Personally, I would go for a Matrox Parhelia. The image quality is spectacular. There are faster cards on the market for doing games, but no other cards look as good. Also, Matrox's dual monitor drivers are very stable and have some great features. Matrox has more experience doing dual-monitors than anyone else.

John

I'd got for the ATI AIW 9800 with 128mb RAM (hasn't been released yet). Why? Because it has analog capability AND when Vegas is rendering I can play game w/o any slowdown. *inster manly grunt here*. Multiple monitors isn't a big deal to me (as i have no room) and the ATI AIW's support digital/analog monitors. I currently have a p3-667 with an ATI 8500 LE w/128mb, and my 3d acceleration compares to that of a p4-1.4 with an ATI 7500. :)

Friar, are you running Windows XP? And if so, do you have OpenGL support with that card?

I've got an ATI Rage PRO VIVO that used to support OpenGL under Windows 98SE, but when i upgraded to XP i lost the OpenGL and ATI pretty bluntly says they won't do anything about it unless i buy a newer card. Grrrrr. The 3D modeling software i run uses OpenGL for real-time rendering while editing the objects. It's very annoying to have to go back to wireframe mode.

Friar, did you try what you said? I mean rendering and playing 3D games at the same time? I don't play games but while I was rendering I look at the Task Manager and saw that my dual AMD XP2400 with 1Gig of RAM is hovering at 97% CPU utilization so I am sure it will take burden to a single computer as well. It will make it harder to play 3D games decently.

I'm running Gainward 750 XP Golden Sample
-nVidia Ti4600 near-reference design
-Two! DVI outputs, with DVI-to-Analog adapters included
-VIVO connection (video in, video out) for sending to bigscreen
-*guaranteed* overclockable (for the mad gaming sessions)
-bundled with an OHCI compliant 3-port PCI firewire card

These people know how to put a package together. Their newest GoldenSample is base on the FX5900. It unfortunately is *not* dual-DVI, but DVI*1 RGB*1. It also comes with the firewire card, and now they also bundle a 5.1 audio card. If my mobo supported AGP8x, I'd be upgrading right now ;) the 750 package has been one of the best units I've ever used.

Wildcat VP990 with a 21" flat pane NEC monitor, and an 18" flat panel Sony. Card supports open GL 2.0 (can't wait for Boris 3 plug in), and is all around a great card.

JTH

Chienworks,

Far as I know, ATI never made a Rage Pro VIVO (Video In, Video Out). The only VIVO model I am aware of is the Radeon 64 DDR VIVO. The made plenty of VO models (no VI) and there is always the All-in-Wonder series which includes a TV tuner along with a video input.

Of course, there could be an OEM Rage Pro VIVO I don't know about, but I pretty sure there was no retail VIVO model.

Anyway, there is a Rage Pro driver that supports OpenGL. I'm not surprised Customer Support didn't mention it to you since they seem to ignore any driver that isn't WHQL certified. The driver is on the following page under "Alternate" driver:



OpenGL has always been kinda flakey on the Rage Pro so no promises. Still, the Rage Pro is a nice card. Still have a whole bunch running in other computers.

I have 2 computers with ATI 7500s. The dual monitor output works great. One even has a second PCI ATI 7500 for a total of 4 outputs. I haven't tried the Geforce 4's yet, but I like ATI's software & drivers better then the dual monitor Geforce2 I had.

Ive seen numerous threads on this matter. Some swear your video card has no effect on rendering time and here it sounds like you are all boasting that it will.
I currently have an nVidia GeForce MX 2 with 64 MB RAM I seem to do alright but have considered upgrading to a 128 MB card would it be worth it? Will I see any significant change in rendering time?

Thanks

SM

ps running win XP with 512 DDR RAM and a Athlong XP 1600+ benchmarked equal to a P 4 - 2 GHz

Rendering has NOTHING to do with your video card, assuming you're using a firewire card or rendering to your hard drive.The only thing that gives a noticable kick to improved render times is a faster CPU.

Stop and think. What does a video card do? It draws pixels on the screen. If anyone uses a video card as video out at best that method is a crap shoot and doesn't produce very good quality.

Increasing system RAM, won't really help either, not that you'd really notice. The good reason to buy extra memory would be if you like to play around with RAM renders to get real time previews. Aside from that no benefit at all. Save your money. I've rendered projects over two hours in length while using the PC for other work with only 512 MB of RAM and checking in Task Manager Windows never used more than about a third of the memory available. Windows when running Vegas does make excessive use of the paging file during rendering. REGARDLESS how much RAM you have installed. If you have Windows XP you can see this is Task Manager (Ctrl/Atl/Delete) if you add the optional bytes I/O read and I/O write bytes under View/Select Column in Task Manager.

I run Win 2k and 98 duel boot. My card does support openGL and directx 8.1. Before I got this card I had a Voodoo 3, and the downside to that one was I could run only 1 openGL program at a time (which sucked cuz i couldn't have a game editor and the game open at the same time). With the Radeon I can have as many OGL program's running as I want (i've probely had about 6-7 open at one time. Didn't run well, but it DID run).

Yeah, I just run Quake 3 at 800x600 res, 32 bit color, and all the details turned all the way up. I had Vegas render an MPEG-2 file (which I think uses more CPU then AVI render, am i correct?) . I had an average of 20fps. For some people that mgiht be bad, but before I got my P3-667, I ran Quake 3 on a p-mmx 200 at 5 fps. So, for me it's fine. :)

I've found that Vegas isn't a CPU hog. If you run something else with it, it will share the CPU power about 50-50%. I have tried multitasking while using premiere at work though, and it doesn't like to give up ANY cpu power. I can't even look at folder/files lists while rendering with premiere.

Frenchy just wanted to know what cards we use/want. Basicly, if you got a video card with 16mb ram, you'll be fine, and that's only because for higher res and 32 bit color you need that ram. You are right that the card won't affect render times, and that a faster cpu would. However, a fast 2D card would help in screen redraw times. With vegas that would be important. Can't preview your video on screen if you card can't pump it through. Of course any card made today has fast 2d built in, and some degree of 3d. Pretty much how a plain onboard AC 97 sound card would work for listening to your sound, but a better sound card would be prefered.


Of course if you do any type of 3d work, then an openGL card is for you, and the more card ram the marrier (need space for those textures!!)

Yes sure, but... screen redraws shouldn't be a issue if (and you should be) using an external monitor for preview which gets its info pumped straight thought the firewire port, bypassing the video card if I remember correctly what Dennis said some time back.

That reminds me... I always forget to mention that for those that want to hear audio in real time when they preview from their external monitor, you can... if you do one simple thing. Connect the audio feed from your digital camera (white or red RCA plug) to the audio in of your external monitor. Bingo. I'm tired, just threw that in... maybe everyone already knows that.

As everyone has said any half decent card will do, more ooomph is not going to achieve anything as far as a NLE goes, I use an WinFast A250 with dual heads. The ViVo can have its uses, we've used it to record straight from screen to a VCR with good results. I'd only suggest doing that as a last resort though.

The only thing that may give you more satisfaction is the Matrox range of cards. They are certainly not the fastest and are a bit expensive and aren't going to make VV or any NLE work any better BUT they do have third order filters on the outputs. This gives a cleaner signal to the monitor which if your staring at it all day may mean less eye strain.

Discdude,

How were you able to place a link in your post? When I have posted urls, they didn't activate.

Jay Mitchell

i wish i had a fireward card and camera to use all the fun stuff. :'(

To post clickable links, you have to use standard HTML (take spaces out after the "<"):

Ex. < a href="link">link text < /a>

HappyFriar,
FW cards are only $40 or so. As far as the camera goes, do what I did........team up with a partner whos already got one!

Everyone,
As the original poster, I want to thank all the responses. We are just putting everything together for the 1st time right now and I want to make sure I dont buy a lemon video card. I think I will probably get either the Matrox Parhelia or the new Millennium P750 which looks great. Glad to see all the options though. Back to research...

thx!
frenchy

discdude: thanks for the link. It's installed and i've got OpenGL support back. Sadly, my 3D animation software still doesn't see it. *sigh* Probably the software is too old to use XP properly, and now that company's gone out of business so there are no updates.

As far as i know my Rage Pro VIVO is genuine; i ordered it directly from ATI's website, probably about 4 years ago. Device manager lists it as RAGE Fury 128 PRO ULTRA 32MB, and it definately has functional NTSC input and output. Output is composite and S-Video, input is composite only. The DVD player software and decoder hardware is useless though. I found the card works much better after i uninstall all the ATI software except for the drivers. Even without using the ATI software accessories, just having them installed caused all sorts of problems. It seems that the software thinks it knows what i want to do better than i do and was always changing my display settings *ahem* for me. I also couldn't run any media player except ATI's while it was installed. *sigh* ... another company that really should stick to hardware only ;)

I had forgotten about the Rage Fury Pro VIVO. No surprise since any fanATIc would want to forget the dark days of the Rage 128 (this is where ATI's bad driver rep comes from).

You threw me off Cheinworks when you mentioned the Rage Pro. The Rage Fury doesn't use a Rage Pro, it uses a Rage 128 Pro. Despite the similar name, they are different chips. I'm surprised the drivers I pointed you to worked.

Anyway, this is the proper link to the Rage 128 drivers:
http://www.ati.com/support/products/pc/rage128pro/winxp/rage128prowinxpdrivers.html?cboOS=Windows+XP&cboProducts=RAGE+FURY+PRO&eula=&choice=agree&cmdNext=NextA

"Beta" (released to OEMs only) drivers are located here:
http://www.area3d.net/download.php?id=2

For video capture, the Rage Fury uses the Rage Theater. For older drivers bundles, the Rage Theater drivers are usually included. For newer bundles, you have to download them separately.

The newest Rage Theater drivers are located here: http://pdownload.mii.instacontent.net/ati/drivers/tv-capture-wdm-6-14-10-6196v2.exe

You might want to download the Rage Theater drivers regardless to get the latest versions.

I have a ATI 9700TX 128 Mb. The TX is (was?) an affordable Dell-only detuned version of the 9700 Pro. The 9800 and 9800 pro are the same but faster. These cards have a VGA and DVI-LCD output as well as S-Video. I have the DVI to VGA adapter that lets me run 2 VGA monitors.

XP and Vegas work great with 2 monitors. Main monitor is a 19" 1152x864, and the Vegas preview window is on a 17" secondary monitor run at 800x600 during edit sessions to get a big preview. 2 monitors is productive so I have another 19" on order. Minor problem: heat from the extra equipment.

My dream card would be the 9700 or 9800 All-In-Wonder but they are expensive, and I can use camcorder DV pass-through to occasionally capture S-video from a satellite TV box. Or get an external analog/DV converter box like a Canopus ACEDVio which comes with Vegas 4. Still, I would like TV in a window on my computer so I might add a TV tuner card.

I was looking at switching to Mac but they only have LCD flatpanels. Their 17" LCD is 3X the price of a Dell 19" VGA crt. And even the Mac video edit experts say crt's are still better for this work.