ATI All-in-Wonder or separate capture + videocards?

[DragnFist]

Hi there. I've always been a fan of ATI All-In-Wonder cards but I also play FPS games and the GPU on these cards gets outdated in a couple of years. I currently have an ATI AIW 7500 that I still love but now doesn't play the newer games.

I'm planning to upgrade my whole computer to a PCI Express/BTX version in early 2005, but I'm in a quandry with what to replace my ATI with.

Should I get a capture-only card and a separate card for video playback that could be upgraded more frequently...or stick with an AIW that I have to replace every few years?

Please let me know - what should I do??

[lordsmurf]

Why not keep them both?

[vhelp]

Hi,

I don't know if this will help you out or not.

But, I would recommend the ADVC-100 unit because this is a fail-safe device.
And, the quality very good. The codec (hardware built-in) is of DV for this
device.
.
If you want to use other codec (during your capturing phase) then a standard
analog capture card is what you want (ie, an AIW type cared)
.
These types of cards will let you capture with various types of codecs and
containers (ie, MJPEG; DV; divX; XviD; MPEG1; MPEG2; YUV; Huffy; etc etc etc)

I'm a fan of the ATI products (since my ATI-TV Wonder pci, and Rage Fury Pro, agp)
But, every since my Rage Fury Pro died on me, I've not ben able to replace
it "perfectly" in all aspects and attributes. Not even my ATI Rage 128 pci card.

So, I went out and bought the All-In-Wonder 9600 (AIW-9600) AGP type,
and to date, this bastard still refuses to work inside my Windows 98 Gold
system. I'm really quite pissed because there are drivers for this card
under Win98Gold, but they cause haufic and crash my system before
windows even boots.

I DO NOT recommend this (bastard) card to ANYONE w/ Windows 98 Gold
as their OS
.
I'm currently using a PNY 32mb graphics card in the mean time.. another
bastard, but it works for now.

My current Capture card setup is:

* PNY - NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 - AGP graphics card
* Winfast TV2000 XP "Expert"

Note, because of driver and directX issues, I suffer random system lockups
and so on and so forth.
But, this capture card does a very good job at capturing, when it works well
and w/out headackes

Good luck,
-vhelp

[DragnFist]

Why not keep them both?

Sorry, I'm a bit confused as to what you mean. I have an ATI AIW 7500 AGP card now. Are you suggesting that I keep that and add another videocard to handle the newer games? I certainly can't handle 2 AGP videocards in my current system, and I don't think a PCI-express BTX formfactor mobo will support AGP at all (if so, probably not two). I presume that in future ATI will be creating some form of AIW for PCI-Express as they have their non-AIW cards out already, but I don't know if I should buy that when it comes out or bite the bullet and buy two separate cards so I can just upgrade the video without having to upgrade the capture card.

BTW, I LOVE your guides at www.digitalfaq.com. I send everyone there...GREAT WORK.

[andkiich]

Hell, if you think that you might get serious capturing video, just do like I did. Instead of upgrading your existing machine, use that one for video capture/conversion and just build another one for general use and gaming.

I have a KVM to and the setup has worked great for me.

[DragnFist]

Hell, if you think that you might get serious capturing video, just do like I did. Instead of upgrading your existing machine, use that one for video capture/conversion and just build another one for general use and gaming.

I have a KVM to and the setup has worked great for me.

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately I don't really have the space for that - my 4X8 computer room is already jam-packed. When I upgrade my son gets mine and my dad will get his and my mother will get my dads. It's a real chain of events...

I need to do both functions in one machine. I mostly do 8mm camcorder analog captures of home videos and the odd TV or VHS capture - mostly in MPEG2 format for eventual burning to DVD. Since the only experience I've had with capture hardware is the AIW I don't know if there's a better solution...

[lordsmurf]

I don't think a PCI-express BTX formfactor mobo will support AGP

I don't know this either.
ATI has been releasing some cards that are non-AIW and carry the Theatre chips, though I'm afraid some of them (maybe all) are for WinMCE only.

You can also trade back, and grab a ATI AIW VE PCI card (Theatre 200 chips). In that situation, you can run both. You may have to switch between cards in the BIOS (depending on how you system and Windows acts), but since I suggest a system restart before all capturing sessions (flush RAM, etc), that won't be too inconvenient.

[thecoalman]

Keep in mind this about newer AIW's http://www.nepadigital.com/mv

BTW: it's my site

[DragnFist]

Keep in mind this about newer AIW's http://www.nepadigital.com/mv

Interesting! I haven't noticed anything like that on my AIW 7500 and I've never tried any anti-MV hacks on it...but I'll keep this in mind.

Appreciate the heads up!

[DragnFist]

You can also trade back, and grab a ATI AIW VE PCI card (Theatre 200 chips). In that situation, you can run both. You may have to switch between cards in the BIOS (depending on how you system and Windows acts), but since I suggest a system restart before all capturing sessions (flush RAM, etc), that won't be too inconvenient.

Thanks for the suggestion. I guess as long as I can get both cards into the machine I can switch between them.

The TV Wonder cards seem to be closer to an add-on rather than a replacement of the main video card, but do they not do capture as well as the AIWs? Are the AIWs the only cards that have the Theatre chips?