S3 Tries to Get Back Into PC Graphics

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has a review of S3's attempt to get some traction in the lower-end graphics card market, the Chrome S27. Though its specs look great--256MB memory, 700MHz core clock rate, 1.4GHz memory clock, and 22.4 GB/sec memory throughput, it still manages to underperform similarly priced video cards from the red and green graphics companies."

Good

[supe]

Only, if they start to provide drivers for the Open source community.
My Averatec has a unichrome and am having difficulty getting it to
work *well* with anything other than the X vesa driver. No DRI, etc.
Help out S3!

Drivers are

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows only [s3graphics.com]

Another company to ignore.

Re:Free advice to S3...

[Zathrus]

Supply full GPL/BSD licensed source code to the X.org and kernel.org for inclusion in mainline.

They're not going to do that. If for no other reason than their own texture compression technology (S3TC) which they license to other video card makers (namely ATI and Nvidia, as well as MS for DirectX drivers).

Even if they were to release the souce you probably couldn't use it unless they granted some kind of license to use the patented algorithms [freedesktop.org] freely. And they haven't done that to date despite lobbying by various people (including Alan Cox).

Of course, people who actually know this have been saying it everytime someone says "open up the source!" to video card makers, and most people still don't get it. Sigh.

Re:Good

[hal2814]

What's really interesting is that S3 has nothing to lose by open sourcing its drivers. They're not doing anything that ATI and Nvidia aren't already doing better. That's kind of like Yugo being protective of their drivetrain design.

older video cards

[80 85 83 83 89 33]

i've been trying to keep track of video card comparisons, and rank the cards since the 5200. since neither i nor my friends can buy $300 cards, i kept the list to the lower end of the spectrum. what is interesting is where the current generation of integrated graphics on the motherboard compare to which cards.

**best price/performance**
  nVid 7600 GT ($210)
  ATI X1600 XT ($170)
  nVid 6600 GT ($140)
**best price/performance**

the faster at top:

  ATI X800 Pro ~$250 ($150 refurb)
  ATI 9950 ultra (N/A)
  nVid 6800 LE/XT (LE=slower)($150,$300)
  ATI 9800 XT(~$185)
  ATI X700 PRO($125,135)
  nVid 5900U/5950 Ultra($250)
  ATI 9800 PRO(~$130)
=ATI 9700 pro
=ATI 9800 ($90??)
=nVid 5900/5950
  ATI 9700 ($110)
  nVid 6600 ($100)???
  nVid 5800 ultra
          (3GHz)
  nVid 5700 Ultra (N/A)
  ATI X1300 PRO($105)
  ATI X700 (not pro)
  ATI 9500 Pro ($95 used)
            (yes it beats 9600pro!)
=nVid 5600 Ultra
=ATI 9600 pro/XT ($100)
=ATI X600 PRO/XT ($100)
  nVid 5800
  ATI 9800 SE(128 bit)
  nVid 5700/5750
  nVid 6200 non-tc (under $100!)
=nVid 5600
=ATI 9500/9550/9600
  ATI X300 non-Hypmem???
  nVid 5700 LE (MINE)
  nVid GF4 Ti 4600
  nVid 5200 ULTRA
  nVid 5600 XT (XT=lower)
  ATI 9600 SE

this last group of expansion cards is equal to the current generation of integrated onboard graphics
***very slow***

nVid 5200/5500
nVid PCX 5300
nVid 6200 Turbocache
ATI 9200 SE
ATI X300 SE Hypermemory

current generation of integrated graphics chipsets:

-- Intel GMA950
-- nVidia 6100/6150
-- ATI xpress 200

Re:Free advice to S3...

[Zathrus]

Here in the US, effectively never.

No, you're thinking copyrights, which keep getting extended. Patents do not. Patent term has not substantially changed in the US in over 100 years, with only a minor (and very good) change in 1994. And while there is some international controversy on what should be patentable, there's not really any on term.

Worst case, patents expire 20 years from the earliest claimed filing date (design patents are different, as are patents issued prior to June 8, 1995, but neither is relevant here).

Open Graphics is in the works

[iamcadaver]

A fully open-source graphics chipset is in the works.

http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=Open- Graphics [duskglow.com]

IIRC they are shipping FPGA PCI cards and you can download the chipset image. The plan of course is to sell PCI ASIC's for $150 or so. They have a pledge page where you can give them an idea of how many cards they can sell for a first run.

Re:Drivers are

[non0score]

Actually, S3 does have a Linux driver team. And Mac drivers are built by Apple, not by the vid card manufacturers (the vid card manufacturers provide the specs). So worry not, it'll be there in due time.