2D Image Quality

We loaded up a 1600x1200 colour bitmap image we normally use in our video card reviews. I also pulled up an HTML document with various sized fonts to judge the text rendering. The document uses white text on a black background, and vice versa. The screen resolution for all tests was 1600x1200 @ 85Hz on a Dell rebranded 21" Trinitron.

Scores are subjective, but having worked with many video cards the last few years, I got a pretty firm grasp on what card renders 2D better than the others. The scores will be out of 10, with 10 being excellent.

All the ATI cards looked pretty much the same to me with the bitmap file, but there is an obvious quality drop when moving to the FX5700 when it comes to reading small text. White text on a dark background seems to always be a problem area for nVidia cards, and highlighting the text with the mouse made reading much easier. ATI wasn't much better, but the text wasn't broken up as much as it was on the FX5700.

TV-Tuner Recording and Playback

A TV-Tuner wouldn't be much good if the image quality is weak, so we decided to test the TV-Tuner's capture and playback quality compared to a DVD.

We captured a screenshot of Matrix: Reloaded, using the original DVD. We then hooked up an Onkyo DVD player, via S-Video, and captured the same scene in ATI's .vcr format, which is near DVD quality, but at a better compression ratio.

Source DVD	ATI .vcr

The image quality of the .vcr format was very good, and it's really hard to spot the differences between it and the MPEG-2 stream. Closer examination will show slight noise (look around Neo) on the .vcr format, but it's barely noticable during playback.

DVD Playback

Though they are still being sold, PCI based DVD players isn't something I'd imagine many people would use given that software based players are being given away for free in most video card packages. To test DVD playback, we used Cyberlink's PowerDVD, which is my personal favorite, and captured stills from Matrix: Revolutions.

ATI	MSI

Both cards exhibited very good DVD playback quality. There is a slight amount of pixel noise in the FX based cards, and picture was slightly darker as well. Granted, it's tough to tell the two apart unless you watch the movie side-by-side on each card, but I will give the nod to ATI here.

TV-Out Playback

Since I am sure many of you will consider building a HTPC with this card, TV-Out quality will be something you'll be interested in checking out. To mimick a real-world scenario, we hooked up a satellite receiver to the AIW 9600 XT via S-Video, and outputted the images via S-Video. Before looking at the playback, let's see how the Windows desktop looks @ 1024x768.

Trinitron Monitor	Hitachi 57" S500

Right off the bat we can see that despite the compressed JPEG images, the IQ is certainly a lot better from a VGA source than the TV-Out. I wasn't terribly impressed with the quality, though it is no worse than I've seen on other video cards. I swapped ATI's S-Video cables with a couple Monster Cables, but the quality didn't change at all. If you have any intention of surfing the 'net from your couch, you may want to consider lowering the resolution to 800x600, or even 640x480.

In order to gauge the quality of video playback, below is our reference screenshot, direct from the ATI MMC.

The two screenshots below illustrate how it will look from a real-world scenario; i.e., parked in front of the display with a bag of chips and beer.

Trinitron Monitor	Hitachi 57" S500

We can see that running the video directly off your monitor provides a sharper and more accurate picture than it does on a television. It can be argued that a projection television is not the best technology to demonstrate with a camera, but take it from me... the image is certainly washed out, though it is watchable. It isn't as good as watching a direct satellite/S-Video hook-up, but the quality does match up with a satellite/coax connection.