The Bundle
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The MSI GFTi4200 box is actually larger than most. I first thought I had received another motherboard in the post, it happens to be the exact same size. It's pleasingly illustrated, naturally reminiscent of the Ti 4600 box. The pertinent features, as always, are highlighted on the front. 64MB DDR RAM, TV-Out (no mention of VIVO, wonder why?) and free dual VGA support. I hardly call an inexpensive adapter a feature. Each to their own, though.
Although we've only shown a few CDs, the software bundle is impressive. You receive no less than 10 individual CDs, far surpassing other manufacturers' effort. You are provided with full retail editions of the excellent No One Lives Forever, the visually impressive Aquanox, and Shiny's excellent Sacrifice. All three are quality titles that have previously justified a full retail price of £25 each. Not content with three excellent games, you are also furnished with seven demos including amongst others, Serious Sam, Comanche, Ghost Recon, and Swat 3. Incidentally, the games bundle is the same as the more expensive MSI Ti 4600. You are also supplied with MSI's decent DVD software program. We've mentioned that the MSI Ti 4200 has VIVO capability courtesy of the Philips SAA710E chip, we see it being put to good use via the supplied S-VHS cable (6-foot long). To help users get the most out of the added functionality, MSI have also bundled a full versions of InterVideo's WinProducer 2.0 and WinCoder 2.0. These allow you to transfer signal from DV/D8/V8 sources to MPEG1/MPEG2/VCD. You can also output AVI/MPEG1/MPEG2 to a TV or external recording source. We tried using the TV-Out to a Mitsubishi 28" TV. The results were sharp, clear and eminently watchable. Much like the reference Ti 4200 we reviewed recently, the MSI Ti 4200 has excellent 2D at all resolutions, something NVIDIA have worked hard on. I use a relatively high-end monitor in the Sony G500 21" flat screen. The text and images produced by the MSI are subjectively excellent at my regular resolution of 1600x1200x32 85Hz. Even raising the resolution to 2048x1536x32 incurred little loss in focus. I've previously owned an ATI Radeon 8500, and feel that the MSI Ti4600 is at least as good as, if not better than, the R8500 at all things 2D related. DVD playback, once almost the sole domain of ATI, is open to subjective opinion. The Ti 4200's playback was as good as anything I've previously seen. Dual TMDS' allow you to use dual displays without undue problems. We connected up two monitors and quickly effortlessly nView, NVIDIA's dual display program. The quality of the second, external TMDS ensured that both displays were crystal clear at high resolutions. The manual deserves a mention. It is well written, easy to follow, and delves into detail when necessary. Most novice users will appreciate this fact greatly, especially when considering the initial complexity of VIVO functionality. The supplied drivers, somewhat understandably, weren't the most efficient. A quick download of the 28.32s at NVIDIA's site soon cured that little problem. A decent number of utilities are provided on an additional package, thereby rounding-up a substantial package for what is in effect a budget Geforce4, impressive. |
