My new GeForce/MX card experience

After a long long time of using my favorite ATI AiW 128 , it was about time to change for something better , mostly because of the poor gaming power . I decided to buy Asus V9180 VS . It's a Geforce4 / MX 440 card with Video-In / Out . Due to it's "MX" series , the card is much cheaper than others using "Ti" series not having Video-In . You can also find many competitive (cheaper) "Geforce4 / MX 440 card w Video-In" solutions out there . There was no reason for switching from ATI to nVidia other than the market price (there wasn't any close Randeon competitor at this time) .

My first shock wasn't too far: None of my familiar capturing programs was working OK !. The reason is that nVidia does not support VFW capturing method anymore . This is the protocol most familiar programs use: VirtualDub , Vidcap32 e.t.c . I was prepared for the problem but not for the absence of solutions . Even the newer drivers of my old ATI AiW does not support VFW anymore , that's why I was still using it's older ones . I also saw the same problem one year ago in my friend's PC , using a similar Asus 8xxx card but didn't tried to find a solution . Now it's the time !.

Ulead Media Studio 6.5 recognized the card under WDM (Direct Show) mode , but I couldn't use any video compression , so my favorite capturing program program was useless . The card was coming with a cool video capturing program "Asus VCR" , but you cannot make serious work there : The program does not support AVI codecs , Mpeg1-2 compression was awful even at 6.000 Kbps (!!) , no indication of frame loss , no multi-segment solution . Anyway I still use it today as fast media player . The integrated solution I had for my previous ATI AiW (Ati Media Center) was much better although it is existing for more than 4 years .

After some search I found some new VFWWDM (VFW to WDM wrapper) updates for Win98 , so finally some (not all) familiar video grabbers worked , but none as I would like : Virtualdub was loosing frames even at 352x288 (25 fps with PIC Mjpec codec) so VFWWDM way is really useless .

Finally the solution to my frustration came from one and only program : iuVCR . The program was known to me a long time ago but it didn't work with ATI AiW . With my new card works really great . With my Celeron/900 I grab at 640x480 using Pic Mjpec or Huffyuv codec . I prefer the second one if I have a lot of space . Capturing with iuVCR is like a piece of cake , since it remembers all required settings . Moreover it can save profiles , disables Screensaver , handles multi segment capture . etc . 

The only problem I face so far is that multi segment files cannot be loaded to Virtualdub . Haven't found the solution yet .

Concerning hardware , Video-In is much more clear in this card . Colours looks more vivid , just as they look in my TV screen and even better , color adjustments works better . Hopefully Huffyuv acts slightly faster than PIC Mjpeg , so i prefer this loseless codec when I have a lot of HD space , making my results even more clearer than before . 

Concerning playing , color adjustments works better with most media players , and there is also an obvious improvement in DivX & Mpeg playing . 

My disappointment is that I my PC does not have the power to grab at 720x578 , while the same CPU had no problem working with ATI , capturing at 720x576 without any overclock . Can't put the blame on hardware since we are talking about a different protocol (WDM) with a different capturing application (iuVCR) , so the loss might be - or might be not - somewhere there . You can't have it all anyway . It could be worse than this !. So if you want to use such card a PIV / 2.4 G is strongly recommended for 2 reasons: 1) To capture @ 720x576 , 2) To install WinXP in order to use single-file captures (multi-segment does not work OK with iuVcr ) .

Lately I tried to find the latest capture software . My Asus card also came with Cyberlink PowerDirector 2.5 . It's a really cool piece of linear video editing software like Ulead UVS  but didn't work as I would . Capturing module didn't worked for .avi (probably some conflicts with some installed codecs) . Also there is no frame loss report .

I also tried the brand new Ulead Media Studio 7 . This version seems that can grab OK @ 720x576 but I'm not sure because the capture in trial version last a few seconds . Conclusions:  1) I have to find the full version to test it extensively , 2) Still doesn't solve the multi-segment problem . 

I also found a new version of Amcap . This version can handle audio & video codecs & time limit . Works OK but again misses some frames at 640x480 .

As far as I can see , Pinnacle Studio 8 , seems that can also handle video codecs and multi-segment files , but I have to find the full version to be sure .

Conclusion: Most of latest video capturing software , does recognize and work OK with this card , but NOT with my CPU ! ...

So it's time to consider about a nice upgrade ... I suppose even a cheap Celeron / 2Ghz with WinXP will not have any frame loss problem , and I will avoid the multi-segment headache whatever program I use (due to WinXP OS) .

Still searching for more software ... I'll be back when I have some news !.

Win98 Troubleshooting:

After the installation of my new card I observed 2 weird things :

1) My Ms-Dos Greek character fonts wasn't working in Fullscreen window or pure Ms-Dos . Nothing wrong in my autoexec.bat & config.sys . I had to remove Microsoft's settings and use my old Greek character fonts utilities .

2) Two or three days after installing the card , Win98 did not boot at all displaying a Protection Error like message . I was too frustrated . Finally the cure came by enabling the "Memory Hole at 15-16M" setting from BIOS . Don't know yet if the problem came from the graphics card or sound card or whatever , but I do know that it came some days after installing the new card . Strange but I also notice better graphics performance after the change .

Celeron/2G + WinXP = ... the absolute solution !!

So I did it !. I made a cool upgrade buying a Celeron/2G , Asus P4S8x-x , 256MB RAM / 333 . As you can see this is the minimum / cheapest configuration you can buy today !. After installing WinXP & making all required installations I tried the same capturing tests . I was shocked : A totally GREAT performance ... This machine was grabbing @ 720x576 using PIC Mjepg or Huffyuv video codec working at 30% CPU load !! . This machine captured video @ 640x480 using DivX 5.05 & mp3 ... unbelievable ... and it's only a Celeron ... w 256 MB Ram !.

After these results I wanted to find out if the software (WinXP) or the new hardware was responsible for this great performance . So I installed WinXP to my previous machine and made all capturing actions . Unfortunately - as expected - the performance was worst than with Win98SE . 

NTFS works really good . iuVCR and all similar programs I've tested has no problems making .avi's beyond 4GB . So multi-segment can be avoided (together with many headaches !) .

So ... most machines today will not face any problems since they all have this CPU power and all comes with WinXP . But if you have anything slower you must consider upgrading your PC  .

Regards
Michael