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It makes more sense to buy a separate tuner card if you're any sort of serious gamer. The life cycle of a capture board is much longer than your graphics chipset. Since we're talking ATI here, I would recommend one of the boards based on the Theater 550 chipset which can be had for less than $100. A review and comparison of three of these boards can be found here.
Personally, I own a Sapphire Theatrix Theatre 550 and I have to say this card is great for ripping home movies from the video camera and I also use it as a PVR with SageTV. What I really like about it is I can upgrade my main video card independently, and it doesn't matter if I decide to go with ATI or Nvidia.

But without the pictures

http://firingsquad.com/print_article.asp?current_s ection=Hardware&fs_article_id=1756

Just thought I'd point out the first thing I wanted to know:

Just below the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL lies the ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XL (PCI-E) and ALL-IN-WONDER X800 XT (AGP), which both carry a pricetag of $400. For the mainstream market, ATI then provides the ALL-IN-WONDER 2006 (AGP) and ALL-IN-WONDER X600 PRO, both of these boards officially carry an MSRP of $200.

Not everyone has a PCI-E mobo, and I assume this one isn't AGP

On most review sites a really horrible game will still score 70%. Even Diakatana managed to score 25%, despite getting the microwave award. There are several reasons for this:

1) 85% is considered an "average" game rather than 50%
2) Reviewers are dependent on free copies of games from publishers
3) Reviewers get much better support from developers if problems arise.

Contrast that with Slashdot's review of Myst III: Exile, which earned a score of 0 because the game wouldn't install or play. Highlights include the game not running if you didn't have a 32 bit card, despite the supposed support for 16 bit, not installing if your CDROM drive had a letter higher than H (wtf?) and people not getting the game to run despite having the exact system specs as what was listed on the box.

So, what to do? I start by subtracting 20% off the typical review score. Then I try to "read between the lines" to see if the reviewer is is trying to nonchalantly slip some grips past his corporate "benefactors". Then I read user reviews, and start with the mixed to hostile reviews first and the fawning ones last.

On most review sites a really horrible game will still score 70%. Even Diakatana managed to score 25%, despite getting the microwave award. There are several reasons for this:

1) 85% is considered an "average" game rather than 50%
2) Reviewers are dependent on free copies of games from publishers
3) Reviewers get much better support from developers if problems arise.

Contrast that with Slashdot's review of Myst III: Exile, which earned a score of 0 because the game wouldn't install or play. Highlights include the game not running if you didn't have a 32 bit card, despite the supposed support for 16 bit, not installing if your CDROM drive had a letter higher than H (wtf?) and people not getting the game to run despite having the exact system specs as what was listed on the box.

So, what to do? I start by subtracting 20% off the typical review score. Then I try to "read between the lines" to see if the reviewer is is trying to nonchalantly slip some grips past his corporate "benefactors". Then I read user reviews, and start with the mixed to hostile reviews first and the fawning ones last.

Hmmm... given your comments you might also want to check out Silent Storm -- it's a different scenario (WW2 rather than sci-fi), and the plot starts to get silly near the end, but it reminds me a LOT of the "good old days" of the original X-COM in the way it plays, right down to the destructible environments.

Neither LSN nor Silent Storm are as good as the original X-COM, though, for all the reasons you cite. Heck, I'd probably pay $20 just to get X-COM redone to run in Windows and take advantage of my 3D card...

"I was naively waiting to read about a $100 gpu that performed well enough to play today's games at lcd resolutions."

You might be interested in the GeForce 6600 DDR2, which, incidentally, was also released today:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/xfx_geforce_66 00_ddr2/

Isn't that what happens with technology... prices go down? I got a 6800 for Christmas last year, a black friday CompUSA deal for 200 bucks after rebate... By this time, I'd almost expect it to be down around 100 bucks.

Also, on another topic, on some of these cards you can use RivaTuner to unlock the extra pipes and pixel shader, too... great if it works, but of course it's not guaranteed. Mine, unfortunately, shows artifacts when unlocked. Unlocking the GeForce 6800

FEAR doesn't take advantage of it according to FiringSquad.

What's weird is Radeon X1800 beats GF7800 in Quake 4 according to this benchmark though X1800 still loses to GF 7800 in other games. So, surprisingly ATI is doing better (than nVidia) in OpenGL in the X1000 series?

Regarding the Avivo, according to this article: ATI's Avivo vs. NVIDIA's PureVideo: De-Interlacing Quality Compared, Avivo is still behind nVidia's PureVideo in terms of de-interlacing quality.

An in-depth article on Avivo for those who might be interested: http://www.beyond3d.com/previews/ati/avivo/

FiringSquad did a review on it a few months ago.

The quoted response time is not necessarily interesting.

While hunting for an LCD screen that I'll be happy with, I've come across the NEC 1770 with claims of being TN-film, and also with claims of being S-IPS. Does anybody know if there are two variations of that model?

The quoted response time is not necessarily interesting.

While hunting for an LCD screen that I'll be happy with, I've come across the NEC 1770 with claims of being TN-film, and also with claims of being S-IPS. Does anybody know if there are two variations of that model?

From http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_high-e nd_performance/

One cool feature ATI has added to their X1000 family is the ability to make changes to the memory controller's arbitration logic and/or its algorithms via software. This allows ATI to make adjustments with a simple driver update.

This is what ATI has done with their new hotfix driver, they've simply optimized memory access inside their memory controller to better handle OpenGL titles. This is all invisible to the end user: once an OpenGL game such as Quake 4 or DOOM 3 is loaded by the user, the new driver automatically loads up the optimized algorithms for the memory controller's arbitration logic.

Read Firing Squad's article about F.E.A.R. game with the recent CPUs (not just the newest and expensive ones). It said video cards are the big factors in CPU performance for this game. I was a bit surprised by that. I really need to upgrade my video card soon (probably a NVIDIA 6800 for its decent price and can't use it again if I upgrade my motherboard next year).

My game is sometimes choppy at 1152x864 resolution with most graphic options to the maximum. I have an Athlon 64 3200+ with 1 GB of RAM and ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW (128 MB). I get 20 FPS average (10 minimum) according to its benchmark test.

http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/video/ati_rade on9700p/

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/r300/default.asp

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.html? i=1685

Maybe 4 years is pushing it, but just 3 years ago you could have had a 9700 Pro and 2 ghz Athlon XP processor. That same setup would still run most games just fine today.

Like this maybe?

obviously you missed the fact that when gaming at 1600x1200 and are using 4x antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering that the x1800xt beats the shit out of the gf7800.

if you're buying a 500 dollar card, are you seriously worried about benchmarks that are run without aa+af? this card even does HDR (hi dynamic range) plus AA, something that the gf7800 can't.

this card is way more sophisticated and highly refined that the brute force 7800. the 7800 isn't bad but that this card can do with 16 pipelines what the 7800 can't do with 24, says a lot.

and that's just raw performance with todays games. never mind the fact that the 1800xt comes with 512megs of super fast ram... ready for well into the next generation of games, whereas 256meg 7800's are already obsolete for the high end of the next generation. sure 256 will be enough if you pare down the resolution and lower the texture detail. one example is the game F.E.A.R... on the 1800xt it absolutely trounces the 7800 in performance.

my advice... read ALL the reviews you can get your hands on. there are too many discrepencies if you only read one or two. if you want to get a more full picture, get to reading.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2552

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/r520reviewxvxv /

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1867116 ,00.asp

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x18 00_xt_xl/

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/262/

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODIy

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3603

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?article id=734&cid=2

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews /ati_radeon_x1800_x1600preview

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=172

http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=407

http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/8864

and check out the wicked new 3d tech demos... both are very impressive but the toystore demo is jawdropping.

http://www.ati.com/designpartners/media/edudemos/R adeonX1k.html

wmv9 hi def format but plays fine in mplayer or VLC.

My Mac Mini running OS 10.4.2 has 32 MB of video RAM, 512 MB of system RAM and runs fairly smoothly with more eye candy then Windows XP, and by the looks of things maybe Vista.

Yes. That's because Tiger has more eye candy than Windows XP. But considerably less than Vista - going purely on technological grounds, that is (let's leave aside the question of how ugly MS's interfaces are for now).

Why the hell will you need 256 MB of video RAM?

Because Vista does a hell of a lot more than Tiger, that's why. About all Tiger does in the graphics card is composition: the windows are rendered the oldfashioned 2D way, then passed to the graphics card which draws them on the screen, taking advantage of its hardware to power the transparency and distortion that OS X uses so effectively.

Vista? Vista renders everything with the 3D card, instead of merely using it for the final step; and Vista performs much more complicated processing on its visuals (e.g. using actual translucency that distorts things behind it like glass, unlike OS X, which uses the same trivial transparency effects that 2D graphics engines have been using since about 1992).

Seriously, it's like the difference between Quake 3 and Doom 3. They simply aren't in the same league.

Note that I'm not disparaging Tiger here. Tiger is beautiful, and it's beautiful on today's hardware. The point is that Vista is still more than a year away, so how it would perform on today's hardware is irrelevant, just as the fact that Doom 3 looks pretty crap on a Quake 3-era PC is irrelevant.

By the time Vista comes out, Apple's next OS will either be here or overdue. And you can bet your life that Apple's next OS will not run smoothly on your Mac Mini with its maximum eye-candy settings turned on.

Besides, you should be happy that the gamers are the ones craving such devices, pushing the manufacturers to go further with their technology. Because eventually that stuff trickles into the "Work" stuff.

Logitech Gaming Mouse Review

Ah, how much truth condensed in a single post!

I grew up playing (mostly) Japanese games on my MSX, and with a few exceptions, modern games don't appeal to me so much as the mid-80s to mid-90s games did.

Yes, nowadays games have better graphics and are faster, but they more often than not playability sucks. Hell, sometimes they aren't even fun! Often they rely on very successful franchises in order to sell lots of copies (like happened with Tomb Raider 6: Age of Darkness).

I guess I'm not the only one who thinks like this. I'm living in Japan, and in the biggest video game shops you can see LOTS of games from the 80s ported to GBA, adapters for playing old NES cartridges on new hard, and more recently, retro game collections for PSP (Space Invaders, Namco Museum, etc). And guess what? These "retro" games are selling almost as much as the new ones.

I think it is also significant the fact that most game arcades have "retro" games mixed among the newer ones. Here are some photos of this.

I guess this has something to do with the fact that older machines had fewer hardware resources, so game developers had to write FUN games in order to sell them. Sadly, nowadays it is all about flashy graphics.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/2005_eternal_b attle_day2/

I agree that an "International Standard" would be a good start. Given the track record of the US with "International Standards" (Kyoto Accord, Boeing Subsidies, Farming Subsidies) it may be applied to everyone but the US.

The other consideration is price. Security and standards cost money and mitigtate the financial advantage of using off-shore labor. You know an international standard will not be applied evenly. Will this allow companies to skirt the issue by finding non-participating countries or out-sourcing firms which out-source to another country. (India now outsources to China)

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Perhaps it will run Duke Nukem Forever => http://www.firingsquad.com/media/gallery_image.asp /159/13

The real question is: Does it run Doom 3?

Ah, but even the Voodoo 2 runs Doom 3... I don't see why the PSP wouldn't be able to. :)

here's a little history http://www.firingsquad.com/features/atihistory/ "The entire life savings for all three men totaled $300,000. According to Ho, starting a computer company required big capital - they could only afford to be a graphics company."

maybe they could team up with the 'bitboys' http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/bitboys/defaul t.asp. hopefully then they might actually release something.

Maybe it is above a sandworm that is going to be eaten up soon? Hmm, I played too much Dune games. [grin]

That reminds me of one PC game, Slave Zero, that had a final boss that was unbeatable without cheating. Only one review site, Firing Squad actually played through the entire game and noticed this flaw, they gave the game 30%. Every other site I read gave it mildly positive reviews. Reviews by people that haven't finished a game suck.

After reading the article, I realised that the frontside bus was shared. I didn't expect that. It seems to be a transitory solution in order to have the "first dual-core" CPUs on the market. When AMD releases theirs I expect them to have a superior solution.

For benchmarks relating to serious DB and web use, see this review by Anand Shempi: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2397 or these two at FiringSquad: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_dual-core_ opteron_875/ and http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/colfax_dual_op teron/

After reading the article, I realised that the frontside bus was shared. I didn't expect that. It seems to be a transitory solution in order to have the "first dual-core" CPUs on the market. When AMD releases theirs I expect them to have a superior solution.

For benchmarks relating to serious DB and web use, see this review by Anand Shempi: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2397 or these two at FiringSquad: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_dual-core_ opteron_875/ and http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/colfax_dual_op teron/

Reviews
http://gamesfirst.com/v4/index.php?m=l&i=372
http://www.gamingillustrated.com/dgl4300.php
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/d-link_dgl-4300/

Competition
http://www.dlink.com/giveaway/monthlyGiveaway.asp

It makes sense for DVI to be better. With DVI, images are inherently sharp because each pixel on the monitor reflects one pixel from the computer. In fact, there is no reason why non-DVI LCD panels should still exist since all LCD panels are inherently digital. An analog-only LCD panel actually requires additional circuitry to convert the information back to the digital format - with DVI, there's a direct connection. More importantly for you, there's no meaningful price difference. The cheapest 17" non-DVI monitor is $205 and the cheapest 17" DVI monitor is $220. If your budget is so tight that you cannot afford the $15 difference, you shouldn't be spending your money on computer equipment in the first place. If there's one absolute of buying an LCD monitor, it is to get a monitor with DVI support. As long as you stick with a DVI panel, your monitor will be sharp.

But if you're naive about the net and you go online maybe once a month...then you're a raw piece of meat in a pool full of sharks.

I am one of those naive that really don't have a clue what hardware review sites to trust. My comfort is that I am probably far from alone, in this matter.

To assist me and other naives(sp?), please join this silly poll and review the following sites (regarding credibility) with a scale ranging from 1 to 10, where 1 is "No credibility at all" and 10 is "Perfect credibility, these guys wouldn't post a biased review for world domination":

About PC Hardware Reviews
Ace's Hardware
Anandtech
Ars Technica
Beyond 3D
Cnet Reviews
Dan's Data
Dev Hardware
Extremetech
Firingsquad
[H]ard|OCP
Hardware Analysis
Hardwarecentral
Hardwarezone
IT Reviews
OcPrices
Overclockers.com
ProCooling.com
The Tech Report
The Tech Zone
Tom's Hardware
TrustedReviews
Viperlair
Xtreme Resources

If you know only a few of them, give your opinion on those.

Maybe someone with the right facilities could set up an independent poll?

MesaFX graphics library for Doom 3 to render quite well on 3dFX accelerators.

3dfxzone forum article and screenshots of Doom 3 rendered on a 3Dfx Voodoo5 5500.

Firingsquad news posted for this screenshot gallery of Doom3 on Voodoo2.

MesaFX graphics library for Doom 3 to render quite well on 3dFX accelerators.

3dfxzone forum article and screenshots of Doom 3 rendered on a 3Dfx Voodoo5 5500.

Firingsquad news posted for this screenshot gallery of Doom3 on Voodoo2.

Yep. It was a Best Buy exec a while ago that called us "devil-customers"!

http://forums.firingsquad.com/firingsquad/board/me ssage?board.id=hotdeals&message.id=270&jump=true

Firingsquad did a test between different brands and different types (rca vs svideo). The results where pretty interesting:

http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/ps2picture/

I think my favorite of the links was the Doom 3 Voodoo 2 screenshots. They impressed and horrified me.

Until I see a game developed by an AAA game developing company rated at a 1 or a 0, their ratings hold no power in my book

Oh, I think I remember one. Worst $4.99 bargain bin buy ever...

(your point still stands)

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Did anyone else get one of these? I actually thought it wasn't bad - it's an optical mouse that used Immersion's force-feedback tech:
http://www.sharkygames.com/hardware/reviews/contro ller/ifeel/
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ifeelmm/defaul t.asp

You'd think that f-f in a mouse would throw off the cursor but that wasn't really the case; it had five or six modes from gentle to pretty strong, and was supported by a few games (as well as pretty pointless desktop & MS Office integration).

I got it when Black & White came out 'cause I was intrigued by B&W's game control interface (a single "hand" cursor that changed depending on the environment, and even used gestures to cast spells). Esp. liked the way they customised a few missions for this mouse -- one in particular was great: you found an old hippy/head-type guy standing by a cauldron scratching his head. He was looking for some mushrooms but wasn't sure which one would give him the best trip, so you had to go picking for him & when the cursor hovered over each one the force-feedback would buzz depending on how strong the 'shroom was :)

Shame they never took off, really, I'd have thought -- esp. given the prevalence of the mouse as a PC game controller -- that there may have been a half-decent market for them, but, hey, I guess not? Suppose it's one of those things that most people are pretty indifferent to, and without the support of major developers it wasn't going to go too far. Ah well!

I know it's not exactly in the same league, but the Mini isn't a new idea, it's just the logical progression from existing ideas.

Shuttle and FIC, anyone?

I needed a quick new PC after moving into my house last winter, and put together a FIC ICECUBE. It started out as a cheap throw-together system and before I was done I ended up throwing everything I could into the mix for a totally new main system (which for the most part I'm rather pleased by.)

I wasn't meant to have this as my main system very long, because I honestly didn't think performance was going to be the greatest. I just needed something small and easy to move around.

Many people see my Icecube and liken it to a Mac Cube, because in some ways it slightly resembles one, though moreso if you take the handle off of the top (at which point, they become stackable!)

The Mini is smaller, sleeker, and cleaner than the Cube or the new offering from Shuttle and FIC, but you can't say that MINI is starting a revolution. It's more like an evolution.

The Mini is Apple's next step in the direction PCs have already been taking. Why this is catching so much more attention than what has already been happening for a while, I don't know.

More of Jobs' RDF at work, imagine.

Here's a review. Funny you should mention Zalman, this card comes with one of their heatpipe coolers on it. Quite a bit faster, but also nearly twice the price.

-Ryan

http://www.firingsquad.com/pfucata_digicam_guide_0 4/dofexample.html

http://www.firingsquad.com/pfucata_digicam_guide_0 4/dofexample.html Depth of field is affected by sensor-to-lens distance and hence DSLRs with a larger sensor have less depth of field. Please do your research before you claim that others are wrong.

http://www.firingsquad.com/pfucata_digicam_guide_0 4/dofexample.html The distance between the sensor and lens on a D-SLR is greater than that on a small-sensor digicam. That affects the depth of field. The problem is that sometimes the slow shutter speed from stopping down is impractical without a tripod.

http://floyd.firingsquad.com/pfucata_digicam_guide _04/dofexample.html I only write the articles, I don't write the anti-leech code.