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Wonder Number Six - The Remote Wonder |
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Now You Can Wonder
From Across The Room |
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One of the most
well
thought-out features of the All in Wonder RADEON 8500DV was
the included Remote Wonder. Not only did it add a
much-needed level of functionality to the All in Wonder
family, but it also proved better than NVIDIA's own infrared
solution. The Remote Wonder operates on Radio
Frequency (RF), so it does not require line of sight to the
receiver. In fact, it can control a PC from another
room entirely!
Version 1.4 of
the Remote Wonder software has been integrated into the
Multimedia Center 8.0 suite. Its prior software
update, Version 1.2, featured the ability to give the Remote
Wonder a unique key, preventing it from interfering with
another unit that may be in operation at a school or
dormitory. Also, programmable keys were enabled.
With 1.4, that feature has been expounded upon, allowing the
six programmable keys to emulate arbitrary key strokes.
It also provides better control over the mouse with speed
and acceleration settings. Lastly, 1.4 adds support
for MulTView.
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HotHardware Test Systems |
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Intel i850E Test
Bed |
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ATI All in Wonder RADEON 9700 Pro
Driver Version: 7.79
ATI
RADEON 9700 Pro
Driver Version: 7.76
(Catalyst 2.3)
ATI All
in Wonder RADEON 8500
Driver Version: 7.76
(Catalyst 2.3)
NVIDIA
GeForce4 Ti 4600
Driver Version:
Detonator 40.71
Common Hardware:
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz
ASUS P4T533-C
512MB PC1066 RDRAM
IBM 30GB ATA-100
7200RPM Hard Drive
Sound Blaster Live!
Value
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A Few
Words About The Benchmarks:
In setting up our test machines, we install Windows XP
on a formatted, FAT32 hard drive. After installing
the relevant drivers we disable system restore, all of
the graphical enhancements in Windows XP, and the
Automatic Update feature. The desktop on each test
bed is set to 1024x768, 32-bit color and a 85Hz refresh
rate.First,
Windows XP has been updated to Service Pack 1. Quake III
has been updated to version 1.31, and we consequently
use the 'four' demo. 3D Mark 2001 SE has been
updated to Build 330.
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Benchmarking with
Quake III |
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A Classic, To
Start Things Off |
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Both cards
based on the R300 core triumph over the GeForce4.
However, the true story isn't told by an aging game like
Quake III, running without any additional enhancements.
To get a better idea how the All in Wonder RADEON 9700 Pro
holds up in duress, we apply 6x anti-aliasing and 16x
anisotropic filtering. Since these settings go beyond
what NVIDIA offers with the GeForce4, we maximize the Ti
4600's settings at 4x anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic
filtering.
The All in Wonder RADEON 9700
Pro begins to show its prowess, besting the GeForce4 Ti 4600
by more than 30%. It's also good to see that both
RADEON 9700 cards perform similarly, indicating that indeed
the All in Wonder was designed with 3D performance in mind.
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Jedi Knight II |
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Same Engine, Newer
Game |
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The RADEON
9700 cards perform roughly on par with the GeForce4, but
along the same lines, the older All in Wonder RADEON 8500
does about the same. Clearly, Jedi Knight II gives a
better indication of processor performance than it does
graphics sub-system speed.
It's only when anti-aliasing and
anisotropic filtering are applied that the All in Wonder
RADEON 9700 begins to pull away. Note that at 1024x768
the cards score similarly as the prior test - at that
resolution 6x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering
are being applied without any performance penalty!
More
Benchmarks...
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