Slashdot Mirror
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!"
This really doesn't help me. I have no AGP slots on my cheap motherboard...
The big question is, are there going to be any PCI releases faster than the GeForce 2 MX400?
I'd love to get a new system, but I'm tight right now...
It's been stated that Doom 3 won't run at full frame rate on any of today's existing hardware. Does a card like this change that situation? What types of advances in graphics cards are going to be necessary to play Doom 3 at it's fullest potential?
What is the market for this thing?
Cheap lapops.
Rest assured that it will be better then the current state-of-the-art of low-end S3 laptop chips (talk about oxymoronic...). I have a Via TwisterK with the current S3 chip, and the only regret I have for buying such a low-level laptop is that the 3D performance on this 1 GHz Duron is roughly equivalent to a Voodoo I. (Otherwise I've been happy with it because I didn't buy it for 3D performance, I bought it because even the crappiest laptop on the market today is still a kick-ass portable Linux machine.)
Presumably the low to mid end. If it has half the number of gates as the Nvidia FX, and is produced at the same .13 process, you'd expect it take take around half the silicon size. If all goes well that translates into lower costs to produce the chip. Many people simply don't need high-end 3D graphics and aren't willing to pay $200-300 it.
AccountKiller
Maybe people like me?
The current top-end graphics cards are in the $300 range. The second tier is around half that, and the third tier half again. The real sales on the top-end graphics cards are rather small, and grow as you go down. But having that top-end card helps your lower tiers, because of the assumption that good top-end implies good rest-of-line.
In today's market that's not necessarily true. IMHO both nVidia and ATI short-cut the lower ends with the MX and 9000 lines, respectively. Both of those product lines have cut features from a previous generation, and ramped the clock to regain performance. Also, both product lines will show their age on newer (let's face it, DoomIII) games.
I recently bought a third-tier card - a Radeon 8500LE. It has all the features, a slightly lower clock, and a much lower price. The reasonable competition would have been a GeForce3 Ti200 for a little more. This is also a stopgap card - in a year or so I want to step up and get DX9/OGL2 features when they're available in the second tier. (I know OGL2 is still an unknown.)
The reason to pay attention to the top end is because it presumably brings features down to the bottom end. But both dominant suppliers today have broken that feature chain. So if someone else comes in with the features and performance I want, and linux support through drivers or documentation, I'll buy, even if they don't own the top end.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
You forgot the step where you solder SMD resistors to the card to unlock the rest of the memory bus, and keep your fingers crossed that the extra logic you just enabled wasn't faulty in the first place (which is why it was placed on the 9500 and not the 9700).
Clocking it higher isn't the whole story, it's not a 9700 Pro until you unlock the other half of the memory bus.
It works, but I've heard as many failure stories as I have successes.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Will anyone ever be able to provide a REAL alternative to Nvidia and ATI?
A few years ago, you would probably have said the same things about 3Dfx and Matrox, or something. And before ATI released their Radeon, which wasn't long ago, most of their cards were rather cruddy. Card manufacturers come and go.
this card is gonna be released in mid 2003. It will be about as fast as the radeon 9700pro.
does that raise a flag for you or are you gonna skip to the next post now because you have no idea what's going on here like the rest of your slashdotter morons?
r300 has been out for some time. wtf is everyone getting excited about over a card that A. hasn't been released and B. won't be faster than the r300, a card that's gonna be a year old by the time this card is released?
ok, let's pretend it's a good card. it came from S3. does anyone remember what happened to the S3 Savage 4 and Savage 2000? they made these amazing cards (for their time) with incredible features (HW T&L (it was big at the time)) and NEVER support it in the drivers? i say screw S3. they've been outta the game so long they can't possibly have driver service like ATI or Nvidea.
i hate all of you.