I've given up, this is my new rig ...

[ammarhasan]

as much as I like my G400-TV I couldn't wait around for ever, I have purchased for £150 an ATI Radeon 64 DDR VIVO.

So far I have been very impressed; video recording quality is excellent, loads recording/compression options in the the default capture util, although it does come with Video Studio 5 (full not SE), DVD player is perfectly fine and .. decent gaming performance and .. WinXP drivers !

I've got XP and need consumer level capture, and editing, nothing from Matrox, can't wait for ever

Athlon XP1800+
512MB DDR RAM
Epox 8KHA+

ATI RADEON 64DDR VIVO
Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value
3COM 905B TX NIC

30GB + 60GB HD
12x CDRW
6X DVD player

someone who gave up on Matrox cos of no XP support for G400-TV and no new cards

how many more like me as the times move on ... no point gazing in the crystal ball for ever, gotta actually do something sometime huh !?

laters, Ammo.

[Maggi]

and what exactly was your reason to post ?

[Flip-Oh]

Hi Ammo,

Good to hear that you're satisfied with your new purchase. Matrox announced some time ago that they weren't planning on releasing any more consumer video editing cards, so going with another manufacturer was actually your only option.

I've just bought a Club3D Radeon 7500 to replace my G400 DH. I wasn't able to play Max Payne at decent framerates on my Athlon XP 1500+ system with 512MB DDR RAM. The bottleneck was very obviously the graphics card ;-)

Although the new card is very fulfilling when it comes to 3D speed, I do have to make some concessions in the home theater area. For instance: DVDMax allowed me to view fullscreen video on the second video output while continuing to work on the other screen (and not having to meddle with display properties and being able to use different refreshrates for the separate outputs was also very good).

I knew I was going to have to forego some features when I bought the new card. What I really wanted was a Matrox card that delivers speedy 3D along with the other features my G400 was already delivering. That's why I didn't buy a Radeon 8500: I figured I'd better buy an affordable yet still fullfilling product so I'd have some money left to go out and buy the new Matrox product when it finally arrives ;-)

So this is just to allow me to keep enjoying games while I wait for Matrox' next gen product.

Greets,
Jorg

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Flip-Oh
I do have to make some concessions in the home theater area. For instance: DVDMax allowed me to view fullscreen video on the second video output while continuing to work on the other screen

.

The Radeon 6018 drivers add a new button called "Theater mode" to the overlay-tab, which does exactly this (stretching any overlay from the primary display to fullscreen on the second/TVOut. Quite a nice new feature...

[Kastuvas]

I wasn't able to play Max Payne at decent framerates on my Athlon XP 1500+ system with 512MB DDR RAM. The bottleneck was very obviously the graphics card ;-)

I have finished the whole game at 1024x768x32 and everything at MAX and thats with my Vanila Ice Ice Baby G400 and PIII616

What did you do with that game, tried it to run at 1200x1600x32

[MetalCartman]

Thx for the hint

Originally posted by Indiana
The Radeon 6018 drivers add a new button called "Theater mode" to the overlay-tab, which does exactly this (stretching any overlay from the primary display to fullscreen on the second/TVOut. Quite a nice new feature...

This is good news for me, bad news for Matrox

DVDmax was the most important reason for me to keep the G400, second one were the high quality drivers. Are ATI's drivers really as bad as everyone says?

[cbman]

Yes...

[Flip-Oh]

No way man!

I have finished the whole game at 1024x768x32 and everything at MAX and thats with my Vanila Ice Ice Baby G400 and PIII616

No way in hell did you play that game on your rig at decent framerates whit all settings to max! The only way I could get it to perform anywhere near decent, was to disable all the goodies and run it at 800x600. There's just too much complexity in the level design for this game to perform well without a T&L capable card...

My guess is you just don't have very high standards when it comes to framerates ;-)

Concerning the ATI drivers: The ones I use with my Radeon 7500 haven't disappointed me yet....

Greets,
Jorg

[Novdid]

Have you ever played Max with a Kyro2???

T&L doesn't make the world of difference you know.

[Kastuvas]

Max Payne its not Q3 type of a game it doesn’t need 60Fps, even at 25 fps it runs smoothly. The only place were I was struggling was that car park level, and its even better because you don’t even need to use bullet time

[VJ]

Flip-Oh:

I am the Jorg, resistance is futile.

You were also assimilated ?

Jörg

[woel]

The theater mode in the 6018 drivers is not very good.
1. You have to activate tv-out before you run a video.
2. And if I don't remember wrong, changed to newer drivers, you have to lower your resolution on the primary monitor to at least 1024*768 otherwise there will be a virtual desktop on the tv.

/Leo

[Flip-Oh]

Yes, the Theater mode isn't quite DVDMax. And the new beta 6032 drivers no longer have the feature :-/
I also had problems with movies being scaled unproportionally.

Games and 2D are fine though ;-)
Going to try the DVD acceleration this weekend. I might have found out how to disable macrovision protection as well, something that I haven't been able to do with my G400 ;-)

And Jörg:
Afraid so ;-) Just finished Startrek Voyager: Elite Force Expansion pack. Bit short, but nice anyway. And it ran fine on my Matrox card ;-)

[Indiana]

Originally posted by woel
The theater mode in the 6018 drivers is not very good.
1. You have to activate tv-out before you run a video.
2. And if I don't remember wrong, changed to newer drivers, you have to lower your resolution on the primary monitor to at least 1024*768 otherwise there will be a virtual desktop on the tv.

/Leo

What's wrong with point number 1? What's so terrible about having your primary cloned to the TV all the time?!? No, it doesn't take a performance hit.

And to point number 2: You will get a virtual oversized&scrolling desktop, of course. How should it be done otherwise??? The TVOut only supports resolutions up to 1024x768 (and show me one card that does higher TVOut res), how would you manage to fit a 1600x1200 screen on that? You could simply limit the resolution to 1024x768 (which is how most other cards are doing it), and this is much worse. With the ATI you can still keep 1600x1200 on your primary with TV-Clone turned on. The Theater mode will give you a fullscreen nonscrolling display in this mode as well, so no worry here.

BTW, the overlay will be scaled fullscreen not only to a monitor, but to anything connected to the second out, e.g. a monitor or a TFT as well.

The problem with 16:9 DivX files and the wrong aspect ratio is known (and the major competitor's DivX history is not really white, either).

Flip-Oh: The Theater mode is only hidden via a reg-setting (maybe because of this minor aspect flaw). You can easily activate it, juts search the registry for a key called "DisableOverlayTheaterMode", this is set to 1 in the 6032 drivers, set it to 0 and you'll get the Theater mode back.

[woel]

Hi!

You may be right on point 1 but with matrox dvdmax you get full screen video on the tv and at the same time you can run any resolution and refresh rate on the primary monitor.

/Leo