NVIDIA's ForceWare Multimedia - An In-House Production

ForceWare Multimedia - Getting Started

The first thing that you will notice is the different approach that NVIDIA takes with their multimedia software. While ATI has a separate program for just about every function (TV, DVD, VCD, CD, Library, EPG, and FM Radio), NVIDIA follows Microsoft's and Frey Technologies' footsteps by having a single program accommodate all multimedia functions. This is the way that we prefer things done, since it keeps all multimedia functionality in one place, but obviously, it has to be done right; otherwise, it gets cumbersome.

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This is reflected in the main menu interface for each company. ATI has a separate program that links to other programs once you click on the desired function, and NVIDIA has a main menu display in their program for navigation to the separate function within the single program.

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The nice thing that NVIDIA did was implement a mouse-over highlight which shows the currently selected option. Because this is viewed in the desktop mode, the mouse will show the option that you are selecting; this isn't a must-have setting, but it is nevertheless a nice option to have. Mouse-over/currently selected highlight is a much more important option when it comes to the 10 ft. viewing mode, something that ATI has in MMC 9.0. There is no 10 ft. UI currently with NVIDIA's ForceWare Multimedia.

Loading Screen for ForceWare Multimedia
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Because ATI's approach uses a separate program to launch other programs, there is no single no load time, since each program has its own load characteristics. NVIDIA's use of a single program does require load time, so there is a splash screen that indicates this. The ForceWare Multimedia program takes about 2 seconds to load, and the splash screen appears at the same time, but takes 4 seconds to disappear. Board partners for Personal Cinema cards like eVGA will add their own logo to this splash screen.

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Load times for each function within ForceWare Multimedia are a bit different. The TV takes approximately 4 to 5 seconds; the DVD, ~3 seconds; and, the FM radio, ~6 seconds. The Music, Video, and Photo functions are basically instantaneous, but if you want to go back to the main menu screen, it takes about 1 second. Loading the TV, DVD, and FM functions take time because each seem to require time to load the module needed for that function and/or acquire the signal. During the load time for each of these three functions, the cursor changes from the traditional Window's arrow to a circular object that animates, like one of those beginning movie clips with 3, 2, 1 in a clockwise format. NVIDIA animates the cursor with a black and white background in a similar clockwise format.

Load Time in Seconds
	TV	DVD	FM
ATI	~3	~1.5	~2.5
NVIDIA	~4 to 5	~3	~6

ATI's approach is to do just a straightforward load of each program: TV takes ~ 3 seconds; DVD, ~ 1.5 seconds; File, ~ 1 second; VCD, ~ 1 second; CD, ~1 second; and FM, ~ 2.5 seconds.

The Author and Edit selections on FWM's main menu actually link to Ulead's DVD MovieFactory 2.5 SE and VideoStudio 7 SE DVD, and since they don't really pertain to FWM, we aren't going to go over them. They seem to be mainly included to make up for the burn-to-disk function that is absent in this release of FWM.