nVidia's nView comparable to Matrox's?

[monocrom]

Hello, all MURCers.

I was asked to make a PC for a friend of mine.
He loved my dual-monitor setup(one monitor + tv-out). I primarily use my TV to watch DVD, MPEG movies, etc.

The dilemma is that he wants to play the most recent 3-D intensive games, plus watch DVD on his TV.

I liked the feature of DVDMax of Matrox. Whenever I open up DVD, or MPEG movies in Media Player, it gets automatically to TV full-screen. I haven't used any other video card for a long time. (from Millennium-->Mystique 220 + RainbowRunner-->G200-->G400-->G550)

Because he wants to have superior 3-D performance, I am forced to consider nVidia and/or ATI. I just saw "nView" technology from nVidia. I am wondering, do they have same functionality as DVDMax? If so, I would probably go for GeForce with TV-OUT, just to be safe.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated, folks.

PS: OS will be Windows XP.

[PAugustin]

Hi, I haven't tested Nvidia's TwinView but frome what I've read and heard, it is not as good as Matrox DualHead. I think it lacks some features and control parametres...

I don't know anything about dual screen with Ati...

[DChris]

I had an ATI Radeon VE using Hydravision. It does work, it is usefull, but it is not Matrox.

Hydravision tries to make applications maximise on just the one screen, but it does not always work (Photoshop, Jasc Media Centre, Windows Media Player), particularly when using any 'full screen' modes.

I have a third monitor running from a Matrox Millenium. Even when maximising an application on this screen, the Hydravision would steal it and place on one of its own screens.

With the Matrox cards, I now have a G550, this all just works perfectly. The Matrox drivers now genuinely give you seperate monitors, not just poorly faking it on a larger desktop.

I think it's always the same. Others fake it fairly well, but Matrox just does it for real.

[monocrom]

Thank you for your replies...

In my opinion, Matrox's dualhead is the best one on the market. I highly recommend Matrox to everyone that I know.

Problem here is that, my friend has two boys, who wants to play games mostly. This factor complicates the decision.

I played some of the games myself, and it is pretty good. I don't really have any problems playing. Played NHL2002, Madden2002, Half-Life, Q3A, UT... No complaints for me. However, I felt the bottleneck when I played Wolfenstein! This game looks terrible with default setting, and if I increase the detail significantly, it is really slow... Jerky movements all the time.

I don't want to put G550 for this reason. Games will evolve, and in my opinion, it revolves around nVidia's products. I heard that ATI's Radeon8500 gives comparable performance to GeForce3. I would wait for Parhelia, but my friend can't. He needs a new system ASAP.

It is hard to satisfy adults AND children at the same time. That is why I am looking for another way to accomplish DVDMax feature with nVidia or ATI. It's so sad...


That is my question. Sadly.

What I really want to know is that, does nVidia or ATI provide a functionality similar to DVDMax feature?

[GehRehmee]

both?

Is there any possibility that a g450pci and a nvidea agp card could play along nicely?

[[GDI]Raptor]

Yes, on a Intel chipset motherboard!

[Bond]

Yes, a G450PCI and a nVidia/ATI-card can work together in the same machine. BUT, the G450PCI NEEDS to be set as PRIMARY in BIOS if you would like to use DVDMax. And I´m not sure what will happen with 3D acceleration of a nVidia/ATI-card if it is secondary.

Bond

[monocrom]

Based on information on nVidia and ATi website, I don't think their products have a functionality close to DVDMax.

I found some information about TwinView, which acts much like multiple monitor support. That's not what I want.

DVDMax is like God's gift for me. I can watch DVD while working on something else. TV output is still maximized, so other family members can enjoy the movie. And, I can still write a report on my monitor.

I don't understand why a big company like nVidia doesn't implement this kind of functionality. Probably they are all obsessed about frame rates in games ONLY!

I have to talk to my friend to wait until Matrox comes up with Parhelia. Hope it will be soon!!!

[kenobi]

Geforce 3 ti 200 with tv-out and Tv-tools software. It has the speed for games with the highest fps with 4xanti-alias of a card in that class. And tv-tools software just makes its tv-out head and soulders above the rest. PS stay away from geforce 4 MX. (problems with tv-tool and not direct x 8 complient)

[Indiana]

I have tried the TVTool and was not very happy with this hack (yes, it's a hack, and an unsupported, too).
Besides the BT chipset that most NVidia offerings use has a quite blurry TVOut (it's a bit better with TVTools Overscanning, but still blurry), that in no way matches the TVOut quality you get with a Matrox card.
I had all three and for TVOut I would put them in the following order (best to worst):
1. Matrox
2. ATI (especially since they introduced TheaterMode)
3. Nvidia (without TVTool NVidia is even worse, I'd nearly call it unusable)


For DVD/DivX I'd consider the Radeon a bit superior to the Matrox even when using TVOut, but here you might argue. In no way is the NVidia GF2/3 superior (can't say anything for the GF4 offerings, never saw one - but first reports aren't too encouraging as you can even see in Kenobis post)

[Novdid]

Theater mode works quite good.

Kenobi I fail to see how you can actually recommend an nvidia board for people who wants good tv-out.

[grey bear]

Based on experience with an older design All-In-Wonder, ATI's Theatre mode is *great* for DVDs and more than acceptable for 'Clone' Mode playing of games. If your friend's a gamer and doesn't need dual-monitors, then the Theatre and Clone Modes will suit just fine on Monitor/TV.

GB

[cell]

from what I've heard (no personal experience) the 'nView' multi-display feature on all the GeForce 4 Ti cards is almost as good as Matrox dual-head. I don't know about a DVDMax equivalent, but I should be getting a 4200-based card as soon as they become available so if it's not too late I'll post here again then.

(Yes, I would wait for Parhelia - but no, I don't want to pay >$400 for a video card no matter how quick or lovely-looking it is)

[Greebe]

nV doesn't have a DVDMax equivalent.

Kinda suprising tho... seeing that they've had two years now to implement what they've stolen from Matrox and still aren't upto the quality we've grown accustomed to.

[Elie]

All I have to say is this folks...
Matrox Dual Head is by far the best implementation yet!

And from experience here are the features that I like..

1- The best quality TV out (DVD Max)
2- The ability to set independant resolutions and refresh rates without loosing the the 2D quality and text sharpness is alone an outstanding feature
3-The ability to click on any video format and automatically out put to TV is great.

And I still haven't tried the Zoom feature yet.

ATI's implementation is a JOKE! Nvidia still can't even get good 2D with one monitor let alone two.