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S3's DeltaChrome Examined
sand writes "Firingsquad takes a look at DeltaChrome, which is a graphics chip from S3. The core runs at 300MHz and offers pixel and vertex shaders that go beyond DirectX 9, just like Nvidia GeForce FX. The really cool feature though is the integrated HDTV encoder, you can output from your PC or laptop directly to an HDTV or 1080p projector!"
Ooohhhh, ahhhh... I'm impressed really... Did I mention that the latest ATI All-In-Wonder has had HDTV out since it was released... some time ago.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
TuxRacer on hdtv! Now I can die happy.
You could have died happy a long time ago. 1600x1200 monitor resolution is a higher resolution than 720p or 1080i HDTV resolution. If you can afford the High-Def TV monitor then you could have bought a graphics subsystem that would support 1600x1200 a long time ago.
Kent
Being a cheap bastard, I'm borrowing this from ABC.com's FAQ.
Benefit: Picture Resolution
Resolution is a measure of picture sharpness. Current analog television contains about 480 active scanning lines resulting in a picture resolution of about 330 lines of resolution. By comparison today's VHS VCR's have about 240 lines of resolution which is why VHS recordings don't look as sharp as the original picture. DVD's offer higher resolution typically on the order of 400-480 lines of resolution. (Note the number of scanning lines does not equal resolution. For example, both the VHS and DVD formats have 480 active scanning lines but have different resolutions.) HDTV offers resolution that is at least twice that of analog television. You can expect razor sharp images from HDTV.
I have heard that there are two HDTV formats -- 720p and 1080i. Is there a difference between these formats and can my television receive both these formats?
Regardless of the HDTV format being broadcast, all new HDTV receivers can receive both formats. New HDTV televisions will convert any received signal to a format that is compatible with your new display. The 720p format uses progressive scanning, which is just like your computer monitor. Progressive scan offers crystal clear images that virtually eliminates those scanning lines that are visible on most large screen televisions. ABC broadcasts all of its programming using the 720p format except in Dallas, where the ABC station broadcasts in 1080i. Many new flat panel displays use progressive scan. The 1080i format uses interlace scanning just like today's analog televisions. Scanning lines are less visible on big screens due to the number of lines. Most currently available projection HDTV's use 1080i.
There is no 1080p HDTV resolution. 1080 is only available in an interlaced format, hence 1080i. 720p is the highest preogressive output you can go.
Kent
Go look at AVS Forum and their HTPC forum. Even has a sub-forum for HTPC on Linux.
It's a very, very busy forum though, with a couple hundred threads a day being posted to. But it's the definitive place for HTPC knowledge.
It's been stated that Doom 3 won't run at full frame rate on any of today's existing hardware
Reference from Carmack please?
Doom3 is likely to run with full eye candy on an ATI Radeon 9700 (and probably 9500) or a GF Fx (which isn't quite out yet) at 1024x768 with full features enabled and probably anti-aliasing and ansiotropic filtering.
This is based off Carmack stating that it'll run decently on a GF4 at 1024x768, although without all the eye candy at maximum.
Frankly, nobody seriously expects that SiS is going to trump ATI and nVidia yet... they've been too far behind for too long. They may very well eventually come out with a chipset that's as good or better than the current leaders, but they haven't even managed to get within spitting distance with previous efforts -- and the hype around those chipsets was that they'd be better than ATI/nVidia too.
Who cares, deltachrome may be interesting, but it can't top this!
http://www.guru3d.com/rivatuner/
Step 1: Go buy yourself a Radeon 9500 128MB (non-pro only) $150US
Step 2: Apply this patch
Step 3: Watch your benchmarks, you just got a Radeon 9700 pro for $150!!!
I know. However, just because it exists doesn't mean absolute abandonment is necessary. Heck, a second screen on those single AGP-slot equipped systems could be done via PCI
They used to be, but nowadays the video cards have multiple DACs. My GF4 Ti4200 has two outputs on it for two monitors. Matrox has cards that can drive up to four monitors at once.
It's no longer necessary to have more than one video card to have multiple monitors.
On a side note however, what is PCI (32 and 64 bit) throughput
The PCI you find in your average computer is 133 MBps - 32 bit, 33 Mhz. On servers you may find faster PCI backbones, and I believe the top of the line with the current PCI spec is 64-bit at 66 MHz, giving you 533 MBps transfer rate.
If it's less than, say, 300MBPS, couldn't an external USB2 videocard be made
USB2 is 480 Mbps, not MBps. That's a whopping 60 MB/s, which is well below even PCI 1.1. Oh, and you'll never actually get 480 Mbps from a USB2 device, since that's maximum theoretical speed and never approached in reality.
PCI is less and less viable for graphics as we move on... the bandwidth just isn't there. IIRC, even the GF4MX cards are crippled on a PCI bus... which is pretty pathetic. I don't expect to see any more advanced 3D cards made available on that bus.
Somone on the DRI team has the chipset documentation without having to sign an NDA. So things are looking promising.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
To keep it simple.
480i = 640x480 interlaced at 60 Hz refresh
480p = if it is in 4:3 mode then it is 640x480 60 Hz refresh
if it is in 16:9 mode then it is 720x480
at 60 Hz refresh
720p = 1280x720 non-interlaced at 60 Hz refresh
1080i = 1920x1080 interlaced at 60 Hz refresh
1080p = 1920x1080 non-interlaced at 60 Hz refresh
Most HDTV's support 480i, 480p, and 1080i, some of the better ones also support 720p, and some top of the line models will support 1080p.
NTSC:
480i = Interlaced
HDTV:
480p = Progressive (depends really.. 480p can be 640x480 or 704x480 (dvds))
720p = 1280x720 - Progressive
1080i = 1920x1020 - Interlaced
** Most TV's are scaling the image either way. 1080i tv's upspace 720p and 720p's downscaler 1080i.
My eyes prefer 720p, and it looks great on my front projection system (Tony Hawk 4, NBA2k3 on xbox look fantastic).
I'm also very impressed with Windows Media 9 and 720p based data. Very nice playback on an XP1700 to my projector! Can't wait to build my own PVR on this technology.
BTW, supporting HDTV is supporting the resolutions. Most HDTV sets support DVI, DB15 (vga) and component, so this S3 stuff isn't "new"
Gainward has a Geforce 4 MX 420, but I don't know if it's faster than GF2MX400. I always skip at least one upgrade cycle so I've been ignoring the Geforce4 cards.
I orginally noticed this card at the Mini-ITX store (http://www.mini-itx.com) as a replacement for onboard graphics that accompany ITX form factor motherboards. So one application would be media box PC's. The VIA EPIA series of motherboards don't have AGP slots.
Ravi
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
theres pretty good radeon 9000 pci card out there..
there was one review with placed it against radeon 9000-agp.. did pretty well against it except when there was some things that just choked up the pci bus (doesn't happen that often on games really..)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Bzzt, wrong.
Toshiba is even shipping a 1080p TV.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
It was, until a few months ago. The new PCI-X spec allows (AFAIK) a top frequency of 133Mhz and 64bits bus width. Almost 1GBps.