As most of you know now, my video card is in needs of upgrading. I think many of the problems I had in GTA3 were related directly to the video card. Mainly, if a lot of action is happening at once (me running through 5 cars all exploding at the same time whilst mowing bad guys down with a machine gun ), the program will give up and stop and I'll have to restart the game (not the computer anymore - that was a RAM problem).

So I have to decide how I want to upgrade. Here is what I do:
Video capture
Very little gaming
Web stuff

I must have the ability to do video capture, but I don't know what kind of card I want to get for it. On one hand, I could get the best ATI All-In-Wonder out there, which will presumably have really good capture ability, but it's probably more powerful in the graphics acceleration than I need. So the other option is to get a seperate capture card and a video card that's about good enough to do what little gaming I do.

Assuming I go with option #2 for now, what kind of capture card do I get? when I was first experimenting with video capture about 3 years ago, I tried one of those Dazzle USB things and man did that suck. So a card is preferable. Something that will let me do high quality, good bitrate captures. Then I basically want a video card that will be able to run Grand Theft Auto very well. I do not play FPS games (bad motion sickness most likely cause by a baaad roller coaster - I'll explain that if anyone wants). GTA3 is the first game I've bought in 2 years or so, so playing a large amount of demanding games isn't much of an issue.

So what I do:
High quality video caputre
Grand Theft Auto 3
Web browsing and developing

What I don't do:
first person shooters
TV (do not want a tuner card)

What do you guys suggest I do?

You might want to look into a Firewire capture device. While USB ones suck badly, Firewire ones tend to be very good due to the explosion of firewire products for the Mac. Dig around for some reviews on Mac sites, and check and see if it will also work on the PC side (most do). That way you have a decent capture device, and the ease of plugging cables in without having to reach behind the system.

As far as medium range video cards, just pick up one aimed at a gamer, with a price tag of $150ish. Should be an excellent card for gaming, but nothing overly powerful.

And wait about three or so weeks on the video card if you can...

I've got a Dazzle Hollywood Firewire DV bridge - highly recommended and comes with PC software.

http://www.dazzle.com/

On the firewire, do you mean a card with firewire ports for connecting to DV cameras? I should have added what I needed on the capture card. I need RCA connections and S-Video preferably. Maybe in the future I'll be able to afford a digital camcorder, but not at the moment.

So you suggest waiting on the video card, huh? Any links to show me?

So that Dazzle thing is good? As I said, I didn't have the best experience with a previous one of their products. It was very cheaply made, and they neglected to tell you that the capture quality was severely limited, to the point that you wouldn't want capture anything on it because the quality was so awful. That and the proproetary software it came with was awful as well.

No, I meant something that connects to the PC via Firewire, and gives you the component and SVideo. Something like this:

http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge_gut.html

Keep in mind I only linked that one since dazzle.com was linked in this thread. I don't really know any of the manufacturers out there for video capture.

Hmm. It looks like the more likely option for me is going to be the combo AIW anyway.

It doesn't look like that Dazzle device comes with a firewire card, and it costs about $220. That's a lot. For the price of that, the firewire card, and the video card, I'm going to end up with a higher price than I can get the top of the line All-In-Wonder card, and that's with 128MB.

So I guess I'm back to that.

I still wish I could see some stuff about those new cards you said were coming out, Drakino

Don't count out the solution yet. Most likely the price is due to the software as well. I found a firewire PCI card (one with just firewire ports on it) for $250, but it was being bundeled with a ton of software. I'll dig around a bit and see what I can find.

No no, I said the Dazzle device was $220! I figured that if you coupled that with ANY firewire card and the new video card, it would cost greater than the top of the line AIW Radeon 8500!

When talking about 2D and TV quality, you might also consider a Matrox graphic card.
But for real capture activities I also suggest you take an TV/Capture card with FireWire (Pinnacle for example). Forget about USB since in the video/camera world firewire is very common.

Cheers,

EiSl

If you want to play games, any games, forget about the Matrox cards. If you want 2D, the current crop of cards are just about equal. Sure, some scroll tests or other component tests may be a bit faster on one card, but it's nothing that will make or break a card. Besides, *ALL* future 2D development will be using a 3D engine. 2D engines stopped being improved a while back already. Apple has switched over to an accelerated (3D-engine driven) window manager in their latest OS X and Microsoft will be doing the same thing.

I'm biased, I'll say it right now. But the two games in town are really ATI and NVIDIA. Doesn't really matter how you look at it.

Firewire... Firewire (IEEE1394) is a peripheral BUS. You can connect any number of un-related devices using it. It's important to know the difference between using firewire for DV with a DV camcorder and using it with some other multimedia capture device (taking analog input for instance). In both cases the external device will be responsible for capturing your video and encoding it. The stream will then be sent to the computer through the firewire port. In the case of using a DV camera (Sony, JVC, etc...) you can record to DV tape and then transfer your recordings onto the computer for editing. If you're going to transfer the entire stream, it wouldn't really matter if it was done in real time or not.

If capturing directly onto the computer's drive, the bus has to be fast enough to move all the captured data as its being created. Likewise, the capture device has to be able to encode it fast enough and small enough to stuff it through the bus and onto your machine to be able to keep up with continual recording. This is why a USB solution is bad. USB is pretty slow (12mbit/s max, specific speed for capture device class you'll have to look up) so the captured video has to be a combination of the following: a fairly low resolution, highly compressed and low frame rate. With firewire you have a maximum throughput of about 400mbit/s to choke up before you're in trouble.

Capturing with a quality DV camera is going to give you better results than capturing with an analog camera and then using a $100 device to capture and encode your video. The DV camera isn't cheap. But all you need on the computer side is a firewire port. A PCI firewire card can be bought for $30. Just make sure that for the most versatile use, you get something that is fully powered (6 pins per port) - that will let you use bus-powered hard drive enclosures with it.

If you're going to go with an analog solution, you'll still need an analog camera (or other video source if you're not going to be making your own) and at least a capture device. If the capture device is firewire, then you'll also need the firewire port mentioned above. Firewire, is not faster than PCI. So if all you want is analog, you may as well get a PCI solution as long as the capture quality matches your requirements (this is going to depend on the capture codec being used, the quality of the parts used in each product as well as the sophistication of the capture driver/software).

There are a large number of products available to suit a very wide range of requirements. I think the first thing to do is note down what requirements you have right now for video and those which you think you'll have in the short term. Then go through and look at everything that will fit those specifications. Might as well look at solutions that will allow you to expand your requirements in the future as well. After that you can start comparing them (or asking for opinions) and narrow it down - you'll probably be looking at price here too.

If you just want something to connect a camera to and make decent captures that you can resample and post-compress for the web, then you can get something relatively cheap. Even with a TV tuner on board, the ATI PCI TV Wonder card is pretty cheap for instance. But as has been said, at some point it might just be worth sticking with an All In Wonder if it will come out cheaper than two cards.

Bruno

So I'm now in the market for a new video card too. GTA 3 did it to me as well. My 3dfx Voodoo 3 just ain't cutting it any more.

So I see that hybrid8 recommended ATI and NVIDIA... I've had several people mention that I should get the Geforce card...

I only want the card for use with games and stuff. No TV, no video capture.

I'd LIKE to find a card that has 2 ports for 2 monitors and supports XP natively. Last time I went through this, the 2 port thang wasn't fully worked out. XP treated both monitors as one big monitor. Has this been remedied?

I'm not so hot on buying "the latest" in high performance video cards. I'm looking for "most bang for the buck" that will let me play all the games that are out today, and most of the ones that are coming out in the next year or so.

If I have to spend 2 hundred bucks, why not just buy a PS2???

So can anyone tell me a specific card to look into?

- Thanx!
- Jon

XP treated both monitors as one big monitor. Has this been remedied?

That's how Windows has always treated multiple monitors ever since it supported them at all. How were you wanting it to work?

Right now, I'm running 2 3dfx Voodoo 3 cards in my machine. I have 2 monitors side by side and XP supports this no problem. I can scroll my mouse from one monitor to the other by sliding the arrow off the right side of my left monitor onto the right monitor. If I maximize an application, it only maximizes on the monitor where the window resides. This is what I want to do...

When the dual monitor video cards first came out and you used XP, both monitors were treated as one monitor... When you maximized a window, it would expand the window as if both monitors were one.

I called the manufacturers, and they said that support for what I was asking for was a few months away. This was last year... Anyone know if this is now supported properly?

I've been reading reviews of the GeForce 4 MX. Anyone use this card?

- Jon

It's always worked like that for me with 2K and XP. I'm using a ATI M4 chip though since it's in my laptop.

- Trevor

I've been reading reviews of the GeForce 4 MX. Anyone use this card?

I have installed MSI's card in a couple machines. MSI's only has a heatsink, no fan. One of the machines (in a full desktop case) would overheat due to the video card. Had to add a case fan to keep things cool. I chose the card to keep system noise down, then I had to add a big case fan. The card seems to be a great deal, but I like silent machines.

So I see that hybrid8 recommended ATI and NVIDIA...

He did?!? Suprising since he works for ATI

Of course.

Right now I'd recommend ATI's RADEON 9000Pro for people wanting the most bang for the buck. If you want the absolute BEST (top of the line, fastest, nothing can touch it) card, then you can buy the RADEON 9700Pro next week. Or for higher-end use, the FireGL X1.

I still haven't used multiple monitors under Windows. Well, I did have 2K set up briefly when I first installed it... The last I had heard was that XP Home didn't allow multimonitor or that it allowed only a single desktop. I should get the skinny on that tomorrow. I'll post back here with the official word.

Using our Hydravision software you should be able to address the displays in both ways mentioned here. The funny thing right now is that I'd love support on the Mac for a single large desktop. Mac OS has never worked that way and even Mac OS X has no concept of using both displays as a single screen (this is useful for certain configurations/applications).

Bruno

BTW, most of my time recently has been spent on researching Digicams. I ended up buying the new Nikon E5700 if anyone's curious.

Where can I get information on the FireGL X1? Whats the major difference between it and the 9700?

Calvin

You can probably get info on our website here: http://mirror.ati.com/products/workstation/fireglx1/index.html

The FireGL X1 board has 2 DVI outputs. It's also equipped with 256MB of RAM. On top of the board, you've got pro-level drivers that are optimized for the workstation apps the customers of this product will want to run. There are plenty of details on the product page, take a look.

Bruno

What about the Wildcat III 6210? Every time I look at the specs for one of those I begin to drool. With features like Genlock and Multiview, etc, you can do things like this.

In regards to the Radeon 9700, I saw it was the official card used at QuakeCon... Can anyone who went say what they thought of the board... Drakino???

Does it perform better or worse on games than the 9700? :-D

Calvin

In regards to the Radeon 9700, I saw it was the official card used at QuakeCon... Can anyone who went say what they thought of the board... Drakino???

It rules. I had some up close and personal experience with it to justify that. And if all goes right, mine ships today, along with a Remote Wonder for the media system and a copy of Doom 3 when it is released (Plus some ATI branded shirts and such).

I run a dual monitor setup with the GeForce 4 4600ti. I love the card, although I have issues with the patented heatsink/fan combo. If you're running a PCI card in slot 0 (which is where it needs to be for Win2k to use it) and your GeForce in the AGP slot, there is almost no clearance between the heatsink and the PCI card.

Now, this little patented heatsink and fan combo, with its nice little vanes, is supposed to pull and push enough air though to keep the card cool. Unfortunately, if your computer case carries a lot of heat inherently, you'll have heat problems with the card.

My system is much hotter that most users. I have a 1.8GHz Intel with a 4 disk 120GB 7200RPM RAID array along with a 120GB IDE drive for digital video work. I have a total of 20 fans in the system, albeit mostly blowing inbound over the hard drives (most of my trouble, obviously).

I'd probably blame myself for the heating problems of the card, but already there's a third-party solution including heatsinks for the memory chips and a new fan/heatsink combo for the processor. So obviously I'm not the only one suffering from problems.

*Other than that*, I had a job that required some analog capture and the card handled it wonderfully. Also came with PowerDirector which I actually use for my work editing (although I use the Pro version). The card has VGA out, DVI-I out, and S-video in AND out. Basically, you can output to whatever you want and capture analog.

Since you're looking for a new video card, have you weighed the option of buying a decent digital video camera and a $15 firewire adapter for your system? Might not be a whole lot more that upgrading the card in your system. I picked up a JVC DVL120U at Circuit City for $400 with a free case and tripod. Works better than I could have hoped for.

When it comes to capturing, digital is the only way to go. After all, you can transfer you edited video back to tape, CD or DVD with NO loss in quality. With analog, the initial transfer will be lossy no matter what you do.

Wow, thanks for the post. I'll look into that card. I'm suprised to hear that it can capture as well. I didn't know the GeForce cards could do that.

What do you mean about that stuff with "the PCI card"? Do you mean any PCI card?

The reason I wanted analog is because I'm already going to be capturing from devices like my old VCR, my Tivo, and my old camcorder. I can't justify buying a new camcorder when the one I have works fine for what I need. Plus, most of my uses for it are online video, so degredation obviously isn't an issue

So you say that the GeForce can capture S-Video? Should I assume it will also record the audio input of your choice along with it? I'm fine with S-Video as long as it works without many hiccups, especially in the software.

I have the VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 4600ti. It's an AGP 2x/4x card. Rmember to check your motherboard's AGP specs before looking into any of the cards mentioned in this thread.

I'm not sure that all makes of the GeForce4 line have the VIVO (s-video in/out) connector. It's important to note that I have the "TI" line of the GeForce4 card. This is distinctly different from the "MX" line of the card, in fact, the two shouldn't even be compared to each other. The "MX" line is the lower-end line and sells for much less that the "TI" line.

The "TI" line has 3 flavors: 4200, 4400, and 4600. Each card has successively more memory speed, bandwidth and performance than the previous. The 4200 is 64MB, the 4400 comes in 64MB and 128MB versions and the 4600 is 128MB DDR. Clockspeeds of the cards is different as is data throughput, although some people have reported overclocking successes. I would not recommend overclocking the card because of the heat problems described in my last post. The highest successful overclocking I've seen gave about 4% performance gain, not enough to risk the card over.

Pure numbers indicate about a 10% difference between each of the cards. In reality, they all perform about the same at 640x480 but performance diverges almost logrythmically as you increase resolutions.

As I said, I've done analog capture and was quite pleased with the results. I even had to run through an RCA to S-Video adapter to get to the card from the camera and the capturing was fine. I had some trouble with a very old VCR I was using at one point, but I think it was the RCA to S-video adapter I was using that caused the trouble (crap Radio Shack adapter). If you have S-video out on your camera you should be in very good shape. The audio capture was good as well, although I'm not sure why you'd want to hook up other audio sources while capturing (see below).

The Xstasy came with PowerDirector. It's a simple, usefull digital editing suite. Let's you capture from a number of sources (directly to AVI or MPEG), edit and output to wherever you want. You can output to files (a variety of formats including MPEG1/2, Window's Media, although no codecs for Real Player), CD, DVD, or back out the VIVO connector to a VCR or CamCorder (although I personally haven't done the S-video out) to make a tape of the edited source. It has a large number of effects, transitions, etc. All the usual stuff you expect from an editor.

I'm a big-time gamer, so I bought the hotrod. I'm lucky in that I was able to justify the card and vidcam as a work expense, otherwise, I probably would have waited a bit until the price dropped. But the cost is something you'll have to evaluate personally. Keep in mind that there is a big difference in price between the 4200 and 4600. Maybe the 4400 128MB version would fit your needs?

The anti-aliasing is awesome. I can run 4x4 and 4x5 (in D3D) with almost no performance degradation. I play a ton of GTA3 at 1024x768 with 4x AA turned on and I get awesome smooth games. Basically, this is a card that doesn't get taxed by today's games, and will be very usable for games in the future. I'm guessing a technology window of at LEAST 1.5 years for top-end games with near top-end performance.

As for the PCI card talk. I use a dual-monitor setup for work. In the past, I've used two video cards to accomplish this, a high-end 2d/3d AGP card on the primary monitor and a cheap-ass-found-on-the-floor-of-the-closet S3 Virge (or similar) in the first PCI slot. Windows needs the second video card in the first PCI slot (enumeration 0), which is the slot closest to the AGP slot. This configuration leaves very little space between cards, which can help cause overheating problems. If you have the room, you can simply leave the first PCI slot open to facilitate cooling of the AGP card.

I don't want to emphasize the heating problems too much. As I said in my previous post, I have a lot of hot "stuff" in my system as well as higher than average ambient operating temperatures. I don't know if you'd have any problems, and even if you did, there are solutions. I just bought a DVI-I to DB15 (VGA) adapter to run my second analog flat-panel monitor, so now I can get rid of the PCI video card altogether. I'll let you know if I still have heat problems once it arrives.

DISCLAIMER: Specs on manufactured cards change as new cards get released, so verify all of this when you go off to look at them.

Hope this helps rather than confuses. You can contact me directly at ICQ# 1228415.

"If I have to spend 2 hundred bucks, why not just buy a PS2???"

Because the PS2 is old and slow. I have both a PS2 and a GameCube and the GC is better designed and better looking.

Also, the PS2 hardware and software (games) is not upgradeable. When given the choice of a game on the PS2 or the same game on the PC I ALWAYS get the PC version. The games are patchable and expandable, the hardware can be upgraded incrementally and performance is much better (even on 2 year-old equipment). Can you play PS2 at 1600x1200 with 4x4 full-scene anti-aliasing?

The only thing the PS2 is good for is sitting in the living room playing games while sitting together on the couch (or keeping kids mesmerized in the livingroom while you're off doing other stuff).

The PS2 is about as upgradable as my PC for it's lifespan. IE, toss it out and get a new one. I haven't had any PC component remain very upgradable at all for the past many years. A small change in the form factor, and bamn, you need a new motherboard to support a new CPU, and a new power supply, and soon every component beyond the cheepo floppy has been replaced.

Consoles have their place. They are cheeper in the long run by far, run on TVs allowing for living room play, and have a ton of games not suited for a computer. (Imagine playing a Mario game on a PC with no controller).

I'll always keep my PC around for gaming with things like Warcraft 3 and such. But if it's a console game ported to the PC, I'll grab it on the console first (unless it's Halo, that should have been PC in the first place).

And sure, a console can't run 1600x1200 gaming, but the games still look good when played on a 40 inch TV :-)

True. The consoles are especially disposable at the newly dropped prices. In fact, I'm starting to eye the Xbox, and I fear I'll give in when The Two Towers is released.

I guess I see game quality the same way a lot of folks here see music quality. I like to see smooth framerates, high res, full-scene AA. Can't get those on this round of consoles.

I enjoy my consoles, especially for sports games (ask Tony about my mean NHL gaming), but I like the higher quality and larger range of games on the PC. I especially like add-ons for good games (Morrowind, DAoC) and the depth that you can get with these games.

I certainly wasn't trying to say that consoles are no good. I had that PS2 on every day for six months when it was released. But even some of the release titles (NHL2001) suffered from hiccuping framerates. And when playing the GC on Tony's big-screen I'm distracted by the quarter-inch-tall aliasing.

I am really looking forward to seeing how well the batch of online adapters works for each of the systems. I would love to go head to head on my GameCube or better yet, 2 vs. 2 in a good game of NHL. And I'm definitely looking forward to true HD resolutions from the consoles. THAT'S when I'll get myself an HDTV. Or when they start broadcasting hockey in HD, whichever comes first.

As for ports, I think we're looking through the same window from opposite directions. Many console ports just don't make good PC games. As well as many PC ports not making good console games. I just bought GTA3 for the PC, I'd love to try it on the PS2 just to see the difference.

Good point about Halo. It's too bad MS used it to sell the Xbox, otherwise we'd have it on our PCs right now.