ATI Radeon 8500DV...stop me please!!

[stolbovoy]

GPU what a crazy frickin idea. Who would've thought that with 2GHz processors that you would still need to offload the work to the video card?

Because it is not fast enough:

GPU in fact is nice and smart idea:
1) there is quite slow bus between system RAM-CPU-video RAM
2) there always some extra activity CPU can handle instead of geometric transformations.
2) you probably would be impressed if discover how fast some 100Mhz DSP works in comparison with 2GHz P4

[Sciascia]

I'm not disputing the need for it, just that a few years ago we would have laughed at the thought.

[Sciascia]

It's here! Just trying to decide if I should install Win2k as ACPI or standard. I imagine that the new Santa Cruz that I put in is compliant, as well as the new vidcard. Not 100% on the Promise Raid controller.

What sucks is that after you do it, there is no alternative but to reformat.

[wkulecz]

GO ACPI. Junk anything that needs MPC install to work.

--wally.

[Sciascia]

I opted for the lazy man method so far. I opened the box and there was a capacitor lying in the bag. DOHHH!!! I went to good old Tom's HW and found a nice big picture of it and confirmed the location of it. It was a weird little PCB mounted device and soldered it on.

I then grabbed my backup HD that already had Win2k on it and uninstalled my Matrox stuff. Threw the new card in to verify function and so far so good. Looks really good and I even tried a few games real quick. Holy poop on a stick, this thing screams like someone slammed it's fingers in the car door.

I haven't gotten to the video stuff yet, it is going to be a fresh install sometime later tonight or tomorrow.

Good news is that I got tomorrow and Thurs off from work. Bad news is that the wife's brake pads came in the mail along with my vidcard!

Better get busy tonight.

[Hulk]

Sciascia-

I'm really interested in how the TV out on the 8500DV works for you. I used to have a AIW 128 and then an AIW 128 Pro. Neither could do the TV out like Matrox with the DVDmax. I'm currently happy with it. 3D is pretty weak, but I really don't do much gaming.

Here's what I'd like to know, when you get a chance:

1. Is there indeed a DVDmax-like feature on the 8500DV? Can you play files using windows media player or a DVD player and have the output go to the tv while it is only playing in a window on the monitor screen?

2. If the above answer is yes, does 720x480 or 640x480 video scale to full screen with no black border around the video? Especially at the bottom?

3. Can you preserve aspect ratio for widescreen tv output?

4. Can you adjust tv output aspect ratio by changing the dimensions of the video window? Sometimes I have to do this for some widescreen DVD, ie "Pearl Harbor" or everything is a little skinny.

5. Make sure you get those brake rotors cut if you are doing disc brakes!

Thanks,

Mark

[prophet]

With latest beta drivers for AIW 8500DV Theatre mode should be there, that is ATI's DVDMax.. someone should test it :-)

sciascia, did you get PAL version? I'm asking because of availability in Europe..

[Sciascia]

No I got the NTSC version. I live on a military installation and have NTSC cable.

The Theater mode is a little tricky to figure out right. It seems to work with the ATI SW and mediaplayer except for DivX, (preliminary test). Although the video is played in the overlay mode on both screens. It could be a bastardized setting from my old install as well.

DVDs in the ATI DVD player are stretched and WinDVD has a green block in teh bottom half. It is not working very well with DVDs for the TV out so far. I may have to change some resolution settings.

I went ahead and installed everything, including the Beta drivers just to see what it had. The remote is really nice, although I doubt that I will use it much. I will have to spend some time playing (dong that now) before I can make some definite decisions. I cannot get AVI_IO to work (had a feeling) and I will try the Ulead suites as well. It came with VS5, but I really do not like the layout of the VS series, it seems a little gimmicky or something. I prefer the good old fashioned NLE layout like MSP6.


The tuner works great and capturing to DVD quality looks really good, better than I though it would. 720*480 is a nice feature that hopefully some of the editing/authoring apps will like!

Preliminary testing is going good consdering I had to solder it and just slapped it in the PC on an old hacked up install. I will find out more later on and keep you posted.

[Topha]

Got my Hercules 8500AIW yesterday, and unlike the 7500 it does have a radiofrequency remotecontrol which i can use as a mouse (cool), supports direct x 8.1 and is more expensive

i like it though, its faster than my g400Max, but i miss my 1280x960 resolution, which it does not support

having problems with TV sound quality, but i think its the crappy cabel at the place where i live

[Sciascia]

That's funny that you mention the remote, I was just showing it off to the wife when I read your post Don' know about how useful it really is for me, since I am about 6 inches from my PC when I use it, but it works throughout the entire house. I just checked out some games today and it is so much faster and looks better that it is pathetic. When Iwas asking questions about the 3D capabilities all I heard was, "it isn't as fast as a GF4"or "t was slower clock speed than teh OEM 8500, but you can OC it". Anyone that needs it faster than this is insane. I believe that it is a bragging rights thing about fps in games or something.

The TV out does not look as good for DVDs than the g400TV in my early experiences, but the tuner is better and it captures DVD resolution at high quality very nicely. I just can't get it too talk to VDub or avi_io yet. Probably something with needing to do a fresh install anyway. Residual crap floating around. If I remmeber riht I parked this drive just because of the probelms I was having to begin with. Speaks loads about the ATI HW/drivers though. No crashes or problems yet.

[Rob100]

I have an ATI Radeon 8500 (not the DV model) in my encoding/gaming box and have played a little with the "theatre mode", but find it doesn't look that good compared with a G4xx. The theatre mode doesn't seem to work at all unless you enable the second monitor/tv and extend you desktop onto it or clone it on the secondary display. However the display looks fairly blocky - just like a G450 in Win2K (possible the same with G400 and the G450 in other OS's) when extend your desktop onto the other display and also enable DVDMax. Although DVDMax works it looks crap compared to when only DVDMax is enabled.

One good thing I did find with the ATI's theatre mode is that it seems to be "Premiere aware" and when you start Premiere the secondary display blanks and then it shows the source/preview windows and also scrubbing on the timeline on the second display.

Rob.

[Hulk]

I'm pretty sure you won't be able to use avi_io or virtual dub for capturing with the 8500DV. Both of those programs require VFW (video for windows) and the ATI drivers for the 8500DV don't support VFW.

At least that's how it was with my AIW 128 and AIW 128 Pro. There are some hacks out there but I never had much luck with them.

[Sciascia]

Rob100

With Premiere does it support DirectShow capture? Also does it allow you to edit in mpeg?

Hulk

Even in MSP 6 I am having trouble using the DirectShow capture. Does that seem right? I am not 100% upi to speed on it, but I don't like the idea of doing all of my capturing in MMC.

Thanks

[Sciascia]

Just found a VfW wrapper of somew sort that works fantastic with PicVideo. I used to get drops all over the place if I breathed in its general directin during caps with the G400TV. I was playng with the mouse and adjusting my audio levels and 0 drops. The theater mode thing is really starting to get old and I can't extend my desktop. I found an app called AVTmc or something that is supposed to play out any video full screen to the TV, but I need to enable the extended desktop thing. Oh well, I can't complain so far. The advantages are relly outweighing the shortcomings.

[landrover]

Hey Sciascia,

Remember we discussed AIW 8500 DV prices in this thread last week? I think your big advantage to most European users is that you needed the NTSC version (this week they go for just over $300). I doubt if any of those traders would ship a PAL version for that price. I haven´t seen any ATI AIW 8500 DV cards in stores yet (Holland), just the expensive Hercules version at no less than 570 euros.
Strange thing: "normal" ATI Radeon 8500´s are available at every cornershop.

landrover