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."

Comments

Different direction?

[dada21]

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.

Linux/Myth support?

[olddotter]

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?

Macrovision

[drxenos]

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).

Linux drivers?

[cybergrue]

What I want to know is have they released proper Linux drivers that support all the functionallity this time, unlike eith previous AiW cards.

But how are the drivers?

[Mr. Flibble]

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)

Why bother: ATI SW is unstable and evil

[denis-The-menace]

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)