All I wonder is how to make this card work...
Written: Jul 03 '01 (Updated Jul 04 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: A whole lot of functionality on one card.
Cons: Compatibility issues galore.
The Bottom Line: A solid bundle of features, but do some research to see if ALL your hardware is supported before you buy.
|
|
|
| albrtlee's Full Review: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON, (32 MB) PCI Video Card |
I have no doubt that the ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon provides great value to its users. It has a built in TV tuner, accepts composite and s-video inputs, boasts hardware accelerated DVD playback, provides MPEG-2 video capture, and comes with software that mimics many TiVO functions. And all this comes in addition to a very solid 3D graphics core.
So why am I giving this card such a low rating? Well, my opinion of the AIW is based on my own experiences with the card, and quite frankly, to say my experiences were frustrating is a gross understatement.
The biggest problem with the AIW is compatibility. When I was first considering purchasing the card, I did a bit of research on the web, reading FAQs and perusing through forums. Perhaps the biggest show-stopper news that I discovered was a documented incompatibility with AMD Athlon motherboard chipsets and Win2k. Since I happen to both use Win2k and own one of the earlier Athlon motherboards, such issues are not new to me. I had already installed software patches to work around this issue so I did not foresee this to be a problem with the AIW Radeon.
Unfortunately, I was never able to get the AIW to work with my Athlon motherboard in anything other than VGA mode. Doing anything else left me with a dead monitor signal and a locked up computer. Changing AGP settings, updating my motherboard BIOS, re-installing OS patches all did nothing to improve the situation. So instead of continuing to run against a wall, I decided to try an "easier" alternative. In this case, it meant installing the card in my secondary computer, which is basically my previous computer plus some spare parts. This other computer housed an Intel Pentium III 550MHz processor with a ASUS P2B-S motherboard reknowned for its stability.
Since I don't really use the computer for much, I did a completely clean install of Win2k, just to eliminate the possibility of legacy software mucking things up. After installing the OS, I inserted the ATI driver CD, installed the drivers and the software, and presto! Everything worked! Oddly, the TV/DVD/etc software on the driver CD seemed to be a later version than the latest software available off the ATI web site. Regardless, everything seemed to be okay. I was able to use the software and tuner to watch and pause live TV. And I was able to record TV shows to my hard drive with just a few mouse clicks. I was particularly impressed with the MPEG-2 video capture. Most video capture cards spec a 600 or 700 MHz P3 processor as the minimum system requirements for reliable video capture. With my 550MHz processor, I was able to capture live TV at 352x240 resolution with no dropped frames. Bumping up the resolution to 720x480 caused a little bit of stutter. Not much, but still noticeable.
I will say that I was a bit disappointed with the DVD playback performance. I was expecting the CPU usage to be very low, but it turned out to be around 50%. I did not investigate thoroughly, but I've seen much lower numbers posted on the internet. This may not be an issue with the AIW, however. Its quite possible that the high percent CPU usage was due to shoddy DMA performance on the DVD drive itself.
Regardless, I was quite happy to have all the features working. But things quickly took a turn for the worse once I starting to install more software. One of the things I actually still use my secondary computer for is to burn CDs. That's because I have a SCSI CD burner (don't ask me why) and my ASUS motherboard has a built-in SCSI adapter. After installing my CD recording software, I decided to try to record a TV show and burn it to a Video CD. But I was unable to start the TV tuner application. Each time I tried to launch the app, it would give me an error message saying the app was unable to load. The message suggested that I was either using an incompatible driver or that I needed to shut down other apps like WebTV for Windows that may be trying to access the multimedia features of the card. This left me at a loss since I had done nothing to the drivers and had no other applications running. I don't even have WebTV installed on my computer!
After hours (spread over the course of a few days) of debugging IRQs, tinkering with driver versions, calling technical support, and browsing forums, I ultimately came to two conclusions. First, it was very unlikely that I would ever get the card to work happily with my hardware configuration. And secondly, all this headache was more trouble than its worth and I could still return the card and get a full refund.
In summary, the All-In-Wonder Radeon offers a great features set with excellent performance. The one caveat is that there are still a lot of kinks with using your computer as a multimedia station. Basically, you have to be really careful that the card and all the hardware on it is compatible with your everthing in your system - CPU, peripherals, OS, and other key software. The problem is that it is basically impossible to know if the AIW is compatible without actually trying the card out. If you really want to give it shot, make sure you purchase the card from a place that allows for returns. Otherwise, you could be left with an large hole in your wallet.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 279.99
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
albrtlee
|
|
Member: Albert Lee
Location: California
Reviews written: 36
Trusted by: 40 members
About Me:
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." --Albert Einstein
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.