Worth the wait?
Written: Nov 28 '99 (Updated Dec 12 '99)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: installation, video capture
Cons: audio bugs, long wait for initial delivery, ATi's shoddy service history, needs to be updated with more RAM
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| manga's Full Review: ATI All-in-Wonder® 128, (32 MB) PCI Video Car... |
When I friend of mine came and asked me to recommend a video card for their Mac, I was was excited to recommend to him the Xclaim VR 128. The card not only accelerated general 2D and 3D functions, but came with the ability to capture video and audio from several sources. It is kind of like a baby All-In-Wonder for the Macintosh. It lacks the MPEG capture and DVD decoding of it's PC cousin, but with 16MB of video memory, it was also enough to play some 3D games with decent acceleration. The only requirements were a PCI Power Macintosh, Macintosh OS 8 or greater and and QuickTime version 3.0 or greater. 3D acceleration is accomplished through QuickDraw 3D version 1.5.4 or higher.
My friend placed an order and was similarly excited. Unfortunately, that was in May. The card did not actually ship until late October. It was tough to keep on telling my friend that ATi was going to ship the card "any day now" throughout the summer months. ATi had said "early summer" as a ship date. Early summer turned into October, but the card finally came.
The late shipment, in my opinion, has really hurt ATi. The Rage 128 technology, which was cutting edge in January, is a little tired now. The Xclaim VR is now only middle of the pack for 3D acceleration. However, the main reason for the VR was, and still is, the ability to caputure video and audio. With that function is does admirably well.
Installation was quite easy, but it will depend on what type of Macintosh you have. The PowerMacintosh 7300 I installed it in has a fairly simple procedure for installing PCI cards and RAM, but if you have one of the demon PowerMacintosh 8500/9500, you will want to know your way around the case to make sure everything gets back to it's original place. After the physical installation inside the computer, you plug the monitor in(a VGA to Mac adapter is included) and turn the computer on and install the software from the CD. The software is pretty basic, just the ATi drivers and the capture/TV tuner utility and a control panel. It does come with a copy of Myth II, which is a nice "real time" strategy game from Bungie.
The only thing bad about the software is that the OpenGL acceleration is not available without Apple's OpenGL software version 1.1. For a long time, the only way to get OpenGL 1.1 is with Apple's MacOS 9, which is going to cost you an extra $99 bucks retail. Although I think the upgrade is worth it for most people, it shouldn't cost you an extra $99 to have nice OpenGL acceleration. When you stop to think that ATi was originally planning to release this in July, you wonder what they were going to do about OpenGL back then before MacOS 9 was even announced. Apple recently made the latest OpenGL available for download. so I can stop complaining about that.
The Xclaim VR 128 comes with an external TV tuner capable of 125 channels. The tuner is nice. If you have a 17" or larger screen it's not hard to surf the web, work on a paper, or write e-mail while keeping track of that sports game or your favorite program or news channel. The card does comes with some S-video cables to connect your VCR or camcorder to the card. You will need RCA cables if you choose that route. Video capture is great, but it can be choppy at times, and you can use any of the compressors available with QuickTime to encode your video. Keep in mind that you will need a fast Macintosh(G3 recommended) to capture very large or very long video clips. A large, fast hard drive helps as well. I had previously installed a 9.1 GB drive in the same computer knowing that my friend would like to record good bits of video, edit them, and then record them back to videotape.
Overall, the card is very nice and relatively easy to use. Unfortunately, ATi missed the boat with the late shipment. With most Macintoshes coming with FireWire and all iMac DVs coming with Apple's powerful iMovie software, the Xclaim VR is not the easiest way to do desktop video. If you factor in the cost of a larger hard drive, a possible G3 upgrade, possibly more RAM and the Xclaim VR 128, you may do better by upgrading to a new computer. ATi had a 6 month head start, but couldn't deliver on time. So, I recommend the card, but with caution. Evaluate all your options. If my friend hadn't placed a pre-order in May, he would probably have a new iMac now. Just a second thought.
Addendum:
I have downgraded the Xclaim VR 128 after more use and experience. The audio compression on the fly is poor - you must compress audio after encoding to avoid loss of audio. Encoding with some audio compressors causes poor video encoding as well. However, that is a small problem compared to the frequent bugs and other crashes that happen using the ATi Video Player software. If you are capturing using another program, this card is OK, but alone it's caused some headaches. I can no longer recommend it.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
manga
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Member: Joseph Fahs
Location: Horseheads, NY
Reviews written: 39
Trusted by: 34 members
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