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ATI All-In-Wonder X1800 XL Review
Timmus writes "With the release of the X1800 series last month, it was only a matter of time before ATI announced a new All-In-Wonder card that took advantage of it. Today Firingsquad has a review of the new board, the All-In-Wonder X1800 XL. The card features all the multimedia capabilities of previous AIW cards, giving you TV viewing and recording, timeshifting, and of course gaming. Video capture shots are provided as well."
Officially, the ALL-IN-WONDER X1800 XL carries an MSRP of $500...
End of Line
Higher resolutions at faster refresh rates is great, but I'm wanting video to head in a different direction. I'm sure I'm not alone.
First, heat efficiency in getting out of control. My MCE runs fairly cool but I needed to fab my own fan brackets. I won't even look at newer video cards if they're running 10 degC hotter. I know more speed generally means more heat but there has to be some techniques to reduce it.
Coupled with the heat problems we're getting annoyingly loud fans on the card. In my theater I've replaced a vidcard because the fan started acting up. Not good.
I'd love to see more support for the newer resolutions out there. My backup projector needs a 960x540 resolution which requires buying Powerstrip. My regular projector requires 1280x720. Even the newest cards I've tested ignore these fairly standard resolutions in their drivers.
I'm not impressed with many on-board video decoders lately. Fuzzy text, artifacts that shoulder occur and (sometimes) color errors.
I'm happy to see ATI releasing these fast cards at cheap prices but I fear that none of the future needs are being planned for.
They should also STOP SCREAMING THEIR PRODUCT NAME.
But without the pictures
s ection=Hardware&fs_article_id=1756
http://firingsquad.com/print_article.asp?current_
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
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
http://firingsquad.com.nyud.net:8090/hardware/ati_ all_in_wonder_x1800_xl/ Coral Cache link
So any chance we have Linux support out of the box?
How can a hardware review be posted on slashdot without a list of compatible open source OS's?
Think Deeply.
There are only two X's in this product name. I refuse to buy a video card that only has two X's in it's model number. Give it a name like "ATI XXL 81200X XP X-Treme Edition" and I'll consider forking over my money.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I've always like the ATI TV tuners. Very easy to use. But I've always hated that their software won't record signals that have Macrovision in them. I had bought an ATI a few years ago to copy my VHS tapes to DVD. When one plays that is protect by Macrovision, the record button disables. Luckily it is (was?) only in the software, and their cards work well with all the open source stuff out there (virtualdub).
Anonymous Cowards suck.
What I want to know is have they released proper Linux drivers that support all the functionallity this time, unlike eith previous AiW cards.
More cost up front? Maybe, but my ATI TV Wonder is still working *years* after its purchase.
MrRogers(2)
I own an ATI All-in-Wonder 9800 pro. It is great, when it is working... It is fast, and all the features work well, but updating the drivers and sofware is a nightmare. I really miss the Nvidia unified drivers that I use on work machines.
The problem is that there are 3 files that need to be upgraded with every driver change - and while I understand this, the process is annoying. If a new driver comes out for video, and I install it, but neglect to install the other drivers for the card, the DVD viewing software, and the TV software break.
This, again, is understandable, but the process is annoying. ATI really needs to simplify their driver installation (and hell, having better Linux drivers would be neat too... but that is an aside)
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
The article summarizes: "Quite simply this is the card I would like to put in my MediaPC".
Will it run Linux, or will I be just as screwed on it as I've been with the ATI-TV (ISA), AiW 128 Pro, AiW 7500, AiW8500DV? I'm sure it runs great on Windows, which is great and all, only I want to punt Windows from my system and not have a dual-boot configuration.
Also what is up with offering only analog/NTSC reception on this side of the pond? NTSC broadcasts are supposedly dying soon, so why don't they offer HDTV-capable cards yet? They advertise high-definition output, which is just wonderful, but what's so great about an upsampled NTSC picture?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Does anyone know if it is configurable with Linux/MythTV? Thanks in advance.
What's the point of running software to tape shows when the software makes the box crash after 3.5days? When I don't use the ATI SW, it stays up for at least 10days (don't trust it more than that and force a reboot)
On top of that, some shows that I ask it to tape get deleted at the end of the show for no reason. It's so bad that I have to setup a process to copy the file before the ATI SW deletes it!
It seems anolog copy protection on Cable TV was working well even 3y+ ago!
(BTW: It's All-in-one radion)
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Something seems to be going terribly wrong at ATI.
They have been getting creamed by NVidia's stuff this past year. And now with the 360 hitting store shelves everyone who sees the ATI powered graphics is talking about how poor they look and the hideous jaggies.
Maybe ATI will be able to redeem themselves with the Revolution GPU, but they will have to do something extraordinary to make up for botching the 360 graphics.
It is depressing to think I will probably end up getting my first non-ATI card to replace my 9800 Pro.
Why havent they supported HDTV and CableCard specification?
There's no reason to get this card considering it will be obsolete in a year or two.
As the owner of two older AiW cards, I stopped buying AiWs because it just doesn't make fiscal sense to consistently upgrade your TV tuner with your VGA card. The tuner features improve more slowly than gaming cards, and most of the study in this article covers the card's in-game performance, with TV tuning and its quality mentioned as a side note. Personally, I'd rather go with a cutting-edge gaming card for VGA, and a separate tuner for TV, since I won't be forced to part with either if I decide to upgrade the other. Additionally, the tuner chipsets in the AiW often have little 3rd-party support in the drivers, forcing users to use one piece of software to handle TV (ATI's Multimedia Center), often with little support in Linux (I know that MythTV dislikes most of the older AiWs, and I doubt this one will change that). Do yourself a favor and buy a TV Wonder instead (or, of course, a non-ATI product!).
What is the best PC to TV setup?
Cheapest with mild quaility trade-offs?
I got a 47" projection (not LCD) TV with HDTV (component) support.
My pc gots an nVidia 6800 GT (256MB) video card with vga, dvi, and composite output.
If I output through the composite to my TV, words look really fuzzy and the resolution settings are all funky in general. If I put some media player in full screen mode the picture is generally okay.
Where do I need to go from here to get a descent PC with TV as monitor solution going?
I'm considering upgrading my TV in the upcoming year, what features should I look for if I want to use the new TV as a PC monitor?
And how to get my PC Audio to my TV? Even with connector adaptors the signal doesn't seem compatable.
Thanks
Everyone knows this. The hardware is nice, but the software package and drivers are HORRIBLE. Yeah, you can get other software to capture video with, but you lose a lot of "proprietary" features of the ATI cards.
Not to mention ATIs notorious "we'll never release updated drivers for any new operating systems" policy when it comes to their AIW cards. I can almost guarantee that when Windows Vista hits, the TV features of this card won't work on it. Ever.
Honestly, you're better of picking up one of the Hauppage cards if you really want to have TV features. They're better, better drivers, and widely supported by all kinds of third-party software.
Did the older All-In-Wonder cards like 9800 work in Linux for its TV tuner? I never did find one since ATI had bad drivers and no support for the TV tuner for Linux. I am dumping my 9800 AIW soon to get a separate HDTV tuner (air2pc) and going back to NVIDIA side (6800).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I had HORRIBLE experiences with the last round of drivers and quite frankly after 2 rounds of "software" driver problems *civ4, cough cough* I'm ready to hand in my ATI AIW9700.
Trouble is I've been out of the loop so long and I don't know what a good card is from the "other" manufacturers. All tech-specs and benchmarks aside, anyone have any good recommendations for the $200-$300 video card that will take me into the next 3 years?
Yeah yeah, I'm lazy and not geeky enough to do the research, consider me an average joe.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
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.
... insert comment here ...
those shots look really really awful. I spent 75 bucks on an old tv tuner from avermedia, and that in conjunction with dscaler has been a great experience. Why on earth would you buy a video card with all of that junk built in? Not only does it cost more for each part (combined as 1 unit), but when you upgrade your video card you lose your capability? It just doesn't make sense.
So long as ATI refuses to recognize that there are other OSes that consumers use besides MS Windows Latest & Greatest(TM), I shall continue to avoid purchasing their products. NVIDia is barely better, what with their binary drivers which always seem to be one or more kernel releases behind the times.
I do (really!) hate to have my comments modded to flamebait, but there are actually "OTHER OSes" besides x86 GNU/linux (really, there is!). Without reasonably complete source code drivers available, PPC||MIPS||ARM||other GNU/linux as well as *BSD, Solaris will never stand a chance against the WIntel behemouth.
Barring the possibility of obtaining source code drivers for the latest video cards (or other geeky kit), rather complete hardware documentation should be made available so that the F/OSS community can "roll their own" drivers. Major vendors appear to be so concerned about providing any insight to their hardware designs to their competition that they are forsaking a growing segment of the consumer market.
Recent news regarding MS Windows "rootkits" showing up in heavily DRMed product should illuminate the dangers of reliance upon one convicted monopolistic company "owning" a nearly ubiquitous portion of the market. Those companies that band together in support of a single platform risk alienating their consumer market when "extremely bad things" crop up to destroy that market.
Alternative OSes exist; alternative sources of media/content exist; and alternative hardware exists -- when consumers start voting (in droves) with their cash, the current industry "leaders" will likely be caught by surprise. I suspect that those most surprised will not survive.
FREE as in "stick it to TEH MAN!!!"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
("All" meaning, everything *I* want and need.)
I run dual monitors on my main PC with an nVidia card ... and I run my old AIW 8500 on my No. 2 PC, plugged into the second input on one monitor. So the tuner is the flick of a switch away, on one monitor. And I'm running all the ATI drivers/apps one box removed from anything they might screw up ... like real and sound editing apps.
Will I ever upgrade the AIW card? Maybe for HDTV. Someday.
This "review" seems to have been written by a marketing firm, not a reviewer.
I helped a friend get his AIW X-600 going. What a pain.
After several tries, the driver checker never did like the video driver that was installed -- it was always out of date.
The software for viewing DVDs, watching TV, capturing video -- all different interfaces. For a casual guy to want to control it -- very hard to use. Tiny little buttons with cryptic symbols. I tried lots of keyboard shortcuts to get the menus to disappear (I think F2 worked for one).
You can time-shift, yes -- if you tell it that's what you want to do. And you don't mind fighting the interface to try to move around in time (he didn't have a remote). And you can't move around in time while a normal recording is working.
Everything on his machine was lightning fast -- except for launching ATI's apps and waiting for video to come along.
Video capture didn't work in other virtualdub nor Windows Movie Maker.
There were flickering problems in the resulting video. Sound/video synchronization became a problem over time.
But, he could copy his video tapes to the hard drive, and then onto a DVD (way more complicated than it needed to be). He could watch TV, set up the programming guide (which didn't install by default -- we had to go look for it through the install DVDs).
It has the checkmarks of a TIVO, but not the ease of use and clean interface of a TIVO.
Ditto to that. I got the AIW 7500 (Was only $200 I think so nowhere near as insane as this one). "It seemed like a good idea at the time"......... I regretted it after a while. AIW's are traditionally pretty crippled for games even in comparison to there numerical equivilants that aren't AiW (As is seen in a review of the newest one that I have seen, probably the one in the article). It was really a pain in the ass when I realized it wasn't cutting it, and had to get another TV tuner in addition to a new Vid card.... "I don't have enough slots" gives some people reason to go with an AiW, but you could get a decent new mobo in most cases for $100 with plenty more slots if that's a problem, and that would probably be more cost effectve in the long run.... And what if you've got all 5 slots filled? I don't know how your filling all those, but a good mobo would probalby take the place of a lot of cards additional functions....
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
I've owned the original AIW Radeon card, and it was OK for its time. Of course with DirectX 8 and 9 games, it would never work. So time came a couple years ago when TRON 2.0 was out plus Doom3 was around the corner and I needed an upgrade.
At that time, the 9800 was pretty well regarded. But, there was about 18 different versions of that chipset in various vidcards. Many of the (online) vendors had misleading specs or prices, a lot of cards were lesser 9800 XL cards but without mentioning the 'XL' part. After Christmas there was a nice price drop on the AIW9800 (which uses the superior 9800 'Pro' chipset) which made it competitive with a bunch of the non-TV cards. I was happy, and got a guaranteed part.
ATI only releases one AIW model per chipset, so you at least know exactly what you are getting in the box. That's how it worked with me, and I was very happy to knowingly get a 9800Pro for use with Doom3 and other newer games.
{ - Generic Guy - }
Those bastards stopped supporting it (external).
Unfortunately, "alternative hardware" in the high-end VGA world only barely exists, and not with any serious contention. There are really only two players, and the older parties that used to be alternatives (such as Matrox and Voodoo) have either been destroyed or have been relegated to niche positions. There's also the self-sustaining cycle of Linux's (or insert other OSS OS here) reputation (true or not) as a poor desktop OS, supported significantly by the very driver issues you bring up, which hurt gaming the most. ATI and nVidia probably see Linux as a server OS (which needs only a very simple VGA card, if at all), or a niche desktop OS, which is supported by the fact that people don't seem to play games on them as much. Thus, the cycle is apparent.
As things are now, the open-source driver community manages to provide limited support for most 3D cards after a little while on the market, effectively beating or at least matching the latest hardware from outside the nVidia/ATI camp. Thus, no one really has any incentive to make purchases from any other company, other than philosophical ideals. I don't really see an opportunity for OSS consumers to make a big dent in the current duopoly; it's like voting for a 3rd party in American presidential politics: "Go ahead, throw away your vote".
I thought they looked horrible (fuzzy, blurry, between frames)...... I took better ones on my old ATI phillips TV Wonder card....
Am no fek Buddhist, but this is enlightenment.
On the AIW 2006 model the A/V dongle all hangs off a fat stiff cable and plugs into a mini-din. No latching, no screwdowns, and difficult to orient correctly. Drops out when an ant passes by. Turns your all-in-wonder into a some-in-wonder for those of us that don't enjoy rooting around the back of your computer all the time. It appears from the illustrations that at least they didn't sabotage this product in the same way and it has screwdowns for everything.
How does asking about linux support for a new piece of hardware become flamebait?
Someone please, PLEASE explain this to me.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Hey! I wonder if this one has the great features of my AIW 9700 pro? Right now it is sitting in my drawer, useless, since it finally gave up the ghost after weird snow on the screen for a month or two. Before that it ran great in my Shuttle box (so long as the case was open and I had a massive room fan pointed right at it). I mean... Morrowind was great so long as I turned off all the shading...resolution... And the TV tuner software... Ugggh. I am never wasting my time with this company's garbage again....
I will never buy any ATI product again. The cause - bad linux support of AIW128 (16MB). TV tuner worked only with RedHat9 and Gatos driver but not with Fedora. 3D crashed with Quake3Demo: when I launched the game, first time all was OK, but when I exited the game and launched it later again, my computer crashed so, that only Reset button did help. Now I have Nvidia6200 and Leadtek WinFast2000 TV tuner - both of them have nice linux support.
Whys everyone bitching. I'm watching adult swim on my second monitor (off my PCI 9200) from my AIW 9800Pro right now. Never had any problems with it, other than the ocasional instability when i've got the TV on and have too many browser tabs open.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
uhmm, no...
:)
Point 1: The AIW's TV capture is not better, they are the same, at least they were the last time I looked into these things. Owning both a AIW 7000 and a TV Wonder PCI, I've seen the both myself.
Point 2: Hauppauge makes a better card, this is true, as it includes hardware mpeg support. But this isnt about the Hauppauge, this is about the AIW vrs the TV Wonder.
Point 3: Ever try getting a AIW to work in Linux? Good luck, go over to the Gatos page and see the pain that AIW's are in linux. The TV wonder and the Hauppauge cards are a breeze to setup, insert the driver module and you're good to go.
So basicly you are paying for a capture card that will be useless when you upgrade your video card, as opposed to buying a tuner card separately and it lasting as long as you own your computer. My tuner has gone from a orignal pentium board all the way to my barton.
There is no good reason to get an AIW unless you can't afford to spare an extra pci slot.
I can't believe posts like this get modded up... no offense
Mod me as a troll, but whatever, the truth must be told!
I might add something to this:
Heat is bad for the card, yes. Bad for the inside of the case yes. Adding fans controls is yes... but you must factor many other things.
a) Where does the heat come from: Electricity, generally being wasted, and therefore upping your power bill
b) Where does the heat go: In the summer my main machine if left on overnight would noticable raise the temperature in the room. Over a few days it would become sweltering. Getting the heat out of the case doesn't always get rid of the overall problems of heat.
Personally, I'd like to see cards rated for heat emissions along with FPS etc. How about "average temperature after a game of Quake IV?" Fan noise would be another nice thing to factor in.
Alternative OSes exist; alternative sources of media/content exist; and alternative hardware exists -- when consumers start voting (in droves) with their cash, the current industry "leaders" will likely be caught by surprise. I suspect that those most surprised will not survive.
I know I'm a bit late on this discussion but the fact is that consumers are not going to "start voting (in droves) with their cash" for a long time to come. There is obviously a reason you feel the need to point out alternative OSs as alternative OSs on a "tech hip" site such as slashdot; their numbers (as in users) are small. Once these become more of a market (as Linux has) they will be taken more seriously.
This Linux revolution I have heard about has taken years and years longer than the average Linux enthusiast foreseen back when RedHat went IPO. Back then they acted like it was a given that Linux would overtake a reasonable marketshare and most of them predicted it would have happened overnight and years before this posting was made. Is Linux an OS hardware manufacturers should consider? Sure. But we're hell and away from the Golden Dawn on Linux that was (and still is) raved about. I was told back then that by now Bill Gates would be washing your windshield with a beat up Starbucks cup in his hand begging for change at a busy intersection in Seattle.
This isn't to say alternative OSs don't have a place and that Microsoft shouldn't have less of a place then they do today but how many of these OSs are going to go the way of BeOS? How much longer will it be before I can goto Best Buy and buy a box with Linux pre-installed and ready to go?
In time we will see more Linux installs made available from more vendors but we are doubtlessly years from the point where we can buy a box off the shelf and have Linux preinstalled instead of having to wait for the Geek Squad (Good Lord!) to bumble thru and install only to find it was done with the competency of a six year old.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.