Question For The ATI AIW Experts

[greengate69]

Right, I've been given (seriously) an ATI AIW 8500 64 Mbit (PCI) card and accompanying cable. I want to try to use this for video capture. at present I am using a hilips 7134-based card. I currently have an ATI 9200 128 Mbit SE card installed for graphics.

What I want to know is:

(a) Can the existing AGP graphics card co-exist with the new AIW card (i.e can I use the AIW just as a capture card). I ask as the existing graphics card (i.e. the ATI 9200 SE 128 Mbit) has more RAM.

(b) If the above is possible, should I bother. I don't play games so presumably my grahics requirements are low (I also have 522 Mbit system RAM).

(c) I can always redeploy the existing AGP graphics card. So all things considered, should stay as I am (i.e forget the AIW), run both, or ditch the existing 9200SE AP and use the AIW for graphics and capture.

Cheers

[overloaded_ide]

(b) If the above is possible, should I bother. I don't play games so presumably my grahics requirements are low (I also have 522 Mbit system RAM).

OK you answered your own question I think. Why bother with 2 cards and posible problems? About the only thing I would think of needing more ram would be high powerd games maybe and if that's not a problem I would pull the video only card and install the AIW card only.

I use a 7500 agp AIW and everthing works fine for me. I am not a gamer either and basically everything else can be handled fine by a 4mb graphics card on my old systems just as well. Only thing I ever found these high dollar over rated video only cards are needed for is gaming because the card renders the picture graphics as it occurs in a game.

I had a friend into creating animation that used to buy those over priced cards because of the rendering claims. He was pretty darned smart otherwise so I don't know why he did that. Rendering animation when making a cartoon video is all done with system ram and CPU reading and writing the hard drive, nothing at all to do with the video card! But yet he would buy the newest video cards at top dollar because of the great rendering claims, even though he did not game.
After I explained it to him a few times I think he might have understood after the cartoon was compleated the video card did nothing more than play back the file same as watching a DVD or AVI type video. So rendering and frame rates etc... did not apply to anything he was doing.
And for playback not alot of video ram is required either.

So my opinion really is if you are going to capture and mostly just work with programs and surf the net with the system, no highend war type gamming or driving games etc.. just run the capture card as your only video card. Maybe put your other card in a new system if you build one. Or keep it for a spare or sell it.

Your not using a 45" monitor with a 3,238x 2,128 resolution are you?
That might take a bit more video power ram wise.

[Alan69]

What I want to know is:

(a) Can the existing AGP graphics card co-exist with the new AIW card (i.e can I use the AIW just as a capture card). I ask as the existing graphics card (i.e. the ATI 9200 SE 128 Mbit) has more RAM.

(b) If the above is possible, should I bother. I don't play games so presumably my grahics requirements are low (I also have 522 Mbit system RAM).

(c) I can always redeploy the existing AGP graphics card. So all things considered, should stay as I am (i.e forget the AIW), run both, or ditch the existing 9200SE AP and use the AIW for graphics and capture.

Cheers

(a) Yes, that should work. Usefullness is sort of limited for 2 cards though. If damn Windows would support overlays on both then it'd be much better, but it doesn't appear to do so..

(b) No. Main difference is 3D graphics and general speed, and you won't notice much with mostly programs etc not games.

(c) Run both, but seperately. It is a godsend to have your capture system seperate, since you won't tie up your computer with captures. Throw a $50 cheap motherboard/CPU and a $50 hard drive etc at it, then network it to your main computer so you can get the files off it to burn. Once you get it set up, you should be much happier with it this way. It's neat to have the TV on your main system, but probably better to be able to net etc while capturing without fear of dropping the frames.

Could always sell the 9200, but check prices on Ebay first may not be worth it used vs the use you could get from it in a seperate system.

Alan

[greengate69]

Thanks to both of you.

I'l proceed with just the AIW for now, I had been wondering whether there might be a performance advantage using the AIW for capture and the existing AGP card for video output.

I'll give it a go anyhow - cheers.