ATI TV card problems - a real stumper.

Ok, so the other night I\'m laying on my couch trying to get some sleep when a Tech attack hit me. Being that the octopus of a multi-room TV signal splitter is on the fritz and I can\'t view TV in the livingroom (but can from my computer room where there IS no TV) I decided to go out and buy a TV Tuner card for my PC.

I wasn\'t looking for anything special.. just a basic model to get me buy until I can afford a better model and a PC to go with it. (Specifically, one that can run DScaler flawlessly.. which turns all interlaced Video-IN into progressive scan - sweet!) It worked out perfect that the only place open at that hour was Wal-Mart (See: Evil corperate crap peddling bastards) and all they sell is low-range and economy class hardware. So there on the shelf I find what I\'m looking for.. ATI TV Wonder VE... and only 40 bucks! So I buy it and 25 foot of Coaxial cable plus some dual ended Coaxial jacks to hook it all up with.

Well everything goes fine with the installation.. drivers seem fine, program installs without a hitch, no IRQ or COM conflicts.. but when I start up the viewer.. nothing. After re-intalling and tweaking my refresh rate & graphics acceleration options I finally get sound.. but no picture. Argh..

So I search around for 3 days on the net for a solution to my problem (and mainly only finding out that my TV Wonder VE is about the crappiest product available) only to find out that my system which is completely within specs for this product.. really isn\'t. Specifically, I need a 3D videocard which supports Overlay. Well, I\'m using a system I was given to me from a friend of mine (I.E. I would never actually ~pay~ for this hunk of crap) and it has a built in SiS 350 board in it with 4mb of VRam. However, it doesn\'t support Video Overlay. So I do some searching around and find miraculously that my old Matrox Millenium with 8mb of Vram has Overlay support! Sweet! So I install that.. disable the SiS junk onboard videocard.. install the latest drivers for it.. re-install everything for my TV VE and... no picture.

A few more hours of scanning the net and using tester proggys reveals that noone REALLY knows weither or not the Matrox Millenium has overlay support or not. ATI, is of course famous for their non-existant customer support.. and since I don\'t have long distance I can\'t call their Canadian TOLL number for tech support. (The only thing worse than being on hold for 3 hours is PAYING for it)

So here\'s my question.. does anyone know of a way to emulate Video Overlay support thru software or know of a PC-TV program which doesn\'t rely on video overlay support to run? I feel that my only recourse now is to upgrade my videocard.. which I neither have the money or system specs to do. Well, I suppose I could buy an old GeForce2 which should support video overlay.. but that seems like a waste of time considering I have no software to push such a card or the specs to run software that will.

Any help is appreceated.

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

u want to use software to emulate video overlay.. dood, unless you have a pc that\'s over 1 gig in the processor. Don\'t bother.  Try http://www.vcdhelp.com they may have software for u to try.

Thanks for the link Soully.. I tried a few programs there but nothing worked for me. All the proggys there are either strictly video capture and editing (which I don\'t need), need video overlay to operate, or require system specs far and above my system\'s capabilities.

I think I\'ll jus hold off on this all and get my NGC next week.. then buy a GeForce2 w/ 64mb Ram for like 60 bucks the week after that. Least it\'ll be something to get me by.. and I guess there\'s a few proggy like Half-Life that will benefit a bit. Maybe I should just focus on getting that rare and elusive Asus 1ghz+ AT style Motherboard I\'ve heard of, seen reviews for, but have never actually seen in stock anywhere.

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

stay away from the Asus A7A266 MB. I brought 2 of them. Had nothing but problems.  Good idea to get a GF2 card. Running Overlay in software is a huge drag down on the cpu. I tryed doing it on my Celeron 533 mhz 512meg 133mhz SDR with GF2mx 64meg SDR and i got about 12 fps. Pretty sad really. But with overlay on and not preview. I got perfect framerates. On this machine (xp1.8ghz) i have no problems either way.

Bah.. if it\'s AT and capable of handeling an AMD K-6III processor at or above 1Ghz I\'ll deal with the frustration. Dealing with tech problems on the board itself should be a snap compaired to actually FINDING one for sale. :crap: Besides, it\'s GOT to be better than my current VIA board.

/me has read the PDF manual 8 times and STILL can\'t figure out what all those @#%*\'ing jumpers are for! Good god.. it\'s like trying to figure out some ancient chineese puzzle or something. Ugh.

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

Get a ATX case/MB.  It\'s worth it in the long run.

Ugh.. no. I\'ll have a seperate balls-to-the-wall PC a bit later one after the Pentium 5 or AMD equivilent comes out.. but I am not willing to give up on this side project. I\'m not building this uber-retro machine for power or even strictly for usefulness.. but mainly to see if I can and because I think it would kick ass to have a 60lb steel behemoth from the 80\'s running games like Grand Theft Auto III and Medal of Honor: AA without a hitch. 5 1/4 drive still intact and fully functioning as well.

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so you\'re gonna have a volvo body with a ferrari engine.  Anything on a AT powersupply/mb i doubt will have enough juice for the gfx cards need to play gta3 well.. the AGP slot on AT boards isn\'t that great.

I think it will, but not much beyond that. I won\'t be running UT2003 at 120fps with 1200x800 resolution.. but it\'ll still be something to gawk at simply because of what it is. I WOULD like to get away from AT boards actually, but I\'m not willing to cut my case so if possible, a different form-factor of board which will screw into my AT case would be ideal.. but I doubt I\'ll find anything like that out there. The trend is for smaller and tidier little packages.. not hulking beasts.

I wouldn\'t exactly call it a Volvo body with a Ferrari engine.. more like a Old early 70\'s Cadilac refitted with NOS and Fuel Injection. It\'s a tank.. not an eyesore.

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

lol... just get a Mini ATX and case to suit.. small but powerful.. Although u don\'t get many pci slots on mini atx boards.