Product Reviews

The ATi All-in-Wonder 128's predecessor, the All-in-Wonder Pro (reviewed issue 42, p177), was a multifunction graphics board that actually delivered on its extravagant promises. With its wealth of inputs and outputs, you could output your PC's signal to a TV, watch TV or video output on your PC, or capture and edit still or moving footage from a number of video sources. The fact that it managed this, while also delivering on 2D and 3D graphics performance, made it a bargain.

The All-in-Wonder 128 not only lives up to its predecessor, but actually outdoes it. Good as the All-in-Wonder Pro was, its venerable Rage Pro chipset has been left in the dust by two generations of high-speed rivals. For 3D performance, if nothing else, this new version is a timely update.

The 16Mb All-in-Wonder 128 is based on the Rage 128GL, a chipset that we first saw in our last graphics card Labs (see issue 53, p116). At the time it was the fastest board available, especially when running in 32-bit colour.

The card's 250MHz RAMDAC allows a maximum 2D resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 in 24-bit colour at 76Hz. However, when switching from a 300MHz TNT2-based card in our test system, there was a slight but noticeable drop in image quality at 1,600 x 1,200 at 85Hz.

The card's first gruelling speed trial was Futuremark's 3DMark 99 Max, on a Pentium III/550 system with 128Mb of RAM. At 1,024 x 768 in 32-bit colour the All-in-Wonder 128 achieved a score of 2,382. That's not bad, but it's way behind the current leader - the Matrox Millennium G400 Max (reviewed issue 58, p168). However, the 2D performance tells a different story, with the ATi just beating the G400's 3.16 score in our application benchmarks at 1,280 « 1,024 in 16-bit colour.

3D scores aren't everything, and the All-in-Wonder 128's real selling point is the mass of inputs and outputs that occupy the rear of the card. An S-Video socket serves as a TV-out, and the card is equipped with a variety of cables to connect this to a composite or scart socket. That's useful if you're experimenting

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with the living room PC idea, or you want to use a TV screen for your business presentations. The downside is the maximum 800 x 600 resolution - still an improvement on All-in-Wonder Pro's 640 x 480 maximum - together with a low 50Hz refresh rate.

To access the card's core functionality you use ATi's bundled software. The various record and playback applets are launched from a control panel - a toolbar docked to the right-hand side of the screen. All of them share the same slick look and feel, but only one can be active at a time.

We were impressed by the TV tuner on the All-in-Wonder Pro, and the same goes for its successor. Setup is straightforward with an auto-scan feature that scans through the airwaves and picks up all the terrestrial channels. However, the sound is still only in mono so the setup can't replace a good TV.

DVD playback is another high point. ATi has long been an industry leader in bringing video to the desktop. Since the Rage Pro, ATi's chipsets have handled the motion compensation element of the MPEG-2 decode, taking some of the weight off the CPU. The Rage 128GL enhances that functionality, and the excellent results compare favourably with separate hardware MPEG-2 decoders.

Which leads us nicely on to the board's most exciting feature. With a suitably powerful PC, say a mid-range Pentium II, the All-in-Wonder 128 can capture video or TV input and encode it to MPEG-2 in real-time. It's possible to capture video from S-Video or TV sources and encode it to a number of formats, including AVI, but MPEG-2 gives by far the best results. For encoding at the maximum resolution of 720 « 576, you're going to need a top-end Pentium III, but with sufficient power and a massive hard disk the built-in scheduling function allows you to use your PC as a digital video recorder, with a picture quality far superior to that of standard VHS. The bundled video editor can't edit the format, but it's impressive nonetheless.

The image capture facilities, combined with a camcorder and modem connection, also allow you to use the All-in-Wonder 128 as a cheap videoconferencing solution, using freely available software such as Microsoft's NetMeeting.

If you need the fastest card for 3D gaming you won't be satisfied with the All-in-Wonder 128, and if your main interest is dabbling in video editing you might be better off using the Matrox Marvel G200 (reviewed issue 50, p177). However, if you want a neat integrated solution that will enable you to watch and record TV, view DVDs, capture and edit video from a variety of sources and play games as well, the All-in-Wonder 128 is an absolute bargain.