descent all around, but incompatible with AMD K6, poor TV quality
Written: Dec 16 '00 (Updated Apr 22 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Does it all, good 3D acceleration
Cons: Does it all poorly, driver problem, unstable with K6 family processor.
The Bottom Line: Does everything, but doesn't do anything well. Tuner/DVD quality subpar. Avoid it with the amd K6 processor.
Good for a multimedia computer on a budget. Stable with newer platforms.
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| yoyofella's Full Review: ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON, (32 MB) PCI Video Card |
Prior to purchasing the All-In-Wonder Radeon card, my intention was to replace the TV-Tuner/capture card (Xtreme), the DVD decoder card (Cinemaster), and my 3d acceleration card (Creative Lab's Riva TNT). By virtue of having all these different multimedia cards, I have been quite in tuned with this market. Even though these cards individually does what they need to do well, they simply too up too much room on my computer, since each card takes up an PCI slot and IRQ.
I saw the AIW Radeon to be the solution to my problem, and according to various reviewers from Tomshardware, anandtech, and this web site, I felt very comfortable purchasing this card.
Boy was I wrong. Even though I had no problem installing the video card driver, I encountered very strange error message when I tried to install the core software bundle, Multimedia Center. It simply won't install, giving me library/DLL errors. It is then that I realized the lack of technical support ATI offers. Their web site, phone support, and e-mail support, seem to have only 1 purpose: to prevent the customer from talking to a live support personel. I ended up digging through newsgroups and figured out the problem required reinstallation of windows!
After I finally got the multimedia features working, I was able to test out the quality of the DVD and TV tuner. I have an AMD K6-2+ processor running 550 mhz, so I expected to have no problem with DVD playback. However, DVD playback had so many skipping and pausing that it made viewing extremely diffcult and unpleasing. I then switched over to the tuner, and found the quality to be less than that of my 2 year old eXtremeTV tuner.
However, those two issues at least are tolerable. My biggest concern is with the lockup when I play 3-D games. For some reason, after 3-10 minutes of playing a 3-D game, they system will hang and the monitor go blank. I tried upgrading the driver through their website, but the driver provided was older than the one they ship on the CD. I also tried upgrading my agp driver and flashing my bios in hope of a miracle, but this issue was never solved.
In all, I would not recommend this video card to AMD owners, because it seems that there are numerous complaints from them (including me). Intel people can cross their fingers and hope the driver they provide is more compatible. I don't understand the people that talk fondly of the TV tuner quality, for it is obviously inferior in my eyes to my 2-year old tuner. The image quality of the DVD playback, when it's not skipping and pausing, is also inferior to my 2-year old Cinemaster card. Even though this card can provide me with a 60fps playing at 1024x768, the 3-10 minutes of playing time between reboots is simply frustrating.
I agree with the other reviewer of waiting for the new drivers before purchase. its not worth all the frustration.
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Update 4/22/01
Upgraded my computer from that k6-2 to a Duron 700mhz. My opinion about the incompatibility of AMD processor to this card will not extend beyond the k6 family. The current system turned out to work wonderfully. One instability still occur: I use the Dual display capability on my Win98, and when you change dual display setting with the TV tuner on, computer instantly freezes. That's no big deal though, just turn off the TV or DVD beforehand. Complaint about the TV and DVD still holds true.
I now hold mixed opinions on this card. After I got used to the TV quality, it's not too bad.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
yoyofella
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Reviews written: 2
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