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The Return of S3

Posted by michael on from the not-dead-yet dept.

flynn_nrg writes "Just saw this article on ExtremeTech about S3's new graphics card. S3 is back on the scene with its first new GPU architecture in five years. Rather than take aim at the high-end, S3 has set its sights on the midrange price/performance category, which is currently dominated by ATI's Radeon 9600 XT and nVidia's GeForce FX 5700, both of which are under $200. Today S3 unveils the DeltaChrome S8 GPU, which represents the midrange of its upcoming line of DeltaChrome GPUs."

20 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. But wait! by 77Punker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Without some razzle-dazzle high end cards to "wow" people with, they probably won't get the publicity needed to sell these midrange cards.

    1. Re:But wait! by Naffer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You have a point. I was at an electronics store today. I watched in horror as someone picked up an ATI 9600 Pro only to return it to the shelf and grab an Nvidia 5200 because it had 256 Megabytes of RAM. To get the high end market, all you need to do is produce a damn fast card. The midgrade market is tougher to deal with because most people grab the card with the most RAM and the prettiest box.

    2. Re:But wait! by puddpunk · · Score: 5, Informative

      Do we really have to go over this again? The reason NVIDIA can _not_ open source their driver is that parts of their hardware (and possibly software) that is driven by it is licenced from other companies, and that licence states that the source code, and even the specifications of that engine may _not_ be released.

  2. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well given their rep it'd almost have to, since they're not going to be driving up quality.

  3. Good for non-graphics use - and cheap! by after · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have been using out S3 supply (outrageously large) of these cards for servers for a long time. And it doesn't get any better then that.

    Basically, we have tons of these things and they were used back in the day when we didn't spend all of our money on expensive computer peripherals.

    I would recommend using these for anyone that does not use the computer as a workstation - such as a file server or in my case, a home machine that I ssh into. Heck, I don't ever turn on the monitor quite so often for that thing.

    Go S3!

  4. S3 who? by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wow.

    There 3d cards sucked back in 96 when I bought my S3 virge. I figured it was going to be the defacto standard since Vodoo was new and never heard of. Just upgrading to NT4 and Linux from DOS, I assumed it was up to the game makers to provide the drivers and not up to directx and opengl to provide support.

    But I have upgraded to 2 newer pc's since. I forgot all about them and assumed they went under. I doubt they will support FreeBSD/Linux and X as they did in the past with their own Xserver.

    --
    http://saveie6.com/
  5. hmm by SQLz · · Score: 5, Funny

    DeltaChrome. Sounds like a cheap mod you can buy for your Civic. I wish S3 would die and Diamond would come back.

    1. Re:hmm by foonf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Wow...they even brought back the same logo. Brings a tear to the eye. Not that I have entirely fond memories of Diamond products...the Stealth II was nice, but I was always annoyed at the complete lack of support for the original proprietary Monster Sound cards (never even wrote a driver for Windows NT/2K/XP, much less released specs to the linux community -- but I wouldn't have cared at all if it didn't have pretty decent analog output quality, and more power than almost any other PCI card I've used). But the circumstances of their demise left a rather nasty taste in my mouth. The story involves S3 to a large extent, although like Diamond, S3 then was not S3 now.

      Diamond was one of the more prominent aftermarket expansion card marketer of the nineties. They were very successful selling mostly video cards, based first on S3's chipsets, which were very competitive until 3D acceleration became popular, and later nvidia and 3dfx. They branched out into a wide array of products, including SCSI controllers, motherboards (after acquiring Micronics), modems (after acquiring Supra), and audio cards. They invented the portable MP3 player, with the original Rio, and developed some of the first telephone-line and power-line home networking products. But, largely because of acquisition and competition, they were constantly losing money.

      S3 was probably in a much worse bind. They were also losing money, but had none of the innovation that characterized Diamond's last years. They had been surpassed by new competition in graphics chipsets, and had no real other business. But through a lucky investment in TMSC fabrication plant, they had some cash on hand, and decided to buy out Diamond. At the time everyone assumed they were going to follow 3dfx's lead and produce sell graphics cards based on their own chipsets directly. But the truth is, they were looking for an exit both from Diamond's core computer component business, and their own graphics chipset line. After the rushed-to-market, broken, Savage 2000 was a market failure, they abandoned expansion cards entirely, throwing away the legacy of two PC hardware pioneers in favor of the Rio MP3 players, and another technology they had acquired, ReplayTV's personal video recorders. At the same time, the graphics chipset operation was spun off as a joint venture with VIA. This is what is now known as S3. The rest of the company was renamed SonicBlue. Completing the trajectory set by S3 management since the days of the Virge, they went bankrupt recently, and the Rio and ReplayTV units changed hands yet again, hopefully to more competent management. Best Data apparently picked up the old Diamond brand at the same time.

      As to this new graphics chipset...I wouldn't take it seriously unless it is proven to perform decently (well, actually I wouldn't take it seriously unless it also had Linux support on par with the old Matrox card I use now, but I digress...). As far as I can see VIA is just looking for some paying beta testers to work out the bugs in the core before they embed it in their next-generation southbridge chips, so don't look for a renewed commitment to serious graphics hardware from "S3".

      --

      "(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
  6. S3 hasn't been cool... by pw700z · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...since VESA local bus (VLB) video died. Now THOSE were the days. Even AMD was really, really cool in a mainstream sort of way - anyone remember the 486DX2-80MHz? Or the 120MHz which was faster than the Pentiums at the time? A DX4 120 + a fast S3 VLB video kicked serious butt, at least in 2D and text modes.

  7. I'm A Little Disappointed by rice_web · · Score: 5, Interesting

    But for only $150, nothing should hold this card back aside from name recognition. The $150 print point almost seals the deal for me, only that I'm holding out for better offerings from ATi and NVidia before moving up from my GeForce2 MX (I'm not much of a gamer).

    Overall, I have to agree with the concensus that S3 is back, and may be primed to stay in the market for some time. The article mentions that they are using a .13 micron manufacturing process, the same as ATi and NVidia, which should allow them to crank out higher-speed cards within the next few months, at least allowing S3 to remain competitive.

    Either way, the video card market may just be heating up for 2004.

    --
    The Political Programmer
    1. Re:I'm A Little Disappointed by pw700z · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Something just occured to me about what might hold it back... I somehow remember s3's video driver quality going down the tubes in a big way towards the (last) end. If they can make a quality product, with quality drivers, and maybe even focus on really great 2d performance, they could be on to something.

  8. Give us drivers... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...and we will buy. I mean that. Provide either Open Source drivers for X, or the full specs required to implement them, and you will sell hundreds of thousands of cards to those of us who are more interested in non-proprietary kernel modules than raw performance.

    Right now, I have an NVidia card in my workstation and I hate it. Why? Because I have to choose between using the OpenGL renderer and staying true to my beliefs about software freedom. This basically means that I paid extra for a card that I can only halfway use.

    S3, take heed. Give us a product that we can use and we'll support you. Do it. It's the right thing.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  9. Re:Wow by toddestan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Prices are already pretty reasonable. Unless you play cutting edge games, a $75 video card will do everything you want.

    Heck, even if you play cutting edge games, even that $75 card will serve you well unless you absolutely must have 1600x1200 resolution with 32bit color and 435FPS.

  10. Why buy mid-range? by mu-sly · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Mid-range graphics cards seem a slightly pointless purchase, given that you can buy top-of-the-range cards from 6 months ago for a fraction of their original prices (not to mention the second hand prices).

    Why buy something mediocre but brand new, when you could buy something that absolutely kicked ass six months ago for a similar amount of money?

    --
    Organic free-range music... yum!
  11. Future support? Driver updates? by UserChrisCanter4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Remember the Kyro II? The chip used a unique tile-based rendering system that produced performance similar to the then-current Geforce 2s (although some synthetic benchmarks indicated otherwise) while being priced more in line with the MX line of cards. After much reading and research, a buddy of mine decided to pick one up for his machine, his reasoning being that he wasn't a super hardcore gamer, but wanted to be able to throw down with us every once in a while.

    Flash forward a couple of years, and while NVidia and ATI are still willing to release updated drivers for their cards of that era, the Kyro lingers unsupported, even though NEC (the chip designer) and Guillemot/Hercules (the card manufacturer) are still going strong. My friend wanted to play Halo, and even though the card should've been able to support the game (albeit at a lower resolution/framerate), he can't because his card is basically ignored and unsupported by the game manufacturers and the source comapnies for the card itself.

    The moral of the story: S3 is a reasonably well-known name. So is Hercules/Guillemot/NEC. It's gonna take a hell of a price/performance ratio to get me to recommend a video card not based on Ati or NVidia after the Kyro debacle.

  12. Also on Tech Report by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.tech-report.com/etc/2003q4/deltachrome- s8/index.x?pg=1

    It looks like they have half a product. Good enough hardware, absolutely horrible drivers.

    And I'm not talking about drivers that don't run quickly. I'm talking about drivers that render things incorrectly or even crash! Ugh.

    At least with Intel's Integrated Graphics (or Nvidia or even ATI these days) even though they may not be the quickest on the block at least their drivers *work*.

  13. Driver Issues by miracle69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So they're releasing a card with serious driver issues, where the top of the line model is expected to compete in the mid-price range market.

    Wouldn't this be the perfect situation to open the source and getting the community to squeeze every last bit of performance outta their chip? It helps them save money on paying people to code the driver, and it gets the most outta their hardware. IN addition, it would also give them a healthy community that would reccommend this solution to friends/family that aren't into the bleeding-edge gaming machines.

    --
    Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
  14. Observations of an insider on S3's chances... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recently quit one of the big 2 GPU companies to pursue other opportunities...which one is irrelevant, but this is an AC post none-the-less. This is a brief look at the business end...I'll leave the "it's great" or "it's garbage" discussions to others.

    To use an overused buzzword, lets assume that the S3 chip has the best "price/performance ratio" of any chip. S3 still has little chance to gain any real market share, mostly because they have little chance to get in OEM systems.

    Let me explain. The retail market (where you go to BestBuy or newegg.com) makes up a very small percentage of the overall market. I can't give real numbers (I don't know if they're NDA'd or copywritten by the research company, so better safe than sorry), but lets just say, it's the OEM sales that pay everyone's salaries and keep the investors happy.

    Since OEM sales are so important, lets jump into the mind of the OEM. There are 3 major things that the OEMs care about when choosing the chip to put in their computers.

    1)Does this chip perform SIGNIFICANTLY better than what we're already using?

    2)Is there any benefit with using company X over company Y?

    3)Are we getting a better deal from the new company?

    So, what does this mean for S3 (lets throw in XGI also). To put it simply, change is difficult and expensive. Assembly lines need to be retooled, software needs to be changed and re-validated. There needs to be a good reason for an OEM to change.

    Going down the checklist:

    1) They do not, and never will, have a part that performs that much better than nVidia's or ATI's midrange part (if they keep the "we only want the midrange" strategy). This is because the big 2 can generate a better midrange part by either lowering the price on a higher-end part, or by tweaking the binning of the higher-end parts (a high-end part that fails may be able to run as a mid-range part). Obviously, the low and mid-range parts make up the bulk of sales (and therefore contribute most to market share), so there's no way ATI or nVidia would give up any market share without a fight...and both companies have much more ammo (graphics IP) than S3 or XGI.

    2)Positive mindshare in the IT world is a HUGE thing. Most of the time it is more important than the quality of the product. Though, a good product usually generates a greater mindshare, it's not always the case (read: Microsoft...to the uneducated masses). In graphics, it's been shown that the easiest way to generate a positive mindshare is to have the fastest & most stable product. nVidia built it's reputation on it's Riva and GeForce lines. ATI got back in the game with it's 9700. For S3 or XGI to gain mindshare, it can't elicit a "ooh, it's competitive" remark. It needs a "holy shit, that's fast" remark...that or some kick-ass marketing.

    3)This would have to be one hell of a deal. Switching involves a risk that they will not sell as many PCs (and make as much money) as they already are. If money alone is driving the deal, the OEM would have to feel that there is a good chance of them making more money while selling fewer PCs...it doesn't take an economics major to see what that would mean for S3's or XGI's profit margins.

    So, how could S3 or XGI really take market share from ATI and nVidia? Simple, make the fastest part out there at a price that rivals what nVidia and ATI sell their high-end parts for. Can one/both of them do that? Maybe, but it won't be easy. If they can do that, then they will have a solid foundation for deriving the mid-range parts, and the mid-range parts will practically sell themselves.

  15. Re:Wow by bonehead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    $200 to me seems like WAY to much to pay for a graphics card

    Especially in a day and age where a hundred bucks more can buy you an entire PC.

  16. Re:Been there done That. by Afrosheen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hahaha, that's great. After the TNT I bought a TNT2Ultra made by Guillemot (which was a great card) and a few years later donated it to my brother. He had been using that card to play every single new game (including Max Payne) up until a few months ago when he built a new PC from the ground up.

    One nice thing about Nvidia's driver upgrades over the years is that each release has improved the performance of damn near every card they make. My assumption is that the drivers are 50% of the card's performance..which would make sense in the context of them being unable to fully open-source the driver.