nVidia solution for Radeon A-I-W 8500

[ArvinC]

Hello everyone!

Bit of a newbie question here, but I was wondering what an nVidia-based solution would be for ATI's Radeon 8500 A-I-W? I was going to go with the Radeon, but then found out through the forums that it's not really a top-notch performer in games that the "regular" 8500 is. Plus, there is the whole drivers issue...

Question is what combination of hardware would you reccomend to get me top-notch gaming performance (Ti-500 or 8500 level) AND on-board TV/cable tuning, DVD playback and video capturing as well?

Thanks for any info!

ArvinC

 

[AA0]

there isn't one, and the only thing nvidia has is the GF2Mx version, the drivers for their personal cinema are poor, worse than ATIs.

 

[spanky]

by how much worse r the AIW's performance? isn't it pretty minimal?

 

[AmdInside]

You can buy any of the Geforce line of cards (Geforce 2 to Geforce 3) with Personal Cinema directly from Compro at:

http://www.ebaystores.com/comprotechnology

I emailed them to ask if they would have a Geforce 4 model as well and they said they would shortly. I have the Geforce 2 MX Personal Cinema model, which I bought for my dad. Their colors were really vibrant (more vibrant than the Radeon 8500) but not as sharp as the Radeon 8500 under higher resolutions. Its not bad. Almost as good sharp as the Radeon 8500 at 1600x1200. As for drivers, the 1.08 got rid of most of my problems under WinXP. Never had problems with WinME or Win2k. Adobe Premiere works without any problems. PowerVCR works without any problems. There are minor problems that some people report having with the WinDVR but Intervideo sucks as far as I'm concerned. Hope this gives you some useful information.

 

[Rand]

<< by how much worse r the AIW's performance? isn't it pretty minimal? >>



It's a fair amount slower then the regular 8500, but it still managed to match up to a GF3 Ti200 in most benchmarks I've seen of it... so it's hardly a 'slow' card by any means.
The Personal Cinema is supposedly coming with GF4's but given how abhorridly bad the Personal Cinema drivers are I wouldnt dream of recommending it.

 

[Daovonnaex]

Without the the AIW, you'll need three cards.
1. Asus V8200 T5 Deluxe (VIVO Ti500)
2. Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus (DVD accel)
3. ATi TV-Wonder (TV)

 

[BlueFlem]

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 capture and DVD playback.
I found the AIW MUCH better at video playback and the TV software that comes with it is pretty cool. Also it seems that most of the video editing software packages out there will support AIW cards.

 

[rbV5]

<< it's not really a top-notch performer in games that the "regular" 8500 is. Plus, there is the whole drivers issue... >>



Don't let all the ATI driver bashing cloud your reasoning, when folks refer to nVidia's so called perfect drivers, they are definately NOT talking about their multimedia functionality. When it comes to multimedia cards, ATI solutions actually work, there is no nVidia answer to AIW 8500dv presently. You may get a bit better framerates with some other card, or combination of cards, but you will be sacrificing your multimedia functionality for your benchmark ego.

Personal Cinema is not even up to par with the original AIW Radeon, eTV 450 Matrox is more expensive, closer as far as functionality, but suffers from heat problems and is a poor gamer, still not as good as the original AIW Radeon. The TV Wonder addon boards are not based on the Rage Theater Chip as the Radeon cards and XP and Win2k support is immature. Hauppage cards have alot of supporters, but also have driver and full screen viewing issues.

The GF4 cards do seem to have some promise with perhaps better features than there prior solutions, but thats yet to be seen. IMHO the 8500dv is the cream of the crop, best in class on all counts, the AIW 7500 is a great mid range product, best in class DX7 and the AIW Radeon is the best budget solution, still a good gaming card and mature drivers with an excellent feature set that works.