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This is a quick update for those interested in the "Video board of the Week" saga. Wanting to upgrade one of my desktops and my bedroom HT/Gaming system, I got a reasonable deal at my local Central Computer store in Fremont (it's a small Bay area chain; unlike Frys, they have *nothing* except computer stuff). VE's can be had for the $90 to $100 range with a little looking.
The VE is Radeon's answer to the Matrox G450 Dual Head and NVidia Geforce MX dual head. The VE is a 32MB DDR memory board, but slightly lower memory speed and DAC rating than the standard 32MB DDR. It includes a standard DB15 VGA output, plus a DVI output connector (with adapter to convert to VGA supplied), and S-Video out.
If your primary use is DVD or gaming at resolutions of 1280X1024 or less, and you want above average 2D quality and very good DVD playback, this could be the board for you. I wanted one for my desktop, because the GeForce is a bit fuzzy on the NEC LCD1810 panel compared with my Matrox Millienium II at work. The Radeon got rid of the fuzz, but not without a few tears at first. Hence the "hate" factor.
The install was no fun at all on my desktop, which is an Athlon 600 built with an ASUS K7M motherboard. This system has had a couple of different video cards, 3DFx then Geforce2, and though I religiously deleted all past drivers and set it up for plain vanilla VGA, the ATI install program wouldn't recognize it that way, and wouldn't recognize that there was a Radeon installed, either. It installed part of the AGP Gart drivers, then stopped the driver installation. On top of that, some files got corrupted, and I started getting BSOD's at boot up unless I went to safe mode. This could be interaction with the Stardock Desktop X system which I run, also.
Re-installing Windows 98SE ultimately cleared up these issues, and allowed me to run the driver install again. That time it took; it's best to just let it do the Easy Install, where it puts everything on, and installs the DirectX update.
Once donce, setting up the driver color depth and resolution is no big deal, and the NEC monitor was detected autmoatically, and refresh/resolution options adjusted accordingly. DVD playback on the desktop at 1280X1024 is pretty cool; the trailer for "Final Fantasy", even though not an anamorhpic source, is farily stunning. I can't wait to see the DVD they eventually release from this movie.
The Gaming HT was a little easier. They key to getting the ATI install to work was letting the system autodetect the hardware after manually changing the driver, and letting it setup/search for the best updated driver (which didn't change it, just re-enumerated it). Then, I found you had to be careful, because the install took a while (30 seconds to a minute) for each part of the install program to initialize. Once all steps had been gone through, the results were good.
BTW, if you're into gaming, the advanced settings includes control panels for D3D and for Open GL, which you should check out, depending on the optimization choices you want for quality or speed. With a slower CPU, maybe some of the "speed" choices make sense; with a 750 MHz AMD, go for quality, as I did. Performance in D3D and open GL was quite good on my system, but Deus Ex, Baldur's Gate II, and Flanker II are not really state of the art "stress tests". Performance with "B17 Flying Fortress" was quite good also, but that's more a function of installed memory (if you don't have 256 Megs, you don't want this game).
Video overlay settings are available in the 7.1 DVD player. No discernable quality difference on DVD between the VE and the standard 32 MB DDR on several test selections, including "Fifth Element", "Matrix", "Pitch Black", "Lost in Space", "Shakespeare in Love". Which is to say, they all looked pretty fabulous.
Final Ratings:
2D Video quality: 9 out of 10
DVD Video quality: 9.5 out of 10
Gaming performance: 7 out of 10
Installation: -2 out of 10
Driver Stability: 8 out of 10
Value: 9 out of 10
So, this is the "cheap" board I love to use, but hate to install....
Regards,
Jon
Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....
The VE is Radeon's answer to the Matrox G450 Dual Head and NVidia Geforce MX dual head. The VE is a 32MB DDR memory board, but slightly lower memory speed and DAC rating than the standard 32MB DDR. It includes a standard DB15 VGA output, plus a DVI output connector (with adapter to convert to VGA supplied), and S-Video out.
If your primary use is DVD or gaming at resolutions of 1280X1024 or less, and you want above average 2D quality and very good DVD playback, this could be the board for you. I wanted one for my desktop, because the GeForce is a bit fuzzy on the NEC LCD1810 panel compared with my Matrox Millienium II at work. The Radeon got rid of the fuzz, but not without a few tears at first. Hence the "hate" factor.
The install was no fun at all on my desktop, which is an Athlon 600 built with an ASUS K7M motherboard. This system has had a couple of different video cards, 3DFx then Geforce2, and though I religiously deleted all past drivers and set it up for plain vanilla VGA, the ATI install program wouldn't recognize it that way, and wouldn't recognize that there was a Radeon installed, either. It installed part of the AGP Gart drivers, then stopped the driver installation. On top of that, some files got corrupted, and I started getting BSOD's at boot up unless I went to safe mode. This could be interaction with the Stardock Desktop X system which I run, also.
Re-installing Windows 98SE ultimately cleared up these issues, and allowed me to run the driver install again. That time it took; it's best to just let it do the Easy Install, where it puts everything on, and installs the DirectX update.
Once donce, setting up the driver color depth and resolution is no big deal, and the NEC monitor was detected autmoatically, and refresh/resolution options adjusted accordingly. DVD playback on the desktop at 1280X1024 is pretty cool; the trailer for "Final Fantasy", even though not an anamorhpic source, is farily stunning. I can't wait to see the DVD they eventually release from this movie.
The Gaming HT was a little easier. They key to getting the ATI install to work was letting the system autodetect the hardware after manually changing the driver, and letting it setup/search for the best updated driver (which didn't change it, just re-enumerated it). Then, I found you had to be careful, because the install took a while (30 seconds to a minute) for each part of the install program to initialize. Once all steps had been gone through, the results were good.
BTW, if you're into gaming, the advanced settings includes control panels for D3D and for Open GL, which you should check out, depending on the optimization choices you want for quality or speed. With a slower CPU, maybe some of the "speed" choices make sense; with a 750 MHz AMD, go for quality, as I did. Performance in D3D and open GL was quite good on my system, but Deus Ex, Baldur's Gate II, and Flanker II are not really state of the art "stress tests". Performance with "B17 Flying Fortress" was quite good also, but that's more a function of installed memory (if you don't have 256 Megs, you don't want this game).
Video overlay settings are available in the 7.1 DVD player. No discernable quality difference on DVD between the VE and the standard 32 MB DDR on several test selections, including "Fifth Element", "Matrix", "Pitch Black", "Lost in Space", "Shakespeare in Love". Which is to say, they all looked pretty fabulous.
Final Ratings:
2D Video quality: 9 out of 10
DVD Video quality: 9.5 out of 10
Gaming performance: 7 out of 10
Installation: -2 out of 10
Driver Stability: 8 out of 10
Value: 9 out of 10
So, this is the "cheap" board I love to use, but hate to install....
Regards,
Jon
Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....
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