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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!"
What is the resolution of HDTV?
BlackNova Traders
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
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)...
AGP exists for a reason -- PCI isn't fast enough for heavy graphics use. Heck, some SCSI setups can completely saturate the PCI bus, which is why there are other alternatives (like 64-bit PCI or AGP).Then why would you be considering hundreds of dollars for a new video card when you can probably get a replacement motherboard for under $50?
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?
Actually, that is also a relevant question to those people with agp motherboards, who want to add a second display adapter to their systems.
The top-of-the-line adapters often have dual-head capability these days, but there are people who are interested in decent secondary display adapters.
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?
It doesnt do really do anything more than the current run of cards does (ATI AIW 9700 pro), it does LESS than the upcoming run of cards (GeforceFX), AND its scheduled to come out like, 3-5 months from now, long after the ATI has dropped in price and the GFX has pushed down prices of the Ti4600?? ::yawn:: wake me when there is real news.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
That's great news.
:(
As long as there is a follow-up post about new HDTV projectors that run for about $200. Otherwise, it doesn't affect me too much...
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.
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.
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.
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!!!!
Okay, as far as I see it the video card race works like this: nvidia or ATI releases high end card at 400 bucks or so, and 1-3 mid-low range cards. The competitor follows suit, prices fall about 15-20 bucks every month or so, until the "next card" comes out, then prices plummet, and it all starts over. Sometimes a 3rd party enters (like S3 right now) and offers what is basically crap comparted to whats out, doesnt offer THAT big a price difference, and goes away, If a company REALLY wanted to take the "crown", wouldnt it make sense to release a card as good or better, at a rediculous price point, but still make money? like a 9700 Pro equivalent at 2/3's the price or something? Give me the SAME specs and good driver support, and I dont CARE who makes my card. Note, I have no idea the production costs involved with these cards, this is just an observation... feel free to correct me...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
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.
I'd like to hear if the thing will have decent Linux support. 200 FPS at 1600x1200x32 in Quake3 in Windows means absolutely nothing to me if it can't do 3D acceleration in Linux.
So, two questions:
1. Will we see good 3D-accelerated drivers from S3 or funded by them? Open-source or not is irrelevant to me as long as they work well (ie, on par with nVidia or PowerVR).
2. Will S3 let S3TC be used in DRI drivers?
If the answer to either is no, they can take their chipset and shove it where the sun don't shine.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.