Installation was a snap. The installation process installed a slew of new programs, such as a DVD player and ATI's own media player, and features onto the computer.

First of all, the ATI drivers provide a way for the user to change color, OpenGL and Direct3D options as well as giving the user a way of managing the display combinations. The drivers support 2 and 4 sample anti-aliasing for both OpenGL and Direct3D and can be enabled or disabled through the drivers easily. They also allow the user to use different resolutions and refresh rates for each of the individual displays attached to the Radeon VE.

Unlike NVIDIA and their self-developed TwinView technology, the Radeon VE includes Appian Graphics' HydraVision software on top of the basic dual-display support that the drivers provide. The dual-display feature will still work perfectly without the HydraVision software, but HydraVision adds some interesting features to managing dual-displays.

One of its features is it ability to create multiple virtual desktops. This allows users to, for example, create different virtual desktops for different tasks. A user can, for example, create a gaming virtual desktop, with shortcuts to their games on it for quick access and then switch over to a "work" virtual desktop, where their word processor and email client can be left open all the time ready to be used. It also remembers "bars" that some programs might install, like the Microsoft Office Shortcut bar, so one can also add the Microsoft Office Shortcut bar to their "work" desktop, but keep it away from the gaming desktop.

Other features include the ability to set up hot-keys so that you can quickly move a window into whichever monitor you choose and the ability to have HydraVision memorize which monitor each of your programs will open in, among a few others. Finally, and this is probably the only feature that I find to be useful for my personal use, a button on each window open will allow the user to maximize the application to the full size of both displays.

Although HydraVision provides some neat features, I would, personally, prefer to just keep HydraVision off of my system, since I have no use for its many features and can save the extra space on my taskbar for other things-but others might disagree. I must state again that the multi-display feature of the Radeon VE will work fine with just the ATI drivers installed and without HydraVision.

I would also like to point out that the Radeon VE supports a TON of different display combinations-far more than I've ever seen; from just two CRT's to a combination of a CRT and a TV to a digital flat panel and a TV. Of course, you can use only one CRT, digital flat panel or TV without a problem either. You can even use all three connectors at the back of the video card… it's just that the software will only support the extending of your desktop to 2 of them, and the third will just be a mirror of one of them.

While we're on the topic of dual-monitors, I would like to share with you my experiences with ATI's dual-display solution with the following pictures, both showing "mirroring," which is the default setting if one does not choose to extend their desktop across two displays (just in case you didn't recognize from the pictures, both monitors are 17" and 18" TFT LCD screens from Samsung and KDS, respectively--reviews to be posted soon--and the thing in the middle is the MiSEL MP3 player):

2D Image Quality
As I mentioned before, the Radeon VE has only a 300MHz RAMDAC, compared to a 360MHz RAMDAC that's included in the rest of the Radeon family. Thus, it is only appropriate that I brief you on the 2D image quality.

On the primary monitor, the Radeon VE provides a very crisp and clear image at even the highest resolutions, but on the secondary monitor, the image quality is very poor. At a resolution of 1280x1024, which is what my monitor's recommended resolution is, the Radeon VE gave out one of the poorest images that I've seen ever from its secondary monitor connector (the DVI-I port). I'm no sure if this is caused by the included DVI-I to VGA adapter or by the DVI-I port itself since I didn't have a DVI-I monitor handy, but the two of them combined provided some very blurry images, evident on almost all resolutions.

DVD Quality
The Radeon VE's DVD playback quality was top-notch. Although little details are very hard to pick out when watching a movie, especially during the heat of the action, I can tell you that, as a whole, the Radeon VE outputted one of the best DVD images around. Plus, ATI's IDTC implementation will mean that it will help to ease the amount of CPU power that decoding DVD's using software will take up.

On to: The Test