So I decided I wanted to update my TV Capture card. I use it only for one thing – to capture my camera for live streaming. I don’t care about remote controls, I only care that it had an antenna and S-Video input. I got a deal on an ATI Theatre 550 capture card – which is a PCI Express card – And should push the video better than my old Hauppage card I bought years ago.
I have yet to be impressed.
Let’s start out in saying I stopped buying ATI years ago because their video has always had problems. I had an ATI Rage 128 card and the performance never hit what I expected. I ended switching up to NVidia graphics cards and never looked back. NVidia has some solid hardware and software that has never really failed me.
But my last ATI card I bought was years ago. Maybe things changed – ATI was bought out by AMD, new technologies and advancements could make things better. It didn’t.
I got the card yesterday. I need to preface this by saying it is a OEM card. I was able to download and install the main drivers. However, the other software wouldn’t install. It kept telling me I need a specific piece of software.
I went to the webpage and scoured for software. The pages took me from ATI pages to AMD pages and back. When I finally got frustrated, I found the customer support phone number. Only thing was it is AMD’s support, not ATI. I called the number and AMD said that there was another phone number, but it wasn’t on the website. He gave me the number and said that they were on the East Coast and are closed for the day.
This morning I called to find out what I can do. Instantly after I mentioned the card the support agent goes “This is an OEM version”. He then told me that ATI doesn’t support and there is no way to tell me who I can get the drivers from.
I was floored. Not the fact about the OEM part – OEM items are sold to companies like Dell to put in their machines. There is usually no support from the main company. I WAS floored that he couldn’t turn me in the right direction.
What is more annoying is in this day and age software and drivers don’t take up much webspace and could easily be cataloged for customers. So what if it’s OEM? Put it all on one FTP site.
I did download some free software that lets me tune into my video feed. When I went to broadcast, the video was latent. When I spoke, the audio came through first, then 2 seconds later the video pushed through.
The funny part is after this guy pretty much locked up his stance on the card, I said “Ya know, I stopped using ATI years ago because of quality and support. I guess things haven’t changed”. He replied with “Thank you.” We ended the call there.
I took a chance at getting an OEM card. Granted, I didn’t spend that much, however, when I ever bought other OEM cards I have always been able to find drivers and software and never had a problem. I am switching back to the old card and taking that ATI card back.
I just picked up one of my first non-OEM cards in a while — a BFG Nvidia GTX 260OC (216core). I’m not real happy yet — some have said I should have gone for the ATI 4760 or something similar.
So far had nothing but problems — from not enough native PCIE extra internal power adapters (this card takes two 6-pin, the 280 would have taken 1 8-pin+1 6-pin; my previous card, a Quadro (512MB) line, took 1 6-pin). My power supply was fine (750W), but didn’t have the right connectors coming initially.
Now, I’m waiting on a replacement card (another week delay) from BFG — to test against the problem I’m having — which appears to be an Nvidia driver problem. Unfortunately, NVidia has no place for feedback on their drivers unless you are running VISTA. But I think it was the Vista-ization of the XP drivers that’s causing my display problem — namely only a 1080p image is visible in a 1920×1200 display — with the desktop taking the full 1920×1200, but the card is displaying only a 1080p sized image centered in the display and the edge of the desktop all around is blacked out — roughly a half an inch top and bottom and about 3/4″ on the sides.
Before I loaded the Nvidia drivers, with the card running as an unknown VGA-compatible, it would display a full 1920×1600 desktop (but unaccelerated) — loading Nvidia drivers then chopped off the edge of the desktop all the way around the edge. The problem seems to be related to my using a DVI->HDMI cable (that comes with the monitor) or a DVI->HDMI adapter (that comes with the card). Another monitor from another computer at 1600×1200 with DVI works, but my current monitor (Viewsonic) only has an HDMI input (+VGA+SVGA). But the tech at BFG thinks that the card is sensing the use of the HDMI cable and is chopping off the part of the image over 1080p because HDMI apparently is speced to a max 1080p, so the driver, as part of its DRM-control is downgrading the image to 1080p and cutting off what it thinks should be an “overage” (even though the hardware is syncing to a 1920×1200 monitor).
But BFG knows nothing about the driver code and Nvidia doesn’t support do support for their chips — they just provide the driver. So at this point am caught between Nvidia and BFG for support, and Nvidia and Viewsonic for having incompatible card->driver->monitor standards over the DVI->HDMI cable (even though it worked with the previous, non-Vista, Nvidia Quadro driver).
The three BFG tech’s I’ve talked to so far don’t know what to do for debugging beyond replacing the card — since I have the latest drivers for everything else. They are suggesting either my motherboard manufacturer (Dell), or monitor-vendor (Viewsonic) need to supply updated drivers to work with the card — but there are none and the Viewsonic person almost couldn’t stop laughing at the idea of it being a ‘monitor’ driver ‘bug’…(and Dell hasn’t produced any new drivers for my sys in a year).
Stupidest situation — everyone is pointing fingers, but Nvidia who owns the drivers doesn’t support them. Great work guys!
Am suprised no one else has run into this with the previous 260 or 280, unless it is specific to the 216 core 260. Either way, I hate getting caught between vendors who aren’t talking and Nvidia who’s implementing DRM for Vista to downres display’s if it detect “improper hardware hookups” — which the BFG tech would like me to believe “is normal” — even though the 896MB GTX 260+ is easily supposed to handle 1920×1200 and supposed to use HDMI transparently as a substitute for DVIDVI connections.
Right now it’s looking to me like DRM related code run-amok. *sigh*