thanks. i really i would never have known, despite the fact that i posted that as a rebuttal to someone saying that the Savage2000 chipset was worthless. cheers :beer:
thanks. i really i would never have known, despite the fact that i posted that as a rebuttal to someone saying that the Savage2000 chipset was worthless. cheers :beer:
Actually, it does. If your card performs twice as fast, but only works half the time as a competing card, which works 100% of the time, it is effectively (performance wise) equal. When you get a card that is only slightly better working half the time, it is effectively half as good (again, performance wise). This is of course using rough generalizations, however the Savage2000 wasn't a good card by any stretch of the imagination. I know this only from second hand experience as a friend of mine owned one, and I was called on to troubleshoot it quite a bit (Schadenfroh, I know how you feel).
The last card I owned by S3 was the 2MB PCI S3 ViRGE, which I bought memory expansion for 4MB to way the hell back when 4MB video cards were brand new. I thought its amazing 60FPS in Quake at 640x480 was good, until I bought my Voodoo 3 3000 AGP, and found the wonders of 73FPS Quakeworld at 1280x1024. Now there was a good card.
Schadenfroh
Elite Member
- Mar 8, 2003
- 38,416
- 4
- 0
what about s3's MeTaL API? has anyone ever tried it in UT or Deus Ex? what does it look like running in that compared to openGL or GLIDE?
MeTaL was nice, but the number of games that supported it I could count on one hand. IIRC, they were all UT-engine based. 
- M4H
- M4H
Wow, that brings back a fond memory of my ViRGE card. I remember how thrilled I was to be able to play Decent II with "accelerated" graphics. This is before I knew that accelerated graphics were actually supposed to run faster as well as look pretty. Since the acceleration for Descent II was written specifically for the ViRGE, it wasn't too bad for it's time, so if that were the only game I played, it would've been an adequate card.
Things could not go any worse for DeltaChrome than they did for ViRGE, or any incarnation of Savage, that's for darn sure. That's not to say that some Savage cards didn't do the job well enough, but that "too-little-too-late" curse seems to keep hovering over them. Let's all join hands and mentally project warm fuzzies to S3 and their developers, and hope that we will be suprised by DeltaChrome.
Things could not go any worse for DeltaChrome than they did for ViRGE, or any incarnation of Savage, that's for darn sure. That's not to say that some Savage cards didn't do the job well enough, but that "too-little-too-late" curse seems to keep hovering over them. Let's all join hands and mentally project warm fuzzies to S3 and their developers, and hope that we will be suprised by DeltaChrome.
They're all Cyberblades. The current breed is XP4. No desktop cards seen yet, but apparently the notebook part (which has RAM directly on the chip) is shipping already. Compaq uses it.
I loved my Savage3D -- I felt it had the best DVD playback at the time -- better than even the RagePro. And it's 3D was much better than the RagePro. What's weird is that ATI has continued driver development and now the RagePro is the better 3D card.
The Savage4 was somewhat disappointing.
The Savage4 was somewhat disappointing.
ultimatebob
Lifer
- Jul 1, 2001
- 25,134
- 2,450
- 126
My laptop has integrated S3 Savage IX video, and it royally sucks. The 3D "acceleration" is slow as hell, the Windows XP drivers are horrible, and getting the s-video out to work is frustrating as hell.
The old S3 Trio chipsets were great performers back in 1996, though!
The old S3 Trio chipsets were great performers back in 1996, though!
This is 110% true, and this is one of the reasons I'm concerned. S3's PR has mentioned 3DMark over and over again... I wonder how many wasted hours their driver team will spend "optimizing" the drivers for 3Dmark instead of ensuring their stability and bug free ?
The s3 savage cards in general always held a lot of promise, but it was mostly bad drivers which limited it's potential.
Now that the 3DMark driver optimization "scandal" has been brought to light, I have a feeling one of two things will happen.
1) Game benchmarks will start being used - This would be a dream. In the words of Capt. Picard, "If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we are." This is exactly the tack S3 needs to take. They know they don't have the respect of the industry or the user base, so they might as well let us see it for what it is.
2) 3DMark will be updated to help balance the field - Which means nVidia, ATi, S3, Matrox, Trident, SiS, and God-knows-who-else, will simply have to find another loop hole to optimize for...and you know they will.
There are two things guaranteed to survive a nuclear detonation, cock roaches and marketing spin! As long as there is something, no matter how disreputable it might be, that will make a video card look better than the others, it will be used. It's not people like us, that know better, that these numbers will sell to, but everyone uses them...nVidia, ATi, and S3 alike.
One lesson that S3 already learned is that their product doesn't have to be a champ, it just has to find it's place. All that truly matters on S3's end is meeting their bottom line...it has to SELL. S3 stayed alive after the ViRGE travesty because of OEM adoption. The money they made in that market, in spite of not being able to compete with 3dfx, is what allowed them to suprise the hell out of the industry by buying out Diamond Multimedia seemingly out of nowhere, and fund the R&D for the Savage line.
Even if DeltaChrome cannot compete, if it's enough to be profitable, then they will stay in the game to make a better product down the road, and perhaps, ultimately run with the big Dogberry's
1) Game benchmarks will start being used - This would be a dream. In the words of Capt. Picard, "If we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we are." This is exactly the tack S3 needs to take. They know they don't have the respect of the industry or the user base, so they might as well let us see it for what it is.
2) 3DMark will be updated to help balance the field - Which means nVidia, ATi, S3, Matrox, Trident, SiS, and God-knows-who-else, will simply have to find another loop hole to optimize for...and you know they will.
There are two things guaranteed to survive a nuclear detonation, cock roaches and marketing spin! As long as there is something, no matter how disreputable it might be, that will make a video card look better than the others, it will be used. It's not people like us, that know better, that these numbers will sell to, but everyone uses them...nVidia, ATi, and S3 alike.
One lesson that S3 already learned is that their product doesn't have to be a champ, it just has to find it's place. All that truly matters on S3's end is meeting their bottom line...it has to SELL. S3 stayed alive after the ViRGE travesty because of OEM adoption. The money they made in that market, in spite of not being able to compete with 3dfx, is what allowed them to suprise the hell out of the industry by buying out Diamond Multimedia seemingly out of nowhere, and fund the R&D for the Savage line.
Even if DeltaChrome cannot compete, if it's enough to be profitable, then they will stay in the game to make a better product down the road, and perhaps, ultimately run with the big Dogberry's
I personably dont mind optimisations, as long as it doesnt affect the image quality and the stability. Like what ATI have done with the Cat3.4, they have reordered the "tasks" to benefit the way the their core works.
Actually, the SiS Xabre is doing pretty well. It never claimed to be a GF4 killer, but it sure as heck gives the GF4MX a good run for its money, outperforming it almost every time! Pity they couldn't shrink it down more and offer it imbedded on a motherboard (there are a couple mobos out there with Xabre 200 but it's the actual GPU just soldered to the board...)
If VIA can make an onboard video solution close to a Radeon 9500, I'd call it an ENORMOUS success!
If it's a standalone card that costs much less but performs as well, it's still a big success.
In fact, it could rule the "value" sector if they can just get past the "I'll only buy nVidia" mindset of the masses.
Originally posted by: DogberryOfMessina
One lesson that S3 already learned is that their product doesn't have to be a champ, it just has to find it's place. All that truly matters on S3's end is meeting their bottom line...it has to SELL. S3 stayed alive after the ViRGE travesty because of OEM adoption. The money they made in that market, in spite of not being able to compete with 3dfx, is what allowed them to suprise the hell out of the industry by buying out Diamond Multimedia seemingly out of nowhere, and fund the R&D for the Savage line.
Even if DeltaChrome cannot compete, if it's enough to be profitable, then they will stay in the game to make a better product down the road, and perhaps, ultimately run with the big Dogberry's
Excellent post, I couldn't have said it better!
:sun:True blue performance optimizations are a good thing, yes. The optimizations that I and merlocka were referring to is the ability to tune the drivers to perform well for 3DMark specifically so that they can market their card as being faster. Such optimizations have no affect on any other applications and give no benefits to us whatsoever.
For the technical description, check this link and get it from the gaming magnate himself, John Carmack:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=65617&cid=6051216
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