NVIDIA's ForceWare Multimedia - An In-House Production

Final Words

NVIDIA has come a long way, but this has been a project long in development; this first look at FWM for public viewing has begun with release version 3.02.24. NVIDIA still has a lot of work to do, such as doing more mouse-over highlights, right-click options for buttons as well as better object UI interaction, like MCE. We still don't have a 10 ft. UI to look at, which is something that NVIDIA definitely needs in order to compete with ATI. And while FWM (as well as its design foundation - NVDVD) is based on a skin-able design, we should note that some of the problems they have with the UI can probably be solved with a better skin design. However, this actually requires them to have skins included with FWM for this to work in their favor, since most people won't devote time to search the net for skins. And those who do, won't find any, since FWM has barely enough age on its hand for its users to develop skins.

NVIDIA does a good job of integrating all of the necessary functions into a single interface (minus editing and burning), which we prefer over ATI's MMC, but our complaint is that it still feels like a frame that is loading separate modules for each function. Load time between functions should be more seamless, especially if NVIDIA is trying to play in the same ballpark as MCE, Beyond TV, and SageTV - all three of which beat out NVIDIA in design.

If you have to make a buying decision now, we would recommend that you go with ATI for any multimedia solution, whether it is an AIW or a TV tuner product. Since NVIDIA has the bulk of the work done, we have to say that FWM looks to have a very promising future and should make ATI do a double take on their multimedia competitor.

Three months down the road or come the next software revision, our recommendation might change. Though, with NVIDIA planning to post a public release of FWM in the late summer without 5.1 support (you probably will have to pay for a full options version, like NVIDIA does with NVDVD), and a 10 ft. UI version planned in the fall, it is hard to say approximately when the next revision with new features will pop up. And until FWM's webposting, we are only aware of the software being shipped with eVGA's GeForce FX 5700 Personal Cinema. MMC shipped with all AIW products and is a free download from ATI's website for basically all new ATI card owners (past owners can purchase for $10 - read details).

Topping off our list of problems is the poor remote support; NVRemote's software is still poorly coded - moving the cursor with the remote's directional pad is like looking at a cursor on a monitor with a really low refresh rate, jerky and inconsistent. We know that it is not a hardware issue because NVRemote will pick up our Remote Wonder's commands automatically without any configuration (both remotes are made by X10), and we still have the same problem. This is due to NVRemote's software, which doesn't give unique IDs to each system. Because it automatically picks up commands, it means that you cannot have an AIW and Personal Cinema setup in the same area. This is not the case for Remote Wonder support, which gives the ability to have multiple AIW setups without any interference between the systems.

Our most pressing issue was the fact that on the highest setting, NVIDIA's FWM basically ate up half our available CPU resources, even though we were using a Pentium 4 3.0C! This is not practical at all. For most people to go out and buy a Personal Cinema, then be stonewalled with a slow computer and end up being forced to upgrade is a bit ridiculous. Given that on our P4 2.4B GHz, everything came to a crawling halt (we are talking about 100% CPU utilization here), I can't really believe the amount of resources that FWM consumes. On this specific issue, we would personally rather pick up something like Beyond TV, which did not use up as many system resources on non-hardware encoding multimedia cards.

Granted the highs and lows of the available timeshifting qualities in FWM are higher and lower than those in MMC, but even so, this is a bit much. Even with that being said, the TV quality seen in MMC is cleaner and crisper than in FWM. Since for whatever reason, white paper doesn't quite look like white paper in FWM, something that we must insist on for TV viewing.

In conclusion, we feel that NVIDIA has a better look, but definitely needs a lot of tweaking and reworking done in functionality and usability, specifically the general feel and UI interaction. Some of the core abilities (i.e. our recorded video resolution issue) still need to be addressed, which is only one of the few bugs that we encountered worth mentioning. ATI, on the other hand. has a decent look, and has all the nooks and crannies for functionality and usability ready to go. And we cannot stress enough the importance of a 10 ft. UI, if you are planning to go mouse- and keyboard-less. Until things change, our recommendation is going to stay with ATI's AIW or TV Wonder solutions. And if there is one lesson that NVIDIA can draw from this, it is you don't go dueling with a half-cocked pistol.