Radeon All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro for $99

[Marshmallowman]

The video soap thing in the MMC is pretty good.

[Gurm]

Hey, if you say so. I love my 8500, but the 9000 Pro is supposed to be more advanced. You do realize I'm talking about the Pro, yeah?

- Gurm

[Brian R.]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
You mean the infamous "FULLSTREAM" feature?

Check the post from CATALYST maker in the middle of this thread: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...eadid=33683600

quote:
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Divx FULLSTREAM acceleration can not work on anything lower than a 9500. Its technically not possible.

FULLSTREAM is support on the 900/9200 however but with Real Networks RealOne player.

Summary:

Fullstream for 9000/9200: Real Networks
Fullstream for 9500+ : Real Networks and DivX

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Real themselves claim that the 8500 can do fullstream: http://www.real.com/accessories/?pro...,rcahome,rcacp

The 9000 does have a slightly more optimized pixel shader, but it's still DX8.1.

Sounds to me like there is a significant improvement in capabilities moving to the 9500 from the 9000. Maybe I'll wait another year...

Anyone disagree with this analysis? (i.e., does this guy know what he's talking about? Am I misinterpreting his analysis?)

Thanks for the input guys.

[Gurm]

Oh Terry knows what he's talking about (Catalyst Maker = Terry Makedon @ ATI).

The 9500 is DEFINITELY a much better solution. I'm not in any way saying you SHOULD get a 9000, but hey $100 for an AIW is a pretty sweet deal for a card that in MOST cases will perform on par with the 8500 and in SOME cases will perform better.

- Gurm

[Indiana]

For sheer capturing, there will be no difference whatsoever between the 9000 and the >=9500 AIWs. On the bigger cards, there's the video-soap thing, but that's nothing you could not achieve with postprocessing filters as well.

Those mentioned extra capabilities ONLY benefit gameplay and kind of benefit video playback, but ONLY for DivX movies.
And even there the quality of the CPU postprocessing of the DivX decoder is similar to fullstream (even a bit better IMO), it just uses more CPU cycles. DivX decoding and the crappy RealPlayer are the only case where fullstream is used up to now.

That said, I would definitely still go for an 9600based AIW or the AIW9800SE if you want it reasonably cheap since the 9600 is just so much better for gaming, making great-quality FSAA really feasible - and when buying a new vidcard, why not take this with you, since the price difference should not be that big.

[Brian R.]

Good idea. Thanks for the feedback

[Kurt]

Has anybody seen the Plextor hardware Divx encoder ?

edit: link

[Indiana]

Hmmm, sounds very interesting, especially the fact that you should be able to use this even with a laptop.