RSSHD DVD, Blu-ray playback added to new entry-level ATI cards
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published January 23, 2008, 12:32 PM
For years, ATI played itself as the performance leader in the graphics space. But now as part of AMD, which is having a difficult time of late making its case for CPU performance, ATI may have to make like its new corporate parent for a little while.
It was not a premium feature of high-end graphics cards for very long: This morning at a rollout event in Beijing, AMD is announcing its ATI division has added DirectX 10.1 support to two new Radeon cards at the low end of the price spectrum, with the new HD 3400 model expected to retail for as low as $49.
The HD 3400 and HD 3600 are essentially desktop-oriented models of the Mobility-branded counterparts for notebook systems, launched earlier. Both utilize essentially the same architecture, though the 3600 packs more transistors into the package: 378 million versus 181 million.
Their key features of note are the on-board support for all the codecs necessary to decode Blu-ray or HD DVD video at full 1080p resolution. That feature alone makes either of these cards ideal for inclusion in low-cost media center PCs.
But the DirectX 10.1 support doesn't hurt, either. Both new cards will feature slightly stepped down versions of the same DX 10.1 support that ATI premiered last November. Among the features from that graphics library that ATI is incorporating is global illumination, which goes a long way toward substituting for full ray-tracing ability. The feature samples the ambient light at select points in a 3D scene, with the result being that objects in moderately lit spaces appear more natural, as though they're being viewed by the naked eye rather than grafted into virtual space.
At most, the HD 3600 card probably won't sell for over $100 retail, AMD stated this morning. This pricing move signals a continuation of AMD's shift in emphasis toward the value side of the computer market, as AMD's CPU division struggles in the performance department against rival Intel. There may not be a similar gap between ATI and NVidia, however, and ATI's new across-the-board emphasis could help it gain market share among mainstream buyers.
They mean HARDWARE decoders.
The decoders are for MPEG2, VC-1 and AVC both Standard and High-Def. This covers BluRay, HD-DVD and regular DVD's. You must have a program that takes advantage of these hardware decoders. For BluRay and HD-DVD you require an appropriate disc reader and an HDMI connection.
Any video card with hardware decoders should also be able to do Transcoding (converting hardware formats) at the card level for certain formats.
Having said this, I have a new ATI HD 3870. Where's my transcoding software for it?
For that matter, show me the programs that even use the hardware decoders properly because I'm a little stumped. I have Nero and purchased the BluRay/HD-DVD software decoder plugin before this card and now that I have it I see no indication the hardware decoders are being used. I spent money on this card for features ATI better support. I love the low-power mode (18W for HD 3870 versus 42W for NVidia 8800GT) but I expect to see my Transcoding and hardware decoding soon, or else... I get mad.)
At any rate, these low-end cards aren't for high-end games. They are primarily for building Home Theater PC's with a little bit of 3D support. Not everyone wants, or needs a high-end graphics card.
FYI, AMD/ATI is working on:
a) a single CPU/GPU chip
b) the ability to use either the onboard graphics OR the add-on graphics card (zero power to the unneeded card implemented at the motherboard level. If so, Crossfire might look even more attractive if you could shut off 2 cards leaving a single, low-power graphics chip for "basic" windows tasks.)
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It says "onboard codecs" but does that mean hardware decoding or simply having the codecs needed on a chip instead of your hard drive? If the latter I'd much rather download the codecs myself, at least that way I could update them if needed. If they do indeed have hardware decoding that would be nice, but it doesn't sound like it from the article.
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I was curious about the wording of that also.
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Damn.... Perhaps I'll cancel that 3850 and go with a 3600. Have to look into that. Just placed the order a couple of days ago....
So far, guru_v, I have found no problems (remember I said so far) with catalyst 8.1 in my applications.
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I've never liked ATi, because the drivers were always flaky (going all the way back to Mach 8 cards), and the cards were difficult to make cooperate with other cards ( I especially don't like the habit of ATi cards used for dual monitors taking up 2 IRQs) but it may be time to support ATi as help for AMD, which I have always liked, and supported.
Maybe the newest drivers are better - they'd have to be better than the ones for my son's 9600.
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I just bought an ATI HD 3850 after never owning nothing but nvidia. I prefer the ATI drivers and control panel by far to the nvidia.
Nvidia's new control panel is horriffic.
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Have you tried the ATI catalyst drivers for the past 4 or 5 years?
Never had any big issues with them, and very stable.
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