Recent content by BlueFlem

I would recomend installing everything from the CD first, then download the latest drivers. I've had issues with Soundblaster and my AIW 8500DV. I picked up a Yamaha DP-U50/CAVIT external audio processor and I was expecting problems but everything is working great.

Win98SE P2 400 64Meg - AIW Rage128 - ATI DVD 4.1 - Flawless...

Matrox does a good job of 2D/Video rendering. The hardware is top-notch. Driver quality could be better (I never had much luck with their driver updates). I played a bit with the Parhelia and its OK for 3D games but not games that are FPS intensive.

Put it this way, its more expensive than other Radeons but it less expensive (and much better) than an XP MediaEdition PC....

I'm kind of surprised that the 9700 still has a higher memory bandwidth than the FX 19GB/s vs 16GB/s? Looks like NVIDIA is having problems living in a 0.13micron world.

There is no question that the Parhelia will have the best image quality this seems to be a priority for Matrox. If you go into any video editing shop you will always find a Matrox. I know that some computer vision research labs use Matrox as standard HW. I would imagine anything from Blizzard...

Consider the PCTV Studio. From what I know of Pinnacle, the hardware quality is good and so is their software and support.

As far as I know nvidia still design around old Brooktree or Conexant parts which provides an ok capture image. This means you should expect about 10% frame drop rate if you are trying to capture something at say 720x480 regardless of CPU speed. You may want to consider a FireWire card (AIW...

Hmmm, I have some issues with the MX cards. If your going to be watching DVD or Divx, you should consider the Radeon.

The thing with nvidia is that they place allot of emphasis on games and 3D applications. Once you stray outside of the 3D realm nvidia drivers tend to show cracks. I spent some time playing with Personal Cinema and the DShow WDM drivers that nvidia provided were not very good, I expected better...

Hmmm... If you have a good TV( HD Digital set) then you may notice a slightly degraded picture when you convert to VCD(mpg1). It will not be close to DVD quality like DivX. Check out www.vcdhelp.com and www.doom9.net for tools.

Get the AIW. But don't take my word for it. If you go to www.avsforum.com you will notice that the AIW is the prefer card for these guys.

Hmmm.... never thought I would see the day when digital media was going to be THE hot black market item. I can just see it now, small planes dropping packages of DVD-R's over the Mexican boarder. The ATF would be called the ATFDM and making raids on back-room LAN parties. Hoards of engineers...

I had an ASUS V8200 GF3 TI500 VIVO for a while and I returned it for an AIW8500. I did notice that the GF3 was about 10% or more faster on Q3. Games like Diablo or Civilization, I didn't notice much of a difference. What caused me to return the ASUS was because it was terrible at doing video...