Radeon 8500DV: How is it?

[jamesbond007]

I was wondering how the overall quality of both the hardware and the software/drivers are for this card? I'm considering the purchase of one, which will be ran on WinXP. I plan to run a digital cable signal through it so I can capture. I am not a heavy gamer, but I do like the occasional game of Quake 3:Arena and Counter-Strike. MechWarrior 4 is a game I'm getting into, which is my reasoning for the 8500DV over the Radeon AIW.

Again, my main issue/concern is with drivers/stability as well as the quality of the capture, both video and sound.

Thanks in advance!

~JB007

 

[anime]

actually radeon8500 has been running more stable than my gf3ti200 card. For the game I play at least. With my gf3 card-always got booted to desktop or even got memory dump msg once in awhile. Mech4 is running awesome on this card. I dont play quake3 arena though..

 

[jamesbond007]

Have you used any of the capturing features yet?

Thanks for answering my gaming questions!

Keep 'em coming guys. This card looks too good to be true.

 

[89McLarenStang]

actually i dont believe this card will be able to show a digital cable signal...its a tuner thats only equipped to handle an analog signal...

 

[rbV5]

<< actually i dont believe this card will be able to show a digital cable signal >>



Sure it will, you may have to use your digital cable converter box as the tuner and use the s-video or composite video-in. It will display any supported video source including HDTV signals.

 

[jamesbond007]

I plan to use S-Video for connecting to my digitial cable receiver.

I think this card is in the bag. However, can anyone comment on drivers? I need to know if ATi's drivers for capturing are stable. The last thing I need is to be capturing, then BSOD. The OS I'll be using is Windows XP Professional, in case that helps anyone.

Peace.

 

[Spikesoldier]

Its great! Drivers are good, capture is good (if you have the hd space; it will creep up on you) only if you use MPEG-2. I experience some "higher pitched voices" when I capture MPEG-2 though... Everything else is great - everything blends in with XP.

 

[Switch]

Just bought an 8500DV tonight. It's going right back tomorrow.

Their drivers and theater software just arent there for XP. Maybe in the future but not now. The TV tuning looks HORRIBLE compared to my Xtasy Everything and I thought the Xtasy everything looked like crap. This is even worse!

In 2D, the drivers are slow. It takes forever to scroll through my bookmarks in IE. It also have a screen flicker issue when switching between windows.

I had really high hopes for this card. This is the second ATI product I've bought thinking it was going to be great and it turned out to be total ass. While the image quaility might be better than Nvidia, thats about where ATI's superiority ends.

Maybe under Win9X it's a different story but under XP this card is horrible.

 

[Bingo13]

No problems here under XP, works like a charm.

 

[*kjm]

"No problems here under XP, works like a charm."

Same here.