Great for average user, and 2 in 1 function
Written: Jun 16 '03 (Updated Jul 05 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Video capture, dual monitor out, included software
Cons: Don't expect Super performance, capture quality, and Cust serv.
The Bottom Line: Only useful if you are average user who occasionally plays games. Video capture is good, but not the best. Video capture software is excellent.
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| lifo195's Full Review: MSI G4 MX440-VTD8X, (64 MB) AGP Video Card |
I am not sure if this board is still in production. Utilities included are an overclocking software, but it glitched a few times using this option, and I never used overclocking after this.
Con:
This board was a bit of a hassel in the begining, for the capture and the dual out. It turns out, which is not in the instructions, that you need to plug the VGA monitor into the DVI port in order for the graphic card to clone video out to monitor and the RCA a/v video jack out at the same time. I captured many video from VCR in hopes of converting old VHS into CD. However quality is not superb without using AVI mode which require a lot of HD space. I would like to buy a TV tuner card to go with this to record shows, but If you are really picky for quality, I would recommend to buy a stand alone DVD recorder(like Panasonic E-50). Since stand alone DVD recorder usually has dedicated processors to capture video, and easier capture data then through a PC. I also should mention their bulletin or website doesn't mention this clearly. Their e-mail tech support is horrible, I think you must call them.
I believe the big problem with this card is that the drivers are not perfected. I am using the 41.07 from MSI, but I heard the newest from NVidia 44.03 or something is supposed to fix everything to make it work right.
The other problem I recently had is even though you can extend the desktop onto two monitors. I tried it and for some reason can only clone, so I think I need to try the new drivers.
Pro:
The benifits are the board can operate fairly good for the modest gamer. So far I only played the included Ghost Recon, which I think is a great game, the graphics looked good. I'm pretty sure any top end graphic card can blow this away, but I don't play games that much. Great to view your everyday apps, such as browser, or office app. Save space from needing to buy a seperate video capture box, and getting good capture software. Graphics look good overall and good frame rate for Counter Strike. Good as a 2 in 1 video capture and a graphic card, with great software included.
Included video capture software benifits:
The video capture software included is Excellent. It is Win Producer 2.0 version, but it can handle any format from MPEG-1,MPEG-2, AVI, and the best of all divx. The software took a little time to figure out but you can convert any movie or mpeg file into a different format or size ratio like 320x240. So if you have an IPAQ or CLIE you can export captured video to that device. Capture can be mpeg2 in real-time or AVI. of course AVI looks great but 4 minutes is around 4 GB of data OUCH!!. Anyways MPEG best mode looks great, but around degradation of the original. It still looks okay when I burned it to a CD-rw and watch as VCD. This software doesn't support DVD burning, but you can export as MPEG-2 and use your own software to burn it I suppose.
Fair warning:
I suggest this card to people who can diagnose these silly problems due to driver flaws, and if you aren't able to troubleshoot I wouldn't recommend this card.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 105
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Epinions.com ID:
lifo195
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Location: Rochester hills,MI
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
I like anime, &Japanese music, and luckily anime is best of both worlds.
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