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All-in-Wonder 9600 Pro Review

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the wonder-if-it's-worth-it dept.

VL writes "From synthetic, to real-world game benchmarks. TV capture, DVD playback, and 2D/3D image quality... we covered all the bases with a review of All in Wonder 9600 Pro."

9 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Linux support by TheAcousticMotrbiker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How is linux support for this beast ?
    Will it do decent GL ?

    1. Re:Linux support by Yarn · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I had a user who wanted gentoo on their PC the other day. It had a 9600 based OEM card.

      You have to use the ATI binary drivers, and they're a little flakey from the gentoo package; if you ran the X server multiple times in succession the machine would lock up so only the magic sysrq could save you. However, the drivers downloaded directly from ATI's site seemed to work fine, despite being identical size.

      It could have just been fluke, I didn't have the time to debug the problem properly. I also didn't have time to do any benchmarking.

      --
      -Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
  2. And just in time for Xmas too... by Space+cowboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Strange, this "timing" lark. I wonder if they struggle to meet the deadline or just let thngs hang around until the public start buying in earnest for Xmas...

    Since it supports 2 monitors (prime requirement for me) I might even buy one... be nice to actually enable 3D to more than "minimal" for a change :-)

    Simon.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  3. I have one question... by clifgriffin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are the Windows XP drivers up to snuff with this release? Previous All in Wonder drivers have sucked and have been unreliable for programattic access. I had to switch last year to another capture card manufacturer. Clif Blogzine.net Fortress of Insanity

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    clifgriffin > blog
  4. No DVI... (Off-topic) by MattRog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For those of us with DVI LCDs is there a good 3D card which supports dual DVIs? I have two Iiyama DVI 19" LCDs and my current card (GeForce4 Ti 4600) only supports one DVI and one VGA (so one display is perfect and the other noticeably less so). This (yuck!) only supports dual VGA!!!

    I've been looking but I can't find a flavor of Radeon or GeForce that supports dual DVI. With the latest fantastico-new games (like Deus Ex2, Half-Life 2, Doom 3, etc.) being released in the near-term I'd really like to upgrade (replace) my older PC - I'd like to get dual DVI out and superb gaming performance/graphics (so it would have to be on par with the 9600's etc.).

    Any ideas/help?

    --

    Thanks,
    --
    Matt
  5. More than games. by eddy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, if the "drivers are a little too involved to set up" then that's certainly something the review should mention!

    This isn't all about games either, this isn't a hardcore gaming card, this is a "wide" product meant to be an overall decent graphics card for desktop and games. You have the PVR features for instance. Are those supported on any other OSen than Windows? If yes, out of the box or does it require third party drivers and/or software, will the remote function with these? If it's not supported, why? How does that compare to the competition, etc, etc.

    A review that doesn't even touch on these issues are all but useless. Zero information, seeing how there's a million of these reviews already.

    --
    Belief is the currency of delusion.
  6. Re:In real news... by vasqzr · · Score: 1, Interesting




    http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031107/ind ex.html

    Of course a link is helpful.

    http://www.xgitech.com/

    Benchmarks look promising.


    Conclusion

    The Volari Duo V8 Ultra leaves us with a very mixed first impression. Despite the prototype status of our sample and its driver, the card was able to produce some very respectable results in some areas. These highlights are clouded by the problems with texture filtering and the stark performance drop-offs in some benchmarks and games.

    XGI's driver team definitely has its work cut out for it. We can expect to see final boards with shipping status and WHQL drivers within the next one or two months, or so. That gives XGI's driver programmers a bit of time to iron out the kinks.

    Should they be successful, XGI's cards may well become serious alternatives to ATi's and NVIDIA's offerings, especially considering their comparatively low prices. XGI is aiming for a street price of about $449 (plus tax), which is rather inexpensive. This makes XGI's top model a good $50 less expensive than the flagship models of NVIDIA or ATi. As far as the other versions of the cards are concerned, XGI has so far declined to comment.

  7. Re:AIW by Espectr0 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If I weren't so happy with my ATI Radeon 9000 (and ATI's support of it with drivers!) I would get one of these.

    Huh? You may be the only one in luck to get good drivers for them. Fact is, everybody knows ati has the worst drivers in the industry. Just last week i wanted to upgrade my older AIW to the latest driver and multimedia application, and the installation of neither worked (told it couldn't detect the hardware, and i uninstalled the other version and launched vga mode like the docs said, so i had to install manually by upgrading them in the device manager), and even after i finally installed them, the tv application didn't launch with no error messages.

    I had to system restore my way out and install the original drivers on the cd.

    --
    Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
  8. Re:AIW by pheared · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Oh, I guess you are on Windows. I have not used Windows on my computers in several years so I can't comment on ATI's drivers for that Operating System, but it does sound like they are troublesome.

    The Linux drivers work just as advertised once you get them setup.