Video Card

Video cards are often a source of problems in computer systems. Here are the answers to some of the most common questions. We welcome your questions on hardware and computers in our forums.

Is AGP 8x faster?

Q: Is AGP 8x significantly faster than AGP 4x?

A: According to this review, no. However, it does offer certain advantages, including support for multiple AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) ports with multiple AGP devices per port. Future games and applications may take advantage of AGP 8X’s extra bandwidth, but currently, there is little reason not to choose AGP 4x (possibly with a dual-head card such as the Radeon 9700), if you simply want to run one or two AGP-accelerated displays with superb performance.  Slashdot readers offer additional commentary.

Can I add a Voodoo card?

Q: I'm considering buying a (used) Matrox Marvel G200 video board for graphics work and, well, it's a little slow in the 3-D department. I would like to know which accelerator chip sets are compatible.  I heard that Voodoo 3Dfx is.  Are other boards, such as the Nvidia GeForce and ATI Radeon also compatible with Matrox?

A: The Voodoo and Voodoo2 are "add-on" cards that are indeed compatible with the Matrox G200 (and all the others you mention).   The others are all graphics chips used exclusively as components of "2D/3D" combo cards that replace the need for a G200 entirely. You would only buy both if you wanted to run two monitors at the same time.   Incidentally, I used a Matrox G200-TV and a Voodoo2 combo for several years and I was very happy with the combo. The G200 was excellent for 2D work; the Voodoo sped up 3D games (only) fairly well -- albeit not as well as almost any accelerator you can buy new today. These days, if you are considering getting a Voodoo add-on and a multimedia graphics board/capture card, you might be better off with an all-in-one card such as one of the ATI All in Wonder Radeon series models.

Is it the Monitor or Video Card?

Q: I know that I want a 21" monitor with lots of resolution (I know what that is). My question is: what do I need to get the best resolution possible? I know it has something to do with RAM something or the other (I am clueless here). There is also another thing that I've heard mentioned several times: "acceleration" (?)

A: There are several issues here. If you get a 21" monitor, the key points that lead to overall display quality are resolution, refresh rate (the number of times per sec. the image is updated), and dot pitch -- the size of the individual picture elements. The quality of the input signal is also important. Running a video signal through a cheap KVM ("keyboard/video/mouse") switchbox can make a superior quality monitor look like junk, as can a poor quality graphics card or cheapo cable. Generally, the better the "RAMDACs" on the graphics card, the better the signal on the monitor will look. Matrox and ATI are generally regarded as having the best RAMDACs; many "generic" brand cards are very weak in this regard.

There are other issues of course, such as color fidelity and controls, etc., but these are the top issues. Part of the situation is the fact that the monitor alone isn't responsible for defining the resolution and refresh rate of the images it displays. These are factors also dependent on the video card, sometimes referred to as a graphics accelerator.

A good 21-inch monitor is fairly expensive. However, the following 19-inch models were Editors' Choice award winners from PC Magazine:

iiyama VisionMaster Pro 450
Nokia 446Xpro
Optiquest V95

The 21-inch models from these companies are also of good quality. Monitors from NEC and Eizo-Nanao also rated highly in their tests.

Monitor or Video Card - part deux

Q: We recently bought a new computer system from a custom-build outfit in Chilliwack. We live in Boston Bar, and hoped for a hassle-free PC system because there's no in-house service available for here. Hassle free it ain't, but problems are being worked out. I wouldn't even recommend this outfit to the enemy! I don't know where to go with this problem ... I already mentioned it to the builder and they seem clueless as to its existence, or like to say we did something, or it's the power (although it's running through a Back-up UPS unit). There's no end to their excuses...

I asked for a reasonably good video card with extra video ram to run my BIG 21" ViewSonic PT813 monitor. I got an ATI Rage 128 Pro graphics card with 16 MB of onboard RAM. That's fine, but it didn't like the big monitor at all and there was no compatible monitor-type on the list, so I gave up with that for now and am running it with a Sony 15" Multiscan sx. Everything seems fine, BUT the display is *tilted*. The upper left portion dips down quite noticeably and the bottom right curves up. Since I do a lot of graphic applications, I find these curved lines top and bottom really annoying, and have never seen that with other computers. The ViewSonic has adjustments for tilt, but the Sony doesn't, as far as I can tell.

My question is, is this caused by the video card (I could contact ATI) or by some other hardware fault? (Both monitors display normally with our other computer, a Pentium 150, with various video cards like Millennium Matrox, etc.)

Hope you can help! Thanks,
(Mrs.) Vini Wronski
Boston Bar, BC

A: Generally, such geometry problems are produced by the monitor's circuitry and can usually be resolved by accessing an on-screen setup menu (which caries from brand to brand). However, the fact that the video card can function at different frequencies can also cause display anomalies. Your monitor may look perfect at 1024 x 768, for example, but may have a "bow tie" distortion effect at higher or lower resolutions. The monitor may not automatically be set to the optimal refresh rate, either. (In fact, it seldom is.) The ATI software driver can be set to adjust the refresh rate. On Microsoft operating systems, it is an option in the "Advanced" options listed in the Display control panel.

Most Sony monitors I've seen have a Geometry adjustment option built in. See the manual for details on how to adjust this (on the Sony MultiScan 15 monitor, it is labeled "GEOM").

Sorry to hear that the ATI card caused you problems with your big monitor. On one of the other systems at my office, I have a fairly big monitor connected to a similar ATI graphics card and have had no problems at all. With that said, the ATI Rage 128 Pro is by no means "State of the art" any more; today's best cards come with up to 128 MB of onboard memory, and offer dramatically faster 3-D performance. In your case, however, that may not matter.

Since you use the computer for graphics, you should set your driver to display the maximum number of colors and as high a resolution as you can comfortably view. You will also want to calibrate your colour, to ensure accurate display of the images you scan and/or print..

If you don't play too many games, you will be happy with this ATI card, which tends to be a good "general purpose" card. I really enjoy my ATI "All in Wonder 128" card, which gives me video capture, TV display and DVD playback features (and several other functions). It's detailed at www.ati.com.

Viewing Video on Computer

Q: I would like to know what I need in order to plug in a normal video tape deck into my computer (an older Pentium 200 MMX) 32M ram. to watch movies on my monitor. We don't have a TV but would like to do it through the computer and I heard that it can be done. Do I need to purchase some special software or hardware to add to the computer ?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help.
Bill Campbell

A: There are several ways to view movies on your computer. You can buy a DVD drive and MPEG-2 accelerator card for your PC from companies such as Creative Labs or Sigma Designs. Then, you can buy (or rent) DVD movies on disc and play them with stunning video and audio quality on your computer's screen. These kits cost a few hundred dollars.

See our report on DVD for more info.

If, however, you want to watch videos from your existing video cassette deck or a standard video camera, you need only a video capture card or a graphics card with video playthrough, such as one of the ATI All In Wonder series of cards.

These cards don't need to actually record the data onto your computer's disk drive, although they can do that too. In passthrough mode, the All in Wonder (128/Radeon/Radeon 8500, etc.) simply displays the video in a window on your screen (including full screen and zoom modes). You can continue to work on other programs and can even capture close-captioning text as a word processor file from the video signal.

If you only want to capture video (record it to your hard disk), you can use an analog or digital video capture card, available at almost any computer retailer. Typically, these cards come with video editing software. All but the lowest quality cards should be able to capture and play back 30 frames a second of decent (i.e., quarter-screen MPEG-1) quality video on your Pentium system. If, however, you want to capture better quality video at, say, DVD quality (704x480 or thereabouts), you will need a faster computer, or at the very least, an analog-to-digital video converter box -- and a great big hard drive.  Higher priced products, such as those detailed in our digital video report at http://www.itnetcentral.com/tech/video-editing-solutions-397.html can produce even higher quality results, although "true" broadcast quality will still set you back several thousand. At least.

Windows XP further extends the video prowess of the PC. Various third-party packages offer their own nifty tricks as data broadcasts sent during the vertical blank phase of a standard TV broadcast, and the ability to search for shows you are interested in or have the computer remind you when your favorite shows are on, using an online TV guide. If compatibility is important to you, the ATI All in Wonder series of cards tends to be the best supported. They even run as a "WebTV" compatible video card in Windows 98.