Customer Reviews

ATI Technologies Inc. All In Wonder 128 PCI 16MB

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Not so long ago, the All in Wonder was a kind of devil's advocate choice. You bought 'em cause they were a Microsoft Partner, fully integrated with Windows 98. Or you bought 'em cause you didn't have that many PCI slots left, and you needed to get a lot of different functions out of a single slot. Or maybe you bought them cause they were the only name you knew when shopping for a TV card.

But you paid for these compromises. The original versions of this card (pre-Rage 128 chip) had nothing very exciting under the game-playing hood. The DVD control was minimal. And the video capture was barely servicable.

But now the card has been newly fitted with a Rage 128 engine and beefed up video-handling abilities--not to mention the more respectable 16mb memory. Finally, ATI has produced a card which approaches the concept promise of the All-In-Wonder.

With this card, or its even cooler 32mb sister, you'll get a fully competitive 3D engine. For all but the game warrior with a huge monitor set at very high levels of resolution, this is all that you'll need to play the vast majority of 3D-accelerator-necessary games currently on the market. And if you are a 3D junkie, you can piggyback some 3D-only accelerators onto this card, enhancing your performance further. ATI's excellent website gives great after-sale support by providing updated drivers to keep your D3D- and Glide-enabled games running at peak performance. True, this won't accelerate 3Dfx-only games, but such creatures are few and far between. I used to own a 3Dfx card, and so bought games to be enhanced by it--but now all those games are still running in fine 3D detail on this non-3dfx card.

The DVD hardware support, while not the more total solution that say Creative's DX3 dedicated card might provide, gives a substantial, immediately noticable improvement over using software-only DVD players. If you're still using the Zoran software that came bundled with your computer, you're missing out on a much more fully-functional experience that hardware support can offer. One of the best things about this card is it's ability to scale the DVD playback to virtually any window size. Most software-only players don't have that flexibility, so there's no way to get work done while watching a DVD. Fortunately, the additional hardware support of this card not only allows that scalability, it takes some of the pressure off the CPU and lets you do some work while you watch. Granted, a dedicated card would be even better, but as you don't have to give up an extra slot to gain measurable performance increases, the All-In-Wonder DVD features are an attractive part of the card.

Perhaps some of the best features of the card, though, are related to video playback and capture. I've owned three different TV cards (my others were by STB and AverMedia), and this one by far provides the sharpest video. It also has the most feature-rich settings. Video capture is impressive, though still somewhat amateurish. It's more than adequate for most web uses, but in no way compares to what, say, a Macintosh could do. Its capabilities are best described as perfect for the individual who wants to publish video content to the Web, but has no ambition to broadcast or to archive for historical purposes. In other words, it's probably not the option for producing video of a wedding to be cherished for years to come, but it's excellent for publishing video of the reception on your family's website for all those who couldn't make it to the wedding.

What's most exciting about the video editing features are that ATI's website gives excellent anecdotal support. They have a whole section devoted to the most creative uses of the card, along with step-by-step instructions on how to replicate the recommendations.

The one aspect of the card that doesn't really work well is the one thing for which it's arguably most famous. If you use Windows 98, you'll probably have noticed the WebTV for Windows component, and how ATI had a lock on total support from Microsoft. Not so many months ago, it used to be this was the only card which you could use with WebTV for Windows right out of the box. But after using it, it's hardly a selling point. WebTV for Windows is a pretty useless feature, no more useful (at the moment) than simply surfing to TVGuide.

Still, this is a truly versatile tool, which gives excellent value for money. No longer a kind of toy for those desperately looking for a "silver bullet" solution to multimedia, the All-In-Wonder 128 is a genuine solution for each of its functionalities. Its 32MB sister is almost certainly worth the extra money, but even in its current form, it's a purchase that all but the most demanding power users will be happy with.

This product by ATI is a great one. We bought it in order to be able to place video on the internet.

What I did not know was that the card allows you to look at TV while using your computer. You can connect either rabbit-ears or a cable from your cable or satellite provider into the system and view everything crystal clear.

One note of caution however is that you should not try to install this product if you are not hardware literate.

I had a person who builds computers and they had a hard time in getting the images and sounds from the camcorder into the computer at the same time.

It took some time to get everything to work, but it was indeed worth the effort.

4 months ago, when I got the money to buy a new graphics card, I noticed that my PC had no AGP slot. I had originally searched for an agp graphics card that had an s-video out so I could hook my PC up to my TV. After a while I found the Ati All-in-Wonder 128 PCI. I was certainly pleased with the Rage 128 chip. The DVD looked alot better and never started to stop every time in order to load the next hour of the movie. The S-Video out worked well but was slow paced because you had turn off your PC, plug-in the S-Video cable, and turn your PC back on. Installation was easy. The last little problem was that the card would over heat and slow down, but I quickly fixed that by allowing more air to flow over the card. Over all, the card has great 2D, exellent 3D, and easy setup.

I had this card installed and running an hour after I got it. The instructions are so easy to follow that a relative novice (myself) can install the card. I haven't had any problems using any of the features so far and it hasn't crashed my system at all. I am using an AMD Athlon Processor with 256MB of RAM.

I purchased the ATI All-in-Wonder 128 PCI card today, for over $170. This product is near garbage. As far as I have tested, this card only works on Windows 98. I tried it on Windows 2000, with no luck. You can download drivers for Win2000 on the ATI website, but plugging in the card into your machine causes Win2k to freeze. I tried cold booting my Win2k partition with the card installed and it froze on bootup, I tried putting the card in while Win2k was running and it froze. You can't install the driver without the card installed, therefore making it impossible for Win2k to even recognize the card without freezing. I haven't tested ME yet, however I'm sure it will yield the same devastating results - ATI is producing products that are compatible only with outdated operating systems.

This graphics card may work on Windows 98, but only after many many restarts and horrible instructions. The software included with this package is horrible. The graphically rich environment looks like trash, and very often gets in the way. The "Ulead Videostudio" is a cheap program that allows very little "editing"

Also, the "TV out", when displayed on a 27 inch/SVIDEO capable TV, is nearly unusable. The picture is extremely blurry, making it impossible to just read text. Even after setting the resolution to 640x480 and enlarging the text, the display was barely readable.

Overall, this is a horrible buy.

I bought this card with a little uneasy feeling from the reviews I read. However, the sale price and the functions of it were hard to ignore so I tried it anyway. After I snapped the card in and started to install driver, it surprised me with no error at all. All my games looked crisp. The usual crashes which I suspected from using the shared memory disappeared. Attaching the antena and viewing TV from my monitor made my comp suddenly look cool. Connect it to my TV set and watch VCDs with bigger screen made it look more cool. Haven't tried DVD & Video Editing function yet but I am very please about it. A very versatile card I must admit. And a very lucky man I am (no installation problem at all). FYI, I use Win98SE that may be the reason.

If you enjoy paying [money]for something that does absolutely nothing, buy this card. I'm a PC technician, and I've spent at least 4 hours, nearly every day for the last year, trying to get this stupid thing to work. But it never has.

Whenever I try to use the TV feature, my system locks and I have to shut it off and restart it. So, basically the card is useless.

I've contacted ATI over 20 times, and every time I contacted them they took AT LEAST A WEEK to respond. On top of all that they usually gave me things to try that either; they had already given me, or I told them I had already tried. I've never seen worse tech support!

Pretty much all ATI's Tech support has told me, is if I had installed their software "correctly" I shouldn't be having any problems like this.

I've reformatted my hard drive over 100 times (seriously) trying various drivers and configurations, but I have never once got this dang thing to work. PLEASE DON'T BUY THIS CARD!

This is a great product from ATI. The instructions for installing, using, and so on are outstanding, as well as the product :)

I bought the card and started to build my computer. I had some experience of upgrading a computer but this is the first time I build a computer from scratch. Every thing went on smoothly and the card worked very well. I'm using Athlon XP 1600 CPU with 256 MB of DDR SDRAM, Windows 98.

There are things ATI needs to make some improvement. The DVD player doesn't have the slow motion function; Sound quality from File Player or TV On Demand is distorted; The fast forward and backward on the File Player doesn't work well and I don't have a way to edit the recorded file. Maybe I don't have the updated driver, I couldn't find it from ATI website. If anyone has the information, please e-mail me.

Even though there is room for improvement, this is a great product and I'm glad that I bought this card.

I Recommend A Different Brand Besides ATI. I Own 3 ATI Products, [2 video cards, 1 tv card] All Of Which Are Sitting In A Drawer After Only HOURS Of Use. If You Plan To Play Games, Watch DVDs, Or Watch TV On Your PC, You Will Be Dissapointed By ATI Products. For Your TV Needs, I Recommend Pinnacle's Studio PCTV--Works Great, 1/2 The Price Of ATI's TV Wonder. For Your DVD Playing Needs I Recommend Any Creative Labs Video Card. For Constantly Rebooting, And Waiting 14 Days For A Useless Response From Tech Support I Recommend ATI.