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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!"
I wonder if S3 is on the way back again in the market. I am starting to design a media station like system using a projector for my future house. Are there any decent frameworks out there for designing a network capable media center?
More power to them for bringing some more competition into the market (again)...
Culling a bit out of the article...
--They won't say exactly how many, but the new card will have approx 1/2 the gates of Nvidia's FX.
--It will run at 60% clock (300Mhz) of high-end cards (FX again, as well as ATIs Raedon (sp?).)
--It will use DDR SDRAM.
--It won't be availible until end of Q2. (5 months or so.)
To be faster, you either need: (1) more gates, for more work per cycle. (2) More cycles, for more work per time. Looks like they have neither of these, plus they're not getting ultra-high bandwidth out of their memory... And it won't be availible for months...
With the NVIDIA FX coming out early Feb, it won't capture the high end...
What is the market for this thing?
We've all had ViRGE chips in our machines at some time or another. I can't say that I've every really cared for the S3 products. Drivers and tech support have always been poor. The chips have always fought over the bus and lagged down PCI devices such as soundcards. Savage 2000 was disappointing. The drivers and slow 32 bit rendering made it a horrible card to have, even for games based on the aging Quake 3 engine. I sure hope that they can change things in the future. They've always been able to put themselves into the value and OEM markets, especially since they were purchased by VIA. It's an easy way to slap these chips into integrated mobos, as long as they can put out performance that is better than the low-end nForce products.
;)
It's nice to hear about new products from alternative companies. What I am really looking for is a new product based on PowerVR's technology. I've really gotten a lot out of my Kyro II over the last two years, and the drivers have been quite solid under Windows and (now I use) Linux. I think that their series 4 products were canned, after STM anounced that it was selling its graphics business (which licensed PowerVR's series 4 technology). Series 5 was in development, but has had no real press.
My Kyro II experiences have been very good. The card puts out crisp and beautiful graphics, and rendering is fast. Unfortunately, it's time to upgrade for the up and coming games. Products from ATi and nVidia seem to be on my list, but I will probably end up waiting until the next nVidia chip gets released. Competition will drive down the R300 price.
Competition is a good thing, especially if the manufacturers provide Linux drivers.