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ATI All-In-Wonder 128
by muffles
The ATI All-In-Wonder 128 is, as the title suggests, an all-in-one card for 2D, 3D, MPEG decoding (DVD etc.), TV viewing, video capturing and TV output. This model is the AGP version, but there is also a PCI version available. The card comes with a small breakout box which provides video and audio input connectors only. The ... breakout box basically allows you to plug in your cables elsewhere from the back of the PC, which is useful if you do this regularly. TV aerial input and TV output connections are at the back of the card, however. This can be quite annoying which you want to change the cables around. Other cards such as the Matrox Marvel G400 provide all such connectors on the breakout box.
The card is supplied with display drivers for Windows 98/ME and Windows 2000. Capturing is ONLY supported in WIndows 98/ME. It is impossible to capture in Windows 2000. This is fairly typical of cards in this class, but is very annoying.
It's also supplied with multimedia software which allows you to watch TV, record video, play DVDs, etc. The DVD software is usable but other software such as WinDVD offer much more features and playback quality.
The video input quality is decent. It isn't quite as sharp as that provided by competing products but it is good enough for video capturing. However, I found it impossible to use the TV aerial input (PAL UK). The tuner software simply didn't tune in accurately enough, and there was no fine tuning control at all. The resultant picture was far too scrambled to be watchable.
Capturing capabilities are quite extensive. You can capture to AVI, MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 all in real time. You should note that the ATI All-In-Wonder is the only card capable of capturing to full-resolution MPEG-2 in this price category. Compression is software-only, so the quality is completely dependant on your CPU speed. On a P3-600, I was able to achieve medium quality. The LSX codec used by the software is one
of the worst for artifacts, so during motion especially there are quite a lot of artifacts in the encoded picture. This is fine for basic timeshifting of TV or amateur video capturing, but if quality is important you should use an AVI software codec, which isn't provided with the card. The supplied software does not handle dropped frames at all, so you'll simply end up with audio desyncronisation.
As for TV output, this is another feature that I found to be unusable. The software drivers would always detect the TV standard incorrectly, meaning I could only achieve a fuzzy black and white picture, since it is outputting the wrong TV standard. This is unacceptable and means you can't watch DVDs etc. on your TV, or record your video captures back to tape. I wrestled with the software for hours on this problem but was unable to resolve it.
2D quality is actually very good. There were no glitches that I could discover, unlike cards by manufacturers such as Matrox. DVD playback quality is exceptional, though I couldn't watch them on TV.
3D performance is certainly dated now. The card is based on the Rage 128 chipset, which is 2 generations old. If this is important, you'd be better off getting newer models such as the All-In-Wonder Radeon, which are more expensive but provide much faster 3D.
The multimedia centre software does contain many bugs which can result in unusable video or corrupt streams etc. For most bugs there are workarounds, but this is typical of the overall quality of the software. It seems rushed out to retail before the drivers/software were ready. ATI have provided very little in the way of software updates. The updates they did release failed to address any of the problems I experienced. E-mails to their support team were simply ignored.
Overall, this is a fairly decent card for those new to video capturing. I would not recommend it for a general purpose card, where TV viewing/output or f
ast 3D is required. However, if you need a cheap way to get into video capturing, and you are prepared to spend some time working around the software bugs, this could be for you.
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ATI Xpert 98
by Galloway
The Ati Xpert 98 video card is now quite an old video card, having been around for about three years now. It was one of ATI’s earliest AGP offerings. The card is based on the 64bit Rage Pro chipset from ATI, which has also featured in a number of other ‘Xpert’ cards from the company. The card has 8MB ... of video ram onboard, offers up to 24bit colour for both 2D and 3D rendering and can shift around 1.25 million triangles per second, courtesy of its triangle set-up engine. Maximum screen resolution is 1600x1200 pixels in 24bit colour. 24bit equals a palette of 16.8 million colours.
The card is supplied with video drivers on CD and with the ATI software DVD player on CD in the retail pack, but without the DVD player as an OEM pack.
As this card is now quite old, its performance as shown above, is far below the performance of current technology. Having said that, it should be selling for a bargain price.
It is suitable for basic multimedia applications, office, image editing and any games that are not too demanding. However, it is far from the best for use with DVD, demanding games and 3D rendering.
Playing games is best done in 16bit colour; in 3D it produces a reasonable image quality but speed is lacking, so would require a powerful processor to make up the difference. It supports Direct 3D and OpenGL, but Open GL support isn’t good.
I purchased this card some years ago for £50, even then it was a budget card, but it did perform adequately at the time. Unfortunately as computing demands grow; it has been replaced by more powerful hardware. Apart from a really bargain bucket video card for office or basic Internet work, there is nothing I can recommend this card for.
Even though it should cost only about £30 now, a few extra pounds will by a far better card and work out much better value for money.
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ATI Xpert 2000
by ko196
I got this card to replace an aging graphic card on my friend's PC. I haven't used any ATI card before this. I have heard of ATI, and the card was cheap so, I bought it. As a 2D card, it is quite good. The screen is sharp and everything works. As a 3D card.... not so good. Some software works, others don't. Updating the ... drivers does not help much either. Only after much tinkering did I get to work with most of the 3D games I played. 3D speed is average. Please don't compare this card to a Geforce because you can't. However, if you are not concerned with maximum FPS then this card will suffice. If you want a card to do mainly 2D work and occasionally play 3D games, this could be the card for you but because other cards do a much job and have so much better drivers, I cannot recommend this product.
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