Building High-End Pc.

Why is it that I'm the only one that nevers seems to have problems with ATI drivers? :P Which model cards were you working with? I haven't even seen problems in Vista with ATI drivers even when running the RC1 beta version! Plus ATI buyout by AMD should see improvements faster. Their next step is the R600s for desktops and R500s for mobile. Get ready! :eek:
 
PC eye said:
Why is it that I'm the only one that nevers seems to have problems with ATI drivers? :P Which model cards were you working with? I haven't even seen problems in Vista with ATI drivers even when running the RC1 beta version! Plus ATI buyout by AMD should see improvements faster. Their next step is the R600s for desktops and R500s for mobile. Get ready! :eek:
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The problem is with multiple displays, TV out, and theatre mode. It never works properly and it does not listen to the application's settings that is doing the video play back. It just sucks. Plus, ATI's Linux drivers suck. Both of these reasons make me lose faith in their drivers overall. Plus I hate how the catalyst control center is required to be updated everytime the display driver is updated and if you do not, then you lose functionality of the rest of the video card. It is just poorly designed.
 
tlarkin said:
I do not recommend buying any ATI card at the moment. Their drivers are very disappointing, and overall in my personal experience Nvidia is just a better product and their drivers are way more solid. I had a ton of problems with ATI drivers today at work and it basically wasn't working as it was suppose to.
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What do you mean they are horrible? I got an ATI card in my other computer and it's more stable then this high-end system I have right now. :rolleyes:
 
tlarkin said:
The problem is with multiple displays, TV out, and theatre mode. It never works properly and it does not listen to the application's settings that is doing the video play back. It just sucks. Plus, ATI's Linux drivers suck. Both of these reasons make me lose faith in their drivers overall. Plus I hate how the catalyst control center is required to be updated everytime the display driver is updated and if you do not, then you lose functionality of the rest of the video card. It is just poorly designed.
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The catalyst is used for several purposes and released at the same time as the updated drivers. Another item to note is that it depends on which model card you trying to update. After so many releases an older card is dropped. The Catalalyst 7.xx series are Vista orientated at the moment. The 6.xx series catalysts and drivers alike are for the Radeon X series cards. The cat.s themselves are the display/mulitmonitor/color control software.
 
We do not use or support vista at my work yet, this is with all xp pro machines...

The problem is, that the video out options do not work as they are suppose to, and they override the application settings. For example, I will set video out in theatre mode (in VLC, WMP, WinDVD, etc) and it will output in windowed mode, and if I do get it to work and if you minimize the application it kills the video out. This will not be a problem when all the classrooms get digital projectors, which will be soon because all video out will be done through them.

Also, ATI's Linux drivers blow compared to Nvidia.

As far as just basic functionality you would never tell the difference until you tried to do some advanced configuration. I for one, on my personal computer, have it working fine with video out to my TV. At work, we have 100s of work stations that do not work properly. They use PCI express Radeon x500 ~ x800 video cards w/ svideo out. They are basic cards, but the only function we need them to have is TV out so the teachers can display videos onto the TVs. It doesn't work like it is suppose to.
 
With that many systems seeing the identical problem I would advise contacting the ATI now AMD support staff and giving details to them. I was under the impression that you had to first reduce the sceen resolution to 800x600 and shutdown to unplug the monitor and connect the s-video to the tv there. The following description gives instruction for this on XP systems.

Quick Summary under XP: In order to be able to see the movie playing on your TV you have to select the TV in the "Device settings". The movie will not play on both the laptop's screen and the TV under dual or clone view. Here's what you have to do under Win XP: Go to Start; Control Panel; Appearance and Themes; Display; Settings; Advanced; select the "tab" for your Graphics card; select "Device Settings"; select TV. For further details read below.

Before you start, change the display settings to 800 x 600; you need to do this since most TVs will not support higher resolution settings - this is ok, however, since you do not need higher resolution to enjoy your DVDs or to view your monitor's display on your TV. Read below about TV/VGA resolution comparisons. Also, make sure all of the hardware is connected before turning on the computer; you may have trouble getting the video card to recognize the TV as the second monitor - the option on some Dells is to change to "Clone" in Nview. But "Clone" is grayed out unless you have the RCA connector on the far end of the "S to RCA" cable, terminated in a VCR or TV.

1. Connect the "S-Video to RCA" cable or the "Pro S-Video to 3 RCA" cable to the "S-video out" of the computer and to the "video in" (yellow RCA jack) on the TV. NOTE: This step must be performed before you start up the computer. Make sure that your TV is set to "recognize" the RCA/yellow video-in jack; you may have to play with the "aux 1", "aux 2", or "line-in" selections on the TV or the TV's remote control. The S-Video jack on your computer may be a 4-pin or 7-pin jack that is usually on the back of the computer.

We will first describe the procedures for machines running Windows XP:

- Click on Start, Control Panel.

- Click on Display

- Click on Settings

- Slide the "Screen resolution" area slider bar toward Less until the setting reads 800 x 600. OK, you may not like how your screen looks at this setting after usig high-res settings, but you'll certainly enjoy your DVD on your TV!!! You can always change the res back when not playing DVDs.

- Click Apply
http://www.svideo.com/compaq1700.html

Since you have no problems at home with the s-video hookup you may want to examine what allows it to work there and not at work. Take some notes at home and the page here and cross examine how things at wotk are being done. 10 to 1 you'll find one being done incorrectly.
 
no resolution change needed, the driver itself recognizes that the video out display is a TV and adjusts video out to 480i resolution by default.

The problem is the crappy ass driver ATI has made, it is most likely some bug with the catalyst control center.

The video out resolution does not have to match that of the actual monitor. I have had my ATI card set up to do TV out to my TV which is 480p and I don't ever have to adjust any type of resolution on my monitor. Of course I am using a decent driver from like about a year ago and I never updated because of all the problems we have at work with them.

I use my PC as my home entertainment system and I don't even bother using my dvd player anymore since my computer will play any format, and I have both audio and video running out to my TV with no problems. Because the version of the driver I am using does what it is freaking told to, and the newest version does not and it overrides application's settings as well.

The problem isn't that it is not displaying out on the TV, it clones the video just fine. the problem is when playing back any type of video it is suppose to play in theater mode (ie Full screen mode) on the TV and allow the video play back application to be minimized while it is playing. Thus allowing the user to use the computer as normal and allow everyone else to watch the TV.
 
This goes back to having too new a catalyst version. Once you go past a certain version depending on the model cards the capatbility drops off. Past the Cat. 6.5 you ran into crap with the older 9xxx model cards and after the 6.5 is the Radeon X1xxx models. Back dating rather then updating could help.

But like mantioned earlier contacting the ATI now AMD support on this for that number of system effected plus knowing the software/hardware environments are the two items to look into. Some firewall or antivirus software could also be causing the problems there.
 
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