Vista MCE RC1 and ATI AIW Cards Revisited

[Octavean]

OK, once again the question is being asked and hopefully it can be answered by an ATI representative.

So far from preliminary and tentative experimentation, the AIW line with Rage Theater 200 (AIW X1900 used for testing) still doesn’t fully work in Vista MCE. The basic video card functionality works but the multimedia functionality of these cards (IE TV tuner) does not.

Therefore the question is:

When, if ever, will AIW cards that were functional in MCE 2K5 be operational in RC1 or the final version of Vista !?!

If not why not?

Is it because these Theater 200 based cards don’t support the “protected path” that Vista logo tuners do or is there some technical reason?

Do take note, if these AIW cards will never be supported there is little reason not to inform current users and future buyers now. Users prefer to be informed rather then kept in the dark. An official announcement in this respect is long overdue.

Some link info:

http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.ph...raphic_Cards_2

Has problems, but can be solved
[edit]
Graphic Cards
AGP:
ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder 9600XT (128MB) (Aero Glass Compatible) (32-bit)
TV/Video capture functionality inoperable. No drivers yet will detect the Rage Theater chip (NTativrv01) on the card. All other functionality works just fine.
PCI-Express:
T.B.D.
PCI:
T.B.D.

Vista Beta Drivers for AIW family?

The HDTV Wonder can be made to work in Vista MCE (both analog and digital), whats the deal with the AIW line?

[sunnylo]

I didn't seem to be able to go that far to expect TV functionality. My AIW X1900 had problem detecting my TV under Vista, which is a problem that I didn't have under XP. Obviously, after the installation of Vista RC1 and Catalyst Vista driver, my TV connected to the S-Video port has never been detected, even if I activate the "Force TV Detection" option. Any suggestion?

Thanks in advance.

[Octavean]

The issue seems to be a lack of proper driver support for the AIW line.

This is somewhat odd considering that ATI hasn’t had an issue announcing future support for other (low-end) ATI products:

TV Wonder™ 200 PCI

Operating Systems

* Windows® XP Home Edition
* Windows® XP Professional Edition
* Windows Vista™ Upgradeable.
ATI will release drivers that support Windows Vista shortly after the retail release of Windows Vista. Please visit ATI.com for updates.

http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=...4&section_id=8

http://www.ati.com/products/tvwonder200/specs.html

The point of interest now is, why announce planned Vista support for such a low-end product and deliberately omit announcements for Vista support for higher-end AIW products!?!

As it stands, ATI will not comment on whether or not they are even working on AIW support in Vista.

We have responded to your issue.

Solution:

Currently there are no announced plans for Vista support of the input features of the current AIW based cards.

I cannot confirm support until it is officially announced.

Ticket Information:
Ticket #: ***-*******
Date Created: 9/12/2006 11:13 PM EDT
Category: Drivers & Software

It is understandable that Vista is an unfinished product and announcing support for an unfinished product shouldn’t be compulsory. However, consistency or the lack thereof doesn’t go unnoticed. Simply put, if the policy is to not comment on Vista support / development, then they also shouldn’t be announcing planed driver support for the TV Wonder 200 PCI and the Theater 650 pro,….

If the policy is to announce Vista support (or planed Vista support) for products only after they have completed a rigorous qualification process it would be logical to attempt to qualify the higher-end more expensive products such as the AIW line before or at the same time as the lower-end TV Wonder 200 PCI ($50 –to- $60) and the Theater 650 (~$130).

If the AIW line’s multimedia functionality never works in Vista I would be OK with that. I bought my AIW X1900 expecting it not to work in Vista and having no indication to think that it would. However, if the AIW line will not work in Vista / Vista MCE due to technical shortcomings and this information were withheld deliberately until the 11th hour, that would be a highly questionable business practice IMO.

[Bill T]

Hey,

This is a know issue, and is being fixed. Just remember that Vista has not been released yet, so there are many things that don't work yet.

[Octavean]

So that is an admission that there is an issue with respect to Vista (pre-RTM) and the AIW line with Theater 200 chip? Is it also an admission that such Vista hardware / software / driver support for the AIW line with Theater 200 chip is currently being worked on with the intention of releasing full Vista / Vista MCE support when Vista ships?

If so, then great, and thanks a lot,…I’m sure that was what many AIW user want to hear,…too bad they couldn’t participate in the Vista CPP with their AIW cards reasonably functional.

[FlatSurfSucks]

Is there any way to get around this? I've been trying rather desperately (I have an AIW 2006 PCIe) to get this working. Are there any beta drivers that aren't "publicly" available that we could try out? I'm sure many of us (I know I would) wouldn't mind helping the developers debug this. I just want some form of media center function. The app that I've gotten to work best was AMCap but it certainly is no media center. Is there a time frame? Can we expect this before RTM (10 days from time of writing)? Or are we looking at more of general retail availability (January) time frame?

[Timmer]

Hello All, I was doing a search for ATI AIW X800XT and Vista and came across this site. Although it took me over 10 reloads of VISTA (Their driver roll-back needs some serious improvement), I did manage on getting the tuner to work. I will try to describe the process as best I can below.
1) First load the drivers from the original CD. You must also load multimedia center even though it won't work. You can't aunload it either (I tried that). You don't need to load launch pad. Also, it will fail the first time and then ask you if you want to retry with recommended settings. Do this. It will work the second time. It may do this more than once.
2) Restart the computer and when it can't find the drivers for various hardware browse and point vista in the direction of your original installation CD. Wait until all the hardware is found. Reboot again.
3) Load the latest "XP" drivers not the VISTA drivers. The onces I used were 6-9_xp-2k_dd_35774 for the dispaly and 6-9_xp-2k_wdm_35774 for the capture drivers. Do not load the catylyst drivers.
4) Reboot again. With any luck, like I had, your media portion of Windows VISTA will now work.
NOTE: VISTA crashes at every shut down with this setup but, IMHO, who cares as long as it fully works when it is running.

[FlatSurfSucks]

Thanks!!! Was this x64 or x86? I'm running x64 currently but I could try x86 if need be.

[Timmer]

Originally Posted by FlatSurfSucks

Thanks!!! Was this x64 or x86? I'm running x64 currently but I could try x86 if need be.

Not sure if I understand the question, to be honest.
Vista RC1, Pentium 4 - 3GHZ Northwood processor.

Boy this VISTA is really buggy considering it is going to be released in 3 months. Much like XP, I guess we can look forward to, litterally, hundreds of updates.

I tried upgrading my Audigy drivers last night and it made some little problems worse. Again, I couldn't roll back the driver (crashed the computer) so I had to load up Vista yet again.

I have gotten a little smarter. Now I have a working ghost image.

[FlatSurfSucks]

Well vista can be 64 bit or 32 bit run on the newer processors. Pretty sure the northwoods don't have EMT64 though. Actually, unless Microsoft delays (which is unlikely at this point), Vista goes RTM next week. Also, what build of Vista are you running? RC2? I really haven't had much, if any, problems with RC2 except stuff that rests squarely on the device manufacturers' shoulders.

[tomcattin]

well after much experimentation with drivers i have gotten my 2006aiw pci-e card to work with all features in windows vista rc2 it works in both mce and ati multimedia center even the fm radio works the trick is to manually install the drivers from the 6.9 windows xp drivers by right clicking on the display in the device manager the update drivers then browse my computer for driver software then let me pick from list then have disk then browse to the 6.9 drivers should be C:\ATI\SUPPORT\6-9_xp-2k_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_35774\Driver\2KXP_INF then look for inf C2_35774 click on it and then you see 2006 aiw drivers install and all should work well mine works great if you have a problem with the av t200 unifed stream driver not working manually install the driver for it from this driver ati_LH_RC0\Packages\Drivers\WDM\AVS_T200\LH atirt2lh is the inf file this driver is dated 8\1]2006 and is version 6.14.10.1074 good luck need any help i will be happy to help if i can

[FlatSurfSucks]

Thanks but thats not gonna work for me I'm running 64 bit and (as far as I know) they never released drivers for XP x64 for the card.

[tomcattin]

https:// support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=27 check last driver listed on page maybe it might work

[tomcattin]

take the space out from between // and support on that url so that it sill work

[Octavean]

WOW,….

Catalyst Beta Driver for Windows Vista RTM

Product series supported:

* Radeon® 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800, X300, X550, X600, X700, X800, X850 series
* Radeon® X1300, X1600, X1650, X1800, X1900, X1950 series
* All-in-Wonder® 2006, 9600, 9800, X600, X800, X1800, X1900
* Theater™ 550 PRO/TV Wonder™ Elite
* Mobility™ Radeon® 9550, 9600, 9700, 9800, X300, X600, X700, X800 series
* Mobility™ Radeon® X1300, X1400, X1600, X1800 series
* CrossFire™ Xpress 1600, 3200 series
 Radeon® Xpress 200, 200M, 1100 series

AIW support,.......

AIW fickin support people,.....!!!!!

[tomcattin]

has anyone gotten tv to work with the new driver ? i have had no luck and new driver does not include wdm drivers as far as i can tell the only thing that has chanfed is they added the name to the device manager