New to me : Omega drivers for various graphic cards.

[CougTek]

I stumbled on this while reading a light article on Firingsquad. Apparently, the Omega drivers give improved picture quality without sacrifying too much performances in the meanwhile. FS compared the Omega for NVIDIA cards and keeping in mind that they are based on the Detonator 30.82, you must admit that the frame rate drop isn't too bad.

I'm currently downloading the latest version to give it a shot on my GF3 Ti200. I'll try Serious Sam with the Omega. Hopefully, it willl be just as stable as the 30.82. If it trully improves the image as shown in the screen shots, I'll consider I've found a gem.

You can grab a version for your graphic card (ATI or NVIDIA) on http://www.omegacorner.com/ .

I would appreciate feedback, especially from Radeon owners, as it's the brand I sell most nowadays (until I run out of 8500LE 128MB).

 

[Groltz]

The "improved image quality" of the third-party tweaked Omega drivers is due to massively-adjusted texture LOD settings. This means that while they look great in screenshots, they look pretty bad in motion, as there's lots of shimmering in the textures.

 

[CougTek]

Can anyone confirms this (Groltz quote)?

I still haven't tried any games since I installed the Omega.

 

[Groltz]

Can anyone confirms this (Groltz quote)?

I still haven't tried any games since I installed the Omega.

To clarify, I haven't actually tried the Omegas. Seeing that posting was enough to dissuade me.

 

[Mercutio]

I'll give them a shot after I get my radeon 9000 installed.

 

[Mercutio]

I've got a 128MB radeon 9000 pro up and running on my game machine now.

I'm not seeing much of a difference on the games I have installed (UT, Mechcommander II and Tropico), except that now Tropico won't start up except in safe mode.

 

[blakerwry]

I installed the Omega drivers... I can see that the textures are a little sharper than before, but other than that not much difference.

Maybe it would make more of an impact if I played games like Myst where you can sit back and enjoy the graphics (as opposed to Counter strike)

 

[CougTek]

The "improved image quality" of the third-party tweaked Omega drivers is due to massively-adjusted texture LOD settings. This means that while they look great in screenshots, they look pretty bad in motion, as there's lots of shimmering in the textures.

With Serious Sam, I don't see much more shimmering with the Omega than with the Detonator 41.03 I've just installed. So far, I've only tried Serious Sam. Something I noticed though is that there's more aliasing with the Omega than with Detonator. Not nigh and day difference though. The shimmering occurs too with the Detonator, so I get it anyway. I also get some hanging frames (just a fraction of a second) sometimes with both, although I think it happens a bit more often with the Omega. Picture quality looks great on both. Since I don't see a lot of differences between both, I'll keep the version I currently have (Detonator 41.03). I'll wait until an Omega driver based on the Detonator 40.x or later is released before switching again.

 

[Mercutio]

The 3.9 Omega Catalyst Drivers seemed to eliminate whole swathes of problems I was having with Snapstream PVS and the couple of games I have installed.

Installed ATI's AIW support files with Catalyst 3.9 appears to be a one-way ticket to hell for a gamer.

 

[blakerwry]

have you tried snapstream with any of those hauppauge cards yet?

I am kind of dissapointed with snaptream and the AIW cards... maybe I should try the omega drivers.

My main problem is that I notice poor TV on demand quality unless I really crank up the bitrate (atleast 8MBit/sec). TV quality without using TV on demand is for some reason even worse than TV on demand.

The MMC has great image quality when just watching TV, but I would prefer the snapstream interface and TV on demand always on.


Also, I thought you could stream liveTV over the network? I dont see how...

BTW, I found putting my TV on demand buffer in a RAM drive works wonders.

 

[ddrueding]

Omega drivers worked great for me on a 9600Pro....no issues, a bit faster

 

[Mercutio]

Blake, I tried the Hauppauge PVR250 with my setup. There's really no CPU load from encoding, but snapstream still crashes from time to time - the people on their forum say it's just ATI drivers being crap and that I should get an nvidia cards and, well, you know how that went.

Anyway, the PVR250 does zero-load MPEG2 encoding, but some kinds of action just do NOT look very good, no matter how high I set bit rate and motion compensation. Of the three TV shows I watch regularly, one is completely unwatchable because of poor encoding on the PVR.

 

[blakerwry]

is that because it does not de-interlace?

what applications(s) are you using to capture or have tested?

what mpeg2 decoder are you using (I have noticed the power DVD looks better, but is less compatible. WinDVD looks bad sometimes, but works everytime)

 

[Mercutio]

The PVR 250 works only with its deeply retarded capture application (TV2000) and with Snapstream. It does NOT work with Virtualdub or Premier or anything else I can find.

Interlacing does not seem to be a problem. I think the PVR doesn't handle high-motion very well.

I'm using the ATI hardware decoder. The PVR won't operate if PowerDVD or any other Intervideo decoder is install,

 

[blakerwry]

Merc, the hauppauge cards are dearly recomended for mythTV users (linux)... so I would imagine they are supported by outside programs, just not through the microsoft capture driver that so many windows programs rely on.

I have looked through pages and pages of thread titles and have seen no mention of video quality problems with these cards. Quite the opposite, I have heard what great quality they offer. Are you using the newest firmware for the hauppauge? drivers?

I'd be happy to buy one off you if you're willing.

 

[CityK]

Merc, in case you haven't come across this.

 

[Computer Generated Baby]

I first recall seeing Omega video drivers way the hell back around 1993 or '94!

Guess what. They were for ATI VGA Wonder graphics adaptors. ATI graphics adaptors were popular, but ATI could NOT write drivers worth a damn even then, and that's why Omega existed. I used to see their drivers in the (old) Computer City chain stores (Comp USA bought Computer City in 199.. er.. 6, I believe it was). Their retail driver software packages came in these laughable raw cardboard boxes with a nice slick colour sticker slapped on the front. Price was something like US$50.

 

[Mercutio]

I have looked through pages and pages of thread titles and have seen no mention of video quality problems with these cards. Quite the opposite, I have heard what great quality they offer. Are you using the newest firmware for the hauppauge? drivers?

I'd be happy to buy one off you if you're willing.

I've tried two PVR250s and a PVR-usb2. They all do the same thing. Current drivers and AFAIK there are no firmware updates for either device.
The effect given by all of the above, during action sequences, is a lot like watching the crowd in a televised an auto race. Things get blurry.
I settled on 8,000kbps VBR for the PVR cards. I use 8,000kbps constant for ATI AIW. The quality issue I have with the WinTV cards does not go away even if I set the bitrate to 20,000kpbs.

Blake, you can get new OEM PVR-250s off ebay for $70.

 

[CityK]

Mercutio, have you tested your pvr-250 in Linux (either Myth or Freevo)?

 

[Mercutio]

Nope. Most of my interest in Snapstream stems from its integration with my remote and satellite receiver. If all I wanted was a viewing interface I'd be perfectly happy with MMC and Guide+.

 

[ddrueding]

Nope. Most of my interest in Snapstream stems from its integration with my remote and satellite receiver. If all I wanted was a viewing interface I'd be perfectly happy with MMC and Guide+.

Where is the review on that, anyway? This is a function I've been dying for...