HDTV Wonder system requirements.

[Brian]

So I got my hands on the HDTV Wonder today, but the installation did not go
as planned. Got all the software installed okay, but when I tried to start
DTV playback, I got nothing. I tried running the PC Check, but all it was
telling me was that my audio card clock wasn't accurate enough and to
update the drivers. It also told me that DMA wasn't enabled for my hard
drive.

Well, the entire computer is only a few weeks old, the audio drivers are as
fresh as can be. Same with the DMA. And, even according to PC Check,
those are both quality issues, neither one would explain the non-starter.

My best guess at this point is that I don't have DirectX 9 support. But I
can't get a straight answer out of any of the websites I've looked at to
tell me exactly what chipsets do and don't support DX9, and I haven't been
paying enough attention to the market to be able to answer it myself.

I'm willing to go buy a new videocard, if that's what it takes, but first I
want to make sure that buying a new card will actually do me any good.
This system is built for home-theater, it has no aspirations for gaming,
ever. It's also a very small form factor (Shuttle), so I'm really worried
about heat dissipation if I add an AGP card.

Full System Spec:

Nvidia nForce2 motherboard
512MB system memory (64MB taken for graphics)
GeForce4 MX graphics (onboard)
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (IIRC, +/- 200 Mhz)
80GB WD Hard Disk
Sony CD-RW/DVD combo drive
ATI HDTV Wonder PCI
Windows XP Pro
All drivers and windowsupdates at best available version.

Two questions here.

One, do I really need to do a video card upgrade in order to run this
thing?

Two, what's the slowest, coolest, least noisy video card I can buy that
will do what needs to be done?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Brian

 

[J. Clarke]

So I got my hands on the HDTV Wonder today, but the installation did not
go
as planned. Got all the software installed okay, but when I tried to
start
DTV playback, I got nothing. I tried running the PC Check, but all it was
telling me was that my audio card clock wasn't accurate enough and to
update the drivers. It also told me that DMA wasn't enabled for my hard
drive.

Well, the entire computer is only a few weeks old, the audio drivers are
as
fresh as can be. Same with the DMA. And, even according to PC Check,
those are both quality issues, neither one would explain the non-starter.

My best guess at this point is that I don't have DirectX 9 support. But I
can't get a straight answer out of any of the websites I've looked at to
tell me exactly what chipsets do and don't support DX9, and I haven't been
paying enough attention to the market to be able to answer it myself.

I'm willing to go buy a new videocard, if that's what it takes, but first
I want to make sure that buying a new card will actually do me any good.
This system is built for home-theater, it has no aspirations for gaming,
ever. It's also a very small form factor (Shuttle), so I'm really worried
about heat dissipation if I add an AGP card.

Full System Spec:

Nvidia nForce2 motherboard
512MB system memory (64MB taken for graphics)
GeForce4 MX graphics (onboard)
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (IIRC, +/- 200 Mhz)
80GB WD Hard Disk
Sony CD-RW/DVD combo drive
ATI HDTV Wonder PCI
Windows XP Pro
All drivers and windowsupdates at best available version.

Two questions here.

One, do I really need to do a video card upgrade in order to run this
thing?

Two, what's the slowest, coolest, least noisy video card I can buy that
will do what needs to be done?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I think you're kind of on your own since you've got the new board on the
block. FWIW, with the Dvico boards the Radeon 8500 works fine, but so does
the Geforce 4MX. It could be that that onboard video is not quite a
Geforce 4MX--onboard video is always suspect--or it could be that ATI
didn't test the HDTV Wonder with the competition's board.

If the HDTV Wonder _needs_ a board with DirectX 9 acceleration, those boards
are the ATI Radeon 9500 and higher and the Geforce FX5200 and higher.

 

[T Shadow]

So I got my hands on the HDTV Wonder today, but the installation did not go
as planned. Got all the software installed okay, but when I tried to start
DTV playback, I got nothing. I tried running the PC Check, but all it was
telling me was that my audio card clock wasn't accurate enough and to
update the drivers. It also told me that DMA wasn't enabled for my hard
drive.

Well, the entire computer is only a few weeks old, the audio drivers are as
fresh as can be. Same with the DMA. And, even according to PC Check,
those are both quality issues, neither one would explain the non-starter.

My best guess at this point is that I don't have DirectX 9 support. But I
can't get a straight answer out of any of the websites I've looked at to
tell me exactly what chipsets do and don't support DX9, and I haven't been
paying enough attention to the market to be able to answer it myself.

I'm willing to go buy a new videocard, if that's what it takes, but first I
want to make sure that buying a new card will actually do me any good.
This system is built for home-theater, it has no aspirations for gaming,
ever. It's also a very small form factor (Shuttle), so I'm really worried
about heat dissipation if I add an AGP card.

Full System Spec:

Nvidia nForce2 motherboard
512MB system memory (64MB taken for graphics)
GeForce4 MX graphics (onboard)
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (IIRC, +/- 200 Mhz)
80GB WD Hard Disk
Sony CD-RW/DVD combo drive
ATI HDTV Wonder PCI
Windows XP Pro
All drivers and windowsupdates at best available version.

Two questions here.

One, do I really need to do a video card upgrade in order to run this
thing?

Two, what's the slowest, coolest, least noisy video card I can buy that
will do what needs to be done?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Brian

Not familiar with your card but heres what ATI say about video card
requirement.
"Graphics card with 64MB or greater of frame buffer and Microsoft DirectX
9.0 support "

 

[Brian]

"Bother!", said Pooh, as he read J. Clarke's latest post to
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati.

I think you're kind of on your own since you've got the new board on the
block. FWIW, with the Dvico boards the Radeon 8500 works fine, but so does
the Geforce 4MX. It could be that that onboard video is not quite a
Geforce 4MX--onboard video is always suspect--or it could be that ATI
didn't test the HDTV Wonder with the competition's board.

If the HDTV Wonder _needs_ a board with DirectX 9 acceleration, those boards
are the ATI Radeon 9500 and higher and the Geforce FX5200 and higher.

Followup question, does anyone know if the GeForce MX 4000 supports DX 9?
One site said yes, one site said no, and I couldn't even find the dang
thing on nVidia's site.

Brian

 

[patrickp]

"Bother!", said Pooh, as he read J. Clarke's latest post to
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati.


Followup question, does anyone know if the GeForce MX 4000 supports DX 9?
One site said yes, one site said no, and I couldn't even find the dang
thing on nVidia's site.

Brian

Wrong group to ask, m8! Try alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia! ;-)

patrickp

(e-mail address removed) - take five to email me

 

[J. Clarke]

"Bother!", said Pooh, as he read J. Clarke's latest post to
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati.


Followup question, does anyone know if the GeForce MX 4000 supports DX 9?
One site said yes, one site said no, and I couldn't even find the dang
thing on nVidia's site.

You have to define your terms. The only boards that have special features
to support DirectX 9 are the ATI Radeon 9500 and higher and the Geforce
FX5200 and higher. 4000 is less than 5200 therefore there are no special
features to support DirectX 9.

However, DirectX 9 runs fine on boards that do not have those special
features, it just runs more slowly and the effects produced by any missing
features that are not implemented in software simply don't show up. It
runs fine on the Matrox boards that have no special hardware to support
_any_ version of DirectX for example.

So what do _you_ mean by "support"? Do you mean "accelerates the new
features" or do you mean "runs stably"?

 

[Sharanga Dayananda]

The GF4 MX is a DX 7 card.

 

[Brian]

"Bother!", said Pooh, as he read J. Clarke's latest post to
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati.

You have to define your terms. The only boards that have special features
to support DirectX 9 are the ATI Radeon 9500 and higher and the Geforce
FX5200 and higher. 4000 is less than 5200 therefore there are no special
features to support DirectX 9.

However, DirectX 9 runs fine on boards that do not have those special
features, it just runs more slowly and the effects produced by any missing
features that are not implemented in software simply don't show up. It
runs fine on the Matrox boards that have no special hardware to support
_any_ version of DirectX for example.

So what do _you_ mean by "support"? Do you mean "accelerates the new
features" or do you mean "runs stably"?

I mean whatever ATI means when they write "DirectX 9 support" in the
sysreqs for the HDTV Wonder. So I don't really know what I mean, because
they weren't all that clear in the first place. Which is why I'm in all
this trouble in the first place, really.

Brian

 

[J. Clarke]

"Bother!", said Pooh, as he read J. Clarke's latest post to
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati.


I mean whatever ATI means when they write "DirectX 9 support" in the
sysreqs for the HDTV Wonder. So I don't really know what I mean, because
they weren't all that clear in the first place. Which is why I'm in all
this trouble in the first place, really.

That's a problem--they don't say what they need. Personally I'd stick a
9600 or better in the thing and see what happened.

 

[Brian]

"Bother!", said Pooh, as he read J. Clarke's latest post to
alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati.

That's a problem--they don't say what they need. Personally I'd stick a
9600 or better in the thing and see what happened.

Bought a 9600 this morning. Installed that. And, with the usual minor
glitches, I have a DTV signal. So it appears that it does need DX9 full
hardware support. Now it's telling me I don't have the right DirectX
version, because I upgraded to 9.0c, but it runs anyways.

Thanks for your help.

Brian

 

[Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX]

I have a DVICO Fusion II board - not the current model.
The analog portion is so compatible that I had to pull
the DVICO when installing the software for an ATI 9600.
The DVICO analog TV tuner is mono. The DVICO seems more
tolerant of old VHS tapes and other forms of partially
mutilated video.

For HDTV the DVICO requires a fast P4 or newer ATI
boards with an MPEG2 decoder. It worked fine with a
2.4 P4 and AIW 7500.

As I write this I am downloading the latest DVICO software
which is supposed to record digital directly to MPEG. It
would be nice to capture Star Trek Enterprise to a reasonably
sized MPEG file.