DV and most AVI file types (Not mpeg4 without a firmware change)

    coupled with my Geforce3 I dont see it rivaling anything. ATI's offering is still just a toy, A video card with some neato-things added that are useless for any professional uses (if you want professional results.. I dont see anyone desiring to buy a capture device for anything onther than editing... except PVR.. and if their PVR software that comes with the card is anything like what they send with the last iteration of the all in wonder... it will fail again.
    • What is the best video capture card for Linux, preferrably with a supported hardware MPEG2 encoder?
    • Read Anand's review. The R300's "Cobra" engine provides hardware MPEG-2 encoding assistance. Not completely, but enough to offset 1/5 to 1/4 of the CPU overhead. As I understand, no consumer-level MPEG-2 encoding hardware does all the processing onboard but merely offsets some work from the CPU. Of course, ATI has had MPEG-2 decoding assistance for a LONG time - since 1997. In fact, I have a H+ too and the difference in CPU usage levels between the H+ and my AIW Radeon when watching DVDs is negligible. The Radeon provides superior monitor playback and the H+ provides superior TV playback which is why the two still co-exist. One thing many people overlook is the fact that since the AIW is on the AGP bus, you don't run the risk of overloading the PCI bus when doing video capture and the like. Their PVR software has come a LONG way too. When I first got my AIW Radeon I cursed my decision but since December of last year the software has been excellent. I just wish there was something on Linux to rival it. There isn't. Nothing comes close actually.
    • The All-in-Wonder line has never been aimed at the professional user. That DV500 card probably set you back close to $500, and it didn't even come with the fastest 3D acceleration on the market.

      You can call it a toy, I call it fun to play around with in my spare time. And I don't know anyone who's called the AIW cards a failure.

    • So how much does this DV500 card cost, and - if reasonable - where can one get it. Details, man, details! If it costs $300 then I think I'll just stick with my does-it-all cards or a good 3d card with a cheaper decoded that burns CPU.
    • The card doesn't have hardware encode, that I know of, but it does have hardware decode (which it uses for DVD playback, among other things), and even the AIW128 had hardware overlay and scaling support for DVD, and even AVI/MPEG under XF4.x.

      The AIW isn't necessarily a capture device either, though it can serve that purpose. All I've used it for is watching TV and playing games (PS, etc) on my system. Then again, I've never had the HD space or processor to do anything else.

      --Dan
  • I don't need the latest DirectX-9 gimmicks and want a passively cooled, cheaper, but fast enough version.

    The Radeon 9000 graphic cards are wonderful. An All-In-Wonder-Card based on the Radeon 9000 would be wonderful for my quiet "home theatre - MP3 - DVD - digital videorecorder"-PC.

    But with the lack of resonable Linux driver support this won't happen anyway.

    Bye egghat.

  • GATOS and DRI (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2002 @07:14AM (#4366196) Homepage Journal
    I'd advise against getting an All-In-Wonder card if you run Linux, since the GATOS team (the folks doing 2D video capture, tuner support, and TV out) and the DRI team (the folks doing OpenGL 3D support) have yet to sync their code so that the two play nicely together. Thus, you can have EITHER video capture and tuner support, XOR accelerated 3D support. You cannot have both.

    I could understand if this condition persisted for a few weeks - the teams are different groups with different goals. However, this has been the case for several MONTHS, and I see no motion towards resolving this.

    This is one of the places that the bazaar approach is weaker than the cathedral approach - independant teams don't co-ordinate very well in such matters.

    So, at this time if you want both tuner support AND accelerated 3D, I would suggest getting a seperate TV tuner card.

    (And I am viewing this very post on a AIW7500. I have a classic AIW in my server in the basement, and in the past I've had a Voodoo 3500TV. I have some experience in this matter.)

    (And I don't have time to fix this - I have to work on modifying the USB joystick drivers to report the hat as buttons so that I can use it under UT/US2003, getting ATA/133 & LBA48 working, getting video streaming working from my DTIVO, trying to find out why Wine has show regressions in the past week....)
    • Besides, the video capture is sorely lacking. The "video4linux" interface only implements a small handful (like 4) of the functions in the video4linux api, so most capture programs will NOT work with AIW cards.
  • ATI has yet to get the drivers right....The issue list is LONG and they've started out where they left off with the 8500 and some really lousy driver support. I like the card, but getting all the bells and whistles to work is nearly impossible. The capture drivers have issues, NWN has MAJOR issues with this card, but it is quick, and I keep hoping ATI will get thier act together driver wise...SOON PLS...

  • I had the original AIW card. It was nice for a while, but when i upgraded to a GF4 4200 I had to give up my TV/PVR capabilities too. So I'd suggest getting an ATI TV Wonder so you can painlessly upgrade your video card later. I still haven't got around to buying a TV Wonder so I can start recording shows on my computer again.

    Oh, and don't get the TV Wonder VE unless you don't want stereo sound.

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