Have you noticed?...

[Darth Rancid]

http://www.s3graphics.com/index.html

Old S3 is about to bring out a DX9 graphics chip!

I happen to be one of the few who owned AND liked a Savage2k, so I think its going to be interesting to see what this "DeltachromeX9" will be capable of...

I must say it's a really, really silly name though, and since the site appears to be nearly dead I couldn't find anything about when it might be avalible...

[EciDemon]

It´s nice to see more compeditors in the speed/features race.
I don´t have much experience with S3, the last card I owned from S3 was the old S3VirageDX ... wasnt very impressed by it, tho it was cheap ;)

I replaced it with a creative Riva TnT when they were brand new.

[-=DVS=-]

Well i havn't noticed it :eek: i though S3 died with they 3d cards long ago :rolleyes: guess i was wrong , but how good can it be realy , good cards only come from ATI and Nvidia :p

[Darth Rancid]

Hmm..

There's a rumor on beyond3d that this is in fact a hoax made by hackers...
I must say that "DeltachromeX9" does NOT sound like a serious name, at all. But S3 doesn't sound like a likely hacker-target either.. who'd bother?..

I guess we will see what happens tomorrow when the S3 people comes back to work.

[poursoul]

The whole site looks really cheesy. :rolleyes: But then again that could be S3 ;)

[Mono]

I find it hard to believe that they have the capability to design a dx9 gpu simply by the look of thier webpage. Unless of course they spent EVERY last dollar desining it and had 50 cents left to buy a layout. ;)

[StealthHawk]

if this card is anything like previous S3 cards it won't cut the mustard. either S3 cards have horrible hardware bugs, or their drivers just stink.

[LORD-eX-Bu]

I still have a few S3 video cards. One still works and I am using it in a old computer of mines.:D

[Darth Rancid]

The real problem with S3 chips seems to have been hardware, they tried to keep the transistor count down and do more with less transistors all the time... ended up with half-functional chips that were hell to write drivers for. And of couse the driver guys got all the blame for it. :)

[Darth Rancid]

S3 site is now back to "normal". Guess it WAS a hoax... :(

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Darth Rancid
S3 site is now back to "normal". Guess it WAS a hoax... :(

or else it just got updated early by accident.

[Darth Rancid]

That appears to have been the case... its back at the website now!....

Looks like S3G could use a webmaster or two... they're using that "under construction" gif that was so popular in the mid-90s...

[ReDeeMeR]

Omg, man when I started webdesign I made better looking graphics lmao.

You think I should email them with my pricing? Naahh they probably couldnt afford it lol

[lagadu]

"DeltaChromeX9" ? if a company like thermaltake came out with a cooler named like that i wouldn't be surprised, but a vid card...?:confused:
they are probably hoping to sell the name to thermaltake and use the money on a new webpage :D

[ASCI Blue]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
if this card is anything like previous S3 cards it won't cut the mustard. either S3 cards have horrible hardware bugs, or their drivers just stink.

People said that about nVidia in the old days, and people said that about ATi just a couple years ago. People said the same about AMD a few years ago too. Are they industry leaders? No. Do they provide a good product at a reasonable price? Certainly.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by ASCI Blue
People said that about nVidia in the old days, and people said that about ATi just a couple years ago. People said the same about AMD a few years ago too. Are they industry leaders? No. Do they provide a good product at a reasonable price? Certainly.

nvidia and ATI products were never as bad as S3 ones. the thing is, you can see improvement in ATI and nvidia, even back from their "bad days." but even then you could say good things about them. nvidia was always 2nd fastest behind 3dfx. ATI had good quality 2d/3d, etc.

S3 performance was lackluster, plagued by bugs left and right, etc. while the competition got better and better, S3 still was still seeing problems.

that was more acceptable back in the day, when all companies except nvidia had lacking OGL support, etc. S3 has some large steps to take just to put out a reasonable product.

[Darth Rancid]

According to things I have read, some things were done wrong back in 1998 with the Savage3D, which then continued to plauge the entire Savage line of chips...
This DeltaChrome thing is supposed to be a "completely new architecture". (However, in this industry that phrase seems to mean "we have doubled the number of pixel pipelines and added some more geometry functionality, and we might add som bandwidth saving tricks in the next chip.") In which case the DC9X would be a 4-pipelined Savage2000 with a set of disfunctional programmable shaders...

Lets hope the architecture really IS NEW this time...

[ReDeeMeR]

Time will tell, but one thing for sure I wouldnt mind another company stepping into the fun/fray.

[StealthHawk]

i don't see what the Savage3d blunders have to do with Savage2000. non-functional broken hardware T&L support in the one has absolutely nothing to do with the other, for example.

that was one major feature that was hosed too. it was even a bullet on the box.

[Master]

So they didn`t mange to run HW T&L on those Savage2000 cards ? I remember clearly from one review that T&L should be enabled within next driver revision. Damn! It was certainly great if someone bought it, then waited and ... nothing ! Although buying 3D card from S3.. You`d have to smoke really much dope to buy that. At the time (Pentium 1, 100) I had it also as 2D card, but 3D ?

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Master
So they didn`t mange to run HW T&L on those Savage2000 cards ? I remember clearly from one review that T&L should be enabled within next driver revision. Damn! It was certainly great if someone bought it, then waited and ... nothing ! Although buying 3D card from S3.. You`d have to smoke really much dope to buy that. At the time (Pentium 1, 100) I had it also as 2D card, but 3D ?

well, they got it "working" in software if you can call it that. but when T&L was enabled framerates were lower across the board than with it disabled.

clearly the hardware was broken. and statements from former S3 driver engineers seem to place blame on faulty hardware as well.

[tamattack]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
nvidia and ATI products were never as bad as S3 ones. the thing is, you can see improvement in ATI and nvidia, even back from their "bad days." but even then you could say good things about them. nvidia was always 2nd fastest behind 3dfx. ATI had good quality 2d/3d, etc.

But you forget that back in the days just before 3D took off, S3 were the market share kings and they had the fastest 2D accelerators around (stuff like the Diamond Viper, if you can remember back that far). Of course, then they completely blew it when they moved to 3D with the Virge3D... then the Savage3D... etc...

[Head_slinger]

I happen to own and still run a S3 Savage 4. Its a solid gfx card with the correct drivers.

In Unreal Tournament the IQ looks better than my GF4. Using the S3 MeTaL renderer of course :D

[MrNasty]

The old cards are always the best, no need for flashy new ones.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by MrNasty
The old cards are always the best, no need for flashy new ones.
sadly, that is true for lots of old games.