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#Post#: 15--------------------------------------------------
S3
DIR By: Mr Horse
Date: December 17, 2017, 2:17 pm
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Chips
S3 911, 911A
S3's first Windows accelerators. VRAM based (16/256-color,
high-color acceleration). Released June 10, 1991.
S3 924
Like the 911 but with 24-bit true-color acceleration.
S3 801, 805, 805i
These were S3's first mainstream DRAM VESA Windows accelerators
(16/256-color, high-color acceleration). Offered good value for
the money at the time. Available for ISA and VLB. The 805i used
interleaved memory.
S3 928
S3 Vision928 ISA
Less buggy version of 924 with 24/32-bit true-color
acceleration, DRAM or VRAM
S3 805p, 928p
Adds PCI support
S3 Vision
S3 Vision968
High performance GUI accelerators during 1994 and 1995. The
family includes the 864, 868, 964 and 968 chips. The 9xx series
uses VRAM memory instead of fast-page DRAM, enhancing memory
performance and improving high-resolution GUI performance. The
x68 chips include motion video acceleration features including
color space conversion and video scaling.
S3 Trio 32/64
S3 Trio64 VLB
S3 Trio64
An evolution of the 864. The name refers to the integration of 3
components into one ASIC: RAMDAC, graphics core and clock
generator. Higher integration reduces overall product cost.
Trio64 variants are popular for DOS gaming due to their high
compatibility and good speed.
S3 ViRGE
ViRGE DX 4MB
S3 Trio 3D/2X
The ViRGE is the first S3 chip with 3D acceleration support and
launched in 1996. Aside from the 3D hardware, it is quite
similar to the Trio64V+. These cards typically come equipped
with 2-4MB RAM. S3 created the S3D API to program directly for
the ViRGE accelerators although they also support Direct3D 3+.
There are several variants. The original ViRGE (marked 325), the
ViRGE VX, ViRGE DX, ViRGE GX, ViRGE MX, ViRGE GX/2, Trio3D and
Trio3D/2X. VX is slower at 3D but uses VRAM memory to somewhat
improve high-resolution GUI performance. DX and GX are the
second generation and GX supports SGRAM. MX was designed as a
power-effecient mobile graphics solution, yet it made appearance
on desktop due to low cost. GX/2 and MX are AGP capable and
therefore mostly used on AGP cards. The MX and GX/2 might be
called third generation. The later Trio3D model based on ViRGE
architecture was marketed as an office solution with basic 3D
capabilities and became successful in OEM market.
All ViRGE chips posses a fairly complete 3D feature set and can
output quality 3D visuals. The original 325 chip and the VX have
inadequate performance outside of S3D games. S3 Trio3D lacks
support for S3D titles. The DX and GX have approximately double
the 3D performance and can run some Direct3D adequately if the
driver is compatible with the game. Later chips are somewhat
faster still.
S3D games often only recognize the original ViRGE 325 chip but
there is a third party utility to fix the game executable.
The similarity to Trio64V+ provides high compatibility for DOS
games.
S3D accelerated games
Actua Soccer
Battlerace
Croc
Descent II
Descent II: Destination Quartzon 3D
Destruction Derby
Fatal Racing
FX Fighter Turbo
Havoc
Mechwarrior 2
POD
Screamer
Terminal Velocity
Terracide DEMO
Time Warriors
Tomb Raider
Whiplash 3D
Includes bundled games (OEM releases), official and unofficial
patches
S3 Savage3D
Savage3D
Savage3D was released in 1998 and was S3's first 3D chip with
useful Direct3D and OpenGL performance. Its performance is
similar to Voodoo Banshee or Matrox G200, and its image quality
is excellent. GUI performance is excellent. It supports
single-cycle trilinear filtering, meaning one can enable
trilinear filtering with little speed impact. It can use
textures up to 2048x2048 pixels. It is also fully AGP 2x
compliant.
It is the first 3D accelerator to support texture compression,
in the form of S3TC, which would later become the DXT1 Direct3D
standard. Texture compression dramatically reduces the size of a
texture while only minimally affecting quality, allowing very
high quality textures to be used even with the limited 8MB RAM
of the Savage3D.
S3 created a new API called Metal for the Savage family. Unreal
Engine 1 games frequently support it, and may also have optional
S3TC textures available. Like 3dfx Glide, it offers superior
quality and performance compared to Direct3D and OpenGL with
Unreal Engine.
Savage3D's greatest failing was, as typical with S3, driver
quality.
S3 Savage4
S3 Savage4 Pro
S3 Savage4 Extreme
This is an enhancement of Savage3D. Clock speed was improved,
AGP 4x implemented, and the cards typically come equipped with
16-32MB RAM. It doesn't have enough fill-rate to compete with
the other 3D cards of 1999 such as NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 and 3dfx
Voodoo3, and drivers are again sub par. However, S3 Metal
support made it somewhat popular for Unreal Tournament because
the S3TC textures were a dramatic visual upgrade.
S3 Savage 2000
Savage 2000
Savage 2000 was an ambitious overhaul of previous 3D technology
and was released at the end of 1999. It was to be a fully
Direct3D 7 compliant part, meaning support for a hardware
transform and lighting engine. Compared to Savage4, it has twice
the pixel throughput per clock, and potentially quadruple the
texture processing rate. It is superficially comparable to
NVIDIA GeForce 256.
However, the chip is not entirely functional. It is faster than
Savage4, but it is not Direct3D 7 compliant because the S3TL (HW
T&L) engine is not entirely bug-free. S3TL is disabled by
default, but can be enabled. It produces visual anomalies and it
does not improve performance because it is not fast enough to
outperform the CPU at the task. In many cases enabling S3TL can
worsen performance. Overall the Savage 2000 is not as fast as
GeForce 256, but it can beat Matrox G400, 3dfx Voodoo3 and RIVA
TNT2.
Like Savage4, this chip was somewhat popular for Unreal
Tournament. It is significantly faster than Savage4 and only the
Savage series could run the game with the S3TC textures.
Likewise with the Savage4, the Savage 2000 also support's S3's
MeTal API.
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