What's with my video card!!

On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:07:01 +0000, Benjamin Gawert
wrote:



It seems like, if I get a video card
with S-video out, it would be pretty simple compared to all the
adapters etc. I'd need to use anything better.

http://www.cablesnmor.com/qo-s-video-cables.aspx had 100 foot S-video
for 24.50 although they won't tell me what the shipping charge is
unless I give them my name etc.

I can tell you that the signal that comes out after 100ft of cable will
look like crap. As with most analogue signals, neither CVBS nor Y/C get
any better when pushed over long cables. I wouldn't go over 10ft to
avoid degrading the usually already poor image quality that comes out of
most TV out ports.

Well, what might I do to get past this obstacle? The DVDR is almost
100 feet from the computer. If I run the cable straight down the
hall, in front of three doorways and a stairway, it's only 50 feet,
but that won't look very nice.

Benjamin

* mm:

I can tell you that the signal that comes out after 100ft of cable will
look like crap. As with most analogue signals, neither CVBS nor Y/C get
any better when pushed over long cables. I wouldn't go over 10ft to
avoid degrading the usually already poor image quality that comes out of
most TV out ports.

Well, what might I do to get past this obstacle? The DVDR is almost
100 feet from the computer. If I run the cable straight down the
hall, in front of three doorways and a stairway, it's only 50 feet,
but that won't look very nice.

There is not much you can do. 50ft is still way too much to avoid the
signal look like crap. You can use one of the wireless video
transmitters to avoid the cable, however the resulting image quality
usually looks like crap as well.

The only way to avoid that is to bring DVDR and TV closer together.

Benjamin

On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:04:46 -0500, mm
wrote:

I'd appreciate some help on video cards.

I currently have an ATI Technologies 3D Rage II+ PCI video card with 4
Meg memory,


I stopped reading at this and died a little inside.

p

--
The Zero ST

In article , Craig Coope wrote:
On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:04:46 -0500, mm
wrote:

I'd appreciate some help on video cards.

I currently have an ATI Technologies 3D Rage II+ PCI video card with 4
Meg memory,


I stopped reading at this and died a little inside.

p

At one time, that card was top of the line LOL!!!!

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
... The ATI Rage Pro/Rage II series was already crap when they were
new. There really is no reason to waste any time with such a card.

The Rage Pro was a decent 3D card for the time. Maybe not the fastest,
but the one of the first single card solutions available back then.
The original poster's ATI Rage II+ however is total crap as far as 3D
performance goes. Even on the processors of the day, software rendering
was faster.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //

* Ross Ridge:

The Rage Pro was a decent 3D card for the time.

Can't confirm that. I had a few Rage Pro (and Rage II) cards (one AIW
version is still laying around somewhere), and while the performance was
good compared with other 3D GPUs of those days (Nvidia Riva128, 3DLabs
Permedia2, S3 Trio3D/ViRGE), the drivers were just crap. The ****ty
drivers for Rage Pro and Rage II series cards were the main reason why
even today ATI is stuck with a reputation for bad drivers.

The original poster's ATI Rage II+ however is total crap as far as 3D
performance goes. Even on the processors of the day, software rendering
was faster.

That is not correct. Performance wasn't an issue with the Rage II series
cards, and software rendering was much slower than what this GPU could
do. BTTT many times.

Benjamin

On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:53:25 +0000, Craig Coope
wrote:

On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:04:46 -0500, mm
wrote:

I'd appreciate some help on video cards.

I currently have an ATI Technologies 3D Rage II+ PCI video card with 4
Meg memory,


I stopped reading at this and died a little inside.

Come'on. Don't be silly. Everything works fine except google earth.

And I never wanted to use google earth until last week.

Maybe if I played video games this card wouldnt' have been enough, but
I don't.

p

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
Can't confirm that. I had a few Rage Pro (and Rage II) cards (one AIW
version is still laying around somewhere), and while the performance was
good compared with other 3D GPUs of those days (Nvidia Riva128, 3DLabs
Permedia2, S3 Trio3D/ViRGE), the drivers were just crap. The ****ty
drivers for Rage Pro and Rage II series cards were the main reason why
even today ATI is stuck with a reputation for bad drivers.

I only have a Rage II+, but I had no problem with its drivers.

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
That is not correct. Performance wasn't an issue with the Rage II series
cards, and software rendering was much slower than what this GPU could
do. BTTT many times.

No, I can confirm it's true. I got better frame rates using software
rendering. You might be thinking of the Rage IIC which actually based
on the Rage Pro chip. The Rage II+ (and any earlier "3D" ATI cards) were
not considered useful 3D accelerators by gamers at the time. The Rage Pro
was the first 3D card that ATI made that was taken seriously by gamers.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //

On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:20:17 -0500, mm
wrote:

On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:53:25 +0000, Craig Coope
wrote:

On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:04:46 -0500, mm
wrote:

I'd appreciate some help on video cards.

I currently have an ATI Technologies 3D Rage II+ PCI video card with 4
Meg memory,


I stopped reading at this and died a little inside.

Come'on. Don't be silly. Everything works fine except google earth.

Please don't take "silly" as an insult. I got carried away.

And I never wanted to use google earth until last week.

Maybe if I played video games this card wouldnt' have been enough, but
I don't.

p

"Benjamin Gawert" wrote in message
...
* mm:

I currently have an ATI Technologies 3D Rage II+ PCI video card with 4
Meg memory, and I think I need to upgrade it but I'd like to
understand my computer and I'd like to understand why.

I've installed Google Earth under WinXP SP3, and I ran DXDiag.exe and
under the display page, it says that Direct3D Acceleration is not
available. Yet "3D" appears in the name of the card. Isn't that what
Google Earth wants? What am I missing?

You are missing that your 12(!) years old graphics card is just
rudimentarily supported in Windowsxp. Yes, the 3D Rage II+ supports 3D
acceleration but it was made when Windows95 and WindowsNT were current.
It does support OpenGL 1.x, and it does support DirectX 3 and 5, both
which are really ancient by today's standards. The ATI Rage Pro/Rage II
series was already crap when they were new. There really is no reason to
waste any time with such a card.

Not only requires Google Earth somewhat more modern APIs (IIRC it
requires DirectX 9 or OpenGL 2.x), even if it would run on your old Rage
II+ it would perform like crap (more like a very slow slide show with
low details).

Save yourself the hazzle, take say five bucks and buy a better PCI
graphics card on ebay (i.e. ATI Radeon 7000 and newer or Nvidia Geforce
2 MX or newer) which are way faster, have better drivers available, and
run Google Earth at least somewhat decent.

However, I wonder when your card is already 12 years old how about the
rest of your computer. If it is similarly antique I would refrain from
the thought to be able to run modern applications like Google Earth on it.



I have been running an ATI All-in-Wonder Rage Pro 128 on antique Asus
motherboard, 256kRam, 233Mhz, with Win98 ever since Clinton was President
(or was it Bush the First?).
I use the video output to view streaming video or to view saved video files
on my large-screen TV set, downloaded from Italian television, since I spent
a long time in Italy, and there are thousands of programs archived on the
Italian national TV site, RAI.
http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/da_rivedere.html
If I try to watch the files streaming, my old system is too slow, and I get
a jerky video. But if I save the desired wmv files, using Windows Media
Recorder, and disable all unnecessary drivers, I am able to view the files
with good results on this old system.
Now I have inherited a Compaq Presario SR2020NX desktop, which has built-in
Nvidia NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Graphics.
I have a dual-boot system on the old Win 98 system, and occasionally boot
into XP for selected operations (very slow operations, to say the least),
but the video works fine in XP.
My question is whether the old Rage Pro 128 would work on this new system?
Would the antique Rage Pro 128 work under XP on this new system? Could I
just install the Ati card as a secondary monitor?
I guess I could just stick it in there and see what flies, but I would
rather have another input before I start fooling around.

Joe from Massachusetts
(AKA Slow from Massachusetts)