S3 DeltaChrome S4 Graphics Chip Reviewed

EconolineCrush writes "The Tech Report has a preview of S3's budget DeltaChrome S4 graphics chip for PC graphics cards. While not the fastest option for games, the S4 looks like a credible alternative to ATI and NVIDIA's dominance of the graphics market - there are some handy analysis graphs comparing performance in Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Far Cry. Better still, the S4 has component HDTV output built right into the chip, making it an intriguing option for home theater systems."

Comments

mo money mo problems

[unbiasedbystander]

we're all going to go broke upgrading these things

Re:mo money mo problems

[pilgrim23]

I need to replace my Hercules CGA 8bit ISA card already?

Re:mo money mo problems

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I need to replace my Hercules CGA 8bit ISA card already?

Tell me, how hard did you have to push to get your Hercules card in a PCI slot?

Re:mo money mo problems

[bhtooefr]

Hercules CGA? I thought that Herclues cards used the HERCULES standard, and to run a CGA app, you had to use an emulator.

Doom 3 is too close

[Sean80]

I have to admit this just doesn't interest me. As fast as what is rapidly becoming the last generation of graphics accelerators from ATI and nVidia? Hmmm.

Being in the market for a new graphics card (Doom 3 anybody?) I have to admit this wouldn't even show up on the radar. I have enough concerns about ATI stability, or the fact that I need to buy a separate minitower and nuclear power supply to power the nVidia cards.

Not cutting edge for gamers

[hattig]

The component out is a major selling point however, for home theatre people anyway who might want to play the occasional game.

This is more interesting for being the graphics technology that will be incorporated in upcoming VIA integrated chipsets however.

I'd still get a low-end ATI or nVidia card above this however. What will S3's support be like for Linux?

Re:Not cutting edge for gamers

[MC Negro]

What will S3's support be like for Linux?

Going by the current offerings from the website, I'm not going to hold my breath. My experience with the Savage cards have not been that great. Drivers were delayed and needed patching, but that's no reason to condemn the entire manufacturer.

Competition

[MarcoPon]

Finally, maybe we have some sort of competition for ATI & nVidia?
Not a top score, but an alternative more credible than XGI, IMHO.

Bye!

Listen up S3 (and all the others)

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

While not the fastest option for games, the S4 looks like a credible alternative to ATI and NVIDIA's dominance of the graphics market

As far as I'm concerned, as a Linux user, I will dump my nVidia card and buy you a cartload of S3 cards the day you contribute a full-featured GPL driver to the Linux kernel, and GL stuff for X released under the GPL as well.

I wish those graphics card companies realized there isn't much to lose in opening up a driver's code (no, it won't release trade secrets if the hardware interface is generic) and everything to gain by grabbing the emerging hi-perf graphics card market for Linux.

Re:Listen up S3 (and all the others)

[MoOsEb0y]

I concur with this statement. Closed-source drivers are a PITA to deal with. I'd happily dump my ATI card and get an S3.. even if it was somewhat inferior in terms of performance, just so that I could not have to deal with installing yet another program every time I recompile my kernel. Plus being open source and all, a lot of performance could probably be gotten through various optimizations over time.

Re:Listen up S3 (and all the others)

[Hortensia Patel]

Normally I'd disregard this as the usual slashbot knee-jerk, but in this case opening the driver source is actually plausible.

NV and (to a lesser extent) ATI have invested a huge amount of effort in their drivers. A good GL driver was never trivial, and if anything is becoming more complicated as drivers take on responsibilities like compiling and optimizing shader code. Even without the oft-rumoured third-party IP issues, I don't see much chance of the big players releasing their source anytime soon.

S3, on the other hand, may be starting with a pretty clean slate. Their drivers are probably still pretty shaky once you step off the usual Quake rendering paths, and tightening them up could take years if they only have in-house dev resource. They're positioning this as a budget part, and are presumably very keen to keep costs down. They're an outsider at the moment and might happily grab a niche like Linux as a toehold from which to make a play for the wider market.

Fingers crossed.

Re:Listen up S3 (and all the others)

[Mike Hawk]

Sounds more like Open Source is a PITA to deal with. When I need to update my closed-source drivers for my closed-source operating system to play my closed-source game, all I do is double-click, reboot and I'm off. And it being inferior in terms of performance is not a sacrifice I have to make. Instead of blaming the player, maybe you should blame the game.

Re:Listen up S3 (and all the others)

[Some Dumbass...]

As far as I'm concerned, as a Linux user, I will dump my nVidia card and buy you a cartload of S3 cards the day you contribute a full-featured GPL driver to the Linux kernel, and GL stuff for X released under the GPL as well.

Normally I'd disregard this as the usual slashbot knee-jerk

Wanting your hardware to work with your software properly (not to mention out of the box!) is your idea of a "slashbot knee-jerk"?

Perhaps we're just got a cultural misunderstanding here. I'm guessing you've never had any problems with binary video drivers on Linux (for one reason or another). Anyway, when they work, they're awesome, but when they don't, they're a disaster. Anyone else have that nVidia driver problem which boiled down to the permissions on /usr/lib/tls being wrong? Unbelievably hard-to-diagnose problems can happen with those binary drivers.

Linux is designed to be open-source. Video drivers which are open source (and reasonably mature) generally "just work", presumably because they're designed in parallel with the kernel (e.g. 4K stack support is added early on and gets tested properly). That's what most people want -- they want their computer to just work. In the case of drivers on Linux, open sourcing them is the way to achieve that.

With this in mind, realize that calls to open source binary drivers do not necessarily represent open source evangelism or any such thing. They may just represent Linux users who want a better user experience. What's wrong with wanting that?

Whether or not open source drivers make sense from S3's point of view is an interesting issue, but probably not what the grandparent post had in mind.

Re:Listen up S3 (and all the others)

[vandan]

Not true. In a best case scenario all you have to do is point, click and reboot.

However there are a number of problems you may have to deal with that will make your experience drastically worse than users of open-source drivers:

1) The company that made your product decides not to support your setup. What do you point at?

2) The company that made your product disappears ( hello 3dfx ). What do you point at?

3) The drivers suck and crash your system. Where do you send bug reports? The manufacturer? They don't care. At least nVidia and ATI don't care anyway. I speak from experience.

4) Your all-wonderful closed-source system comes under the control of some snotty-nosed haxor, forcing you to re-install your pirated version of Windows XP and your pirated gamez and your pirated appz. Not so smart now, are we?

Re:S3 is still in business?

[BitchKapoor]

They were bought by VIA and have been doing the built-in graphics for VIA's chipsets since then.

ATI has component too...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think all 9xxx series and newer Radeons have component out capabilities. No need to resort to S3 for an HTPC. The 9000, 9200 and I think several 9600 models are fanless too, making them better choices for home theater use. It does require an adaptor though, I think it is $20 to $30 direct from ATI.

It's not that I don't welcome another challenger in the graphics arena, I still have a bad taste from their previous sad attempts to compete.

I've said it before...

[labratuk]

...and I'll say it again.

XGI, S3/Via and anyone else who wants to get into the 3d card market, write full featured DRI drivers for linux and GPL them. They will become the geek's choice standard in no time. Especially with all of this xorg/dri/composite/glitz/cairo stuff coming along.

Listening...

[marmite]

Actually, VIA (who own S3) were very nice to me. I told them that I wanted to write an X driver for their graphics chip (the CLE266 northbridge with integrated graphics). They sent me an NDA and then the register documentation.

And they did actually already write their own driver which was released as opensource (although I'm not sure of the license) for XFree86 including all of the "GL stuff".

IMHO S3/VIA are very appreciative of opensource work and are very supportive of opensource developers.

The Problem With Vedeo Cards...

[Brandybuck]

The problem with the video card market can be seen right here. Look at the Slashdot section this is in: Games.

Video card manufacturers have stopped marketing their products to normal people, and have focused on gamers. Your MeshBlitter 99900 FireCore+ selling for 599 dollars and 99 cents isn't going to do a damned thing to improve my word processing. Heck, it will probably make it worse by driving me nuts with the attached Hoovermatic cooling system.

Yeah, all you gamers living in your parent's basement are going to mod this down for heresy, but the truth cannot be ignored, and that truth is that most people don't need more RAM for their GPU than their CPU.