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S3 is still around.

I see the problem :) but at least one quite decent OS project still supports your baby...

http://linux.via.com.tw/

Get your latest Linux drivers there. I went there to get better drivers for the two VIA systems I own that rely on Chrome drivers, and the newer drivers worked great.

S3's product site is here: http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/

Hope ATI fans won't get mad at me but from what I read and watch, it will be a nvidia unreleased card. VIA/S3 started to do really interesting things too as releasing a DirectX 10 card and having Linux support pages for some products too.

They (S3) say their hardware already supports OpenGL 3.0 http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/desktop/chrome_530gt/ , I bet it works too... Issue is, there isn't any sign of Linux driver for it. See what I mean?

The GPU supporting it is one matter, having a decent/supported driver on all systems is another. Drivers really, really matters. Let me give a example, on Tiger OS X (10.4) I get 130 FPS from same benchmark executable while on Leopard (10.5) which has way better kernel and OS architecture, system chokes to 50-60 fps. I still run Quad G5 (PPC) so I suspect lack of interest/time from Apple/Nvidia.

S3 graphics has not developed the VIA IGP products, but VIA has. S3 would not have any more knowledge about the register map of VIA's IGP chipsets.

Considering that S3's claiming they provided the CORE for the IGP "The following VIA Technologies North Bridge chipsets include an integrated S3 Graphics UMA core. Click on the logo for details from VIA's website:", that's a bit conflicting with what you just said.

Moreover, I'm a bit disturbed by the following remark:

To the best of my knowledge, particularly the 3D chrome9 core has zero documentation. So there is nothing that could be 'divulged'.

Okay, WHO, then, wrote VIA's Direct3D support? Without register level info, how can someone write drivers for WINDOWS for this IGP, hm?

Silicon Graphics 'graphics' engineers are now nVidia.

Commodity PC hardware ain't gonna cut it.

http://www.s3graphics.com/en/index.jsp
http://www.matrox.com/
http://www.tridentmicro.com/

have died at the hands of
http://www.leadtek.com/ (foxconn)
http://www.nvidia.com/
http://www.ati.com/

SGI's fu is weak besides..

Please contact S3 and VIA.
Contact information here :

http://www.s3graphics.com/en/company/contact.jsp

Another company to ignore.

Deltachrome doesn't work in Linux? Maybe you should file a bug report.

Well after visiting their web site and not finding any Linux drivers for their existing cards, and not even any mention of Linux nywhere on their site, I wouldn't hold my breath.

You know, i think the same. I had high hopes for the S3 DeltaChrome GPU line, which is DX9+ capable and has some very interesting features, like being able to process video in realtime using GPU horsepower and HDTV support. All of this at a very friendly price and using relatively simple cooling solutions, as S3 focuses on bundled / onboard solutions.

Yet, the reviews for it basically conclude it's a promising technology with poor drivers, which on GPU-land can make or kill a product. I still have hopes for them to release OSS drivers for it; over time, i think it could gain a good deal of acceptance among Linux/BSD users. Matrox did it, and sold a lot of cards to OSS users, but the 3D performance of their hardware was a bit lacking.

For some reason, i always liked S3 (even while bitching about those damn ViRGEs). Please, if someone at S3 is reading, we love you. Do it, and we'll root for the underdog!

What will S3's support be like for Linux?

By my interpretation of their website, they're primarily competing in the mobile video chipset market. The desktop video card is kinda an afterthought/marketing stunt. In the laptop market (particularly the low end laptop market), S3 has been huge, and NVidia and ATI are the upstarts. The customer base is getting more demanding for 3D capabilties. This is S3's response to prevent the recent erosion of their main market.

I like S3, I've been happy with their equipment and staff. I wish them luck in moving forward into the 3D world ;-). (PS: S3, please remember Free Drivers)

VIA/S3 don't own DiamondMM anymore. BestData does.

If you want to link to S3, it should be to S3Graphics.com

Another company, S3, is back with a new line of cards here. They are also looking to break into the market this quarter.

Your drivers do not support the "GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc" extension.

Just in case anybody's curious, I'll explain what that extension to the OpenGL API does. Apparently, it allows use of textures compressed with a still image codec developed by S3 Graphics Inc (hence "s3tc" == "S3 texture compression"). Each block of 4x4 pixels has a "dark color", a "light color", and 16 bytes representing the mix of dark and light colors for each pixel in the block. It's a bit like JPEG but much faster to decompress in real time.

Microsoft has licensed S3 texture compression for use as the standard texture codec in DirectX 8 Graphics. Nintendo has licensed it as well for the GameCube console's video.

does it support the Virge MX+MV chipset? Only Red Hat and Mandrake seem to out of the box, and I'm not l33t enough to get it working under Debian (yes, I've tried several things, including the drivers on s3graphics and from the linux laptop page).