The Official S3 Discrete GPU Rumours & Speculation Thread

[INKster]

This was around... when?

Around the S3 Trio 64V+ days (in 2D, i mean), maybe ?

 

[anaqer]

Nah, the ET6x00 blew the Trios out of the water in 2D.

 

[BRiT]

I must say S3 was never the performance leader, they were merely in the close enough range of performance while not completely sucking.

 

[Techno+]

I must say S3 was never the performance leader, they were merely in the close enough range of performance while not completely sucking.

at least they were more successful than any others. It is a shame to see such a company now almost defunct.

 

[karlotta]

at least they were more successful than any others. It is a shame to see such a company now almost defunct.

No they where not! your comment says it all."almost defunct". If you where around during the "pioneer" days of GPU companys, S3 was best at what they did, just like all the other GPU companys, Its just that what one did best might not be best for the ever changing OGL start/growth, and DX wasnt even a blip worth mentioning for gaming. But S3 is just fine with Via in the embedded world.

 

[hkultala]

Nah, the ET6x00 blew the Trios out of the water in 2D.

yep, trio was just a more integrated 864, ie. cheapo part and ET6000 was much faster though not much more expensive.

But 964/968 ruled the higher end(high-resolution, 2d accelerated) until matrox got it's millenium's drivers into good shape.

 

[Techno+]

something wierd. since 4 months and 19 days we never heard anything about S3 DX10 GPUs, did some aliens kidnap S3

 

[AnarchX]

You want some news?

Here they are:
- Destination Films D2 (90nm @ Fujitsu) scores 5.800 in 3DMark06
- release in Q4 this year
- price: $155-199
- D3 later in 65nm

http://translate.google.com/transla...704/1009506.html&langpair=zh|en&hl=en&ie=UTF8

 

[Techno+]

You want some news?

Here they are:
- Destination Films D2 (90nm @ Fujitsu) scores 5.800 in 3DMark06
- release in Q4 this year
- price: $155-199
- D3 later in 65nm

http://translate.google.com/transla...704/1009506.html&langpair=zh|en&hl=en&ie=UTF8

thanx, i cant believe i didnt come across this. Do u know what system this was tested on?, i cant open the link since my ISP blocks google translate.

edit: if this score is true then it puts this GPU in the 8600 GTS territory. A 65 nm version would also help boost performance, and put it in.......hmmmmmmmm 8800 GTS 320 MB territory?

 

[AnarchX]

Microsoft DX10 will be universal VIA S3 new battlefield

In Microsoft's DX10 strategy, the VIA S3 Graphics is an active participant as well. Recently, VIA disclosed the latest S3 Graphics road map, and they will skip DX9.0c of Shader Model 3.0 directly through DirectX 10 and DirectX 10.1 support Shader Model 4. 0.

Codenamed D2, D3 products will advance support DX10 various characteristics. D2 core will be manufactured using 90nm technology, the default core frequency of 1000MHz. have 128MB and 256MB versions, memory bit-for 128bit. 3DMark06 score is around 5800, priced at 155 dollars to 199 dollars. D3 65nm Node will be used in the production process, the default core frequency of 1200MHz. 64bit/128bit are two versions of the bit-memory products, the price of 60 to 120 dollars or so. Both are built of Key HDCP, HDMI interface.

Currently support DirectX 10 graphics card XD2 and D2 has submitted a sample project, from the VIA S3 Road line, will be in Q4 Shixianliangchan. The series graphics will support HDMI, DVI, LVDS and HDTV. Blue Apple support and hardware video decoder.

S3 XD2 equipped with a 4-channel video memory bit-128, D2 equipped with dual-channel 64-bit bit-RAM, Local support GDDR2, GDDR3 and GDDR4 entire series. Reportedly XD2/D2 PCB very simple, unlike the current 8800GTX graphics as large, plate and lower power consumption.

S3 shown in the lower chip power consumption can provide good performance, This balanced performance is one of its competitive advantages. As a Japanese-notebook one of the leading manufacturers Fujitsu has been in a wide variety of products using the S3 chip display.

XD3/D3 will be the first batch manufacturing process using 65nm Node DX10 show the core, Manufacturing has been outsourced to Fujitsu (Fujitsu), the samples will be six months to complete. This frequency of the core chip will increase by 20%, reaching about 1.2GHz, memory controller will be more simple. only supports dual-channel 128 and dual-channel 64-bit memory bit period.

With S3 rejoin DX10 battle situation, 2007 graphics card market will be completely DX10 era has opened the field of graphics of a new era. Right users, NVIDIA and AMD in the two graphics industry between the strong, S3 re-development effort may not be a good thing, after all, has had an economic benefit choices..

:smile2:

 

[Techno+]

interesting

 

[the maddman]

Does that really say that the D2 has a 64bit memory bus? There's no way a S3 GPU with 64bit memory is going to be near the 8600 speed wise.

Hopefully they'll put out decent quality at least.

 

[AnarchX]

D2 core will be manufactured using 90nm technology, the default core frequency of 1000MHz. have 128MB and 256MB versions, memory bit-for 128bit

 

[the maddman]

Good. Of course, they'll sell 100 times as many cut down 64 bit cards with confusing names anyways.

I'll be looking forward to seeing some reviews.

 

[Blazkowicz]

any hint for a fusion-like chip in the mid or long term? I think that would make sense.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

yep, trio was just a more integrated 864, ie. cheapo part and ET6000 was much faster though not much more expensive.

But 964/968 ruled the higher end(high-resolution, 2d accelerated) until matrox got it's millenium's drivers into good shape.

Strange to think back when ATI, S3, Tseng, Trident, and a few others ruled the 2D graphics world in the early/mid 90's.

Then the paradigm shift to 3D graphics, and all of them failed miserably compared to the more nimble new companies (3dfx, NV, Matrox, a couple others I can't think of).

I was saddest to see Tseng fail. They were always my favorite. Cheap generic card from random Taiwanese companies I'd never heard of that competed with much more expensive cards from Tier 1 AIBs, and in some cases even made it into the lineup of the T1 AIBs.

ATI and S3 had the largest cash reserves of all companies and while ATI eventually pulled out and got a hang of the 3D game. S3 never did quite catch up.

I'd be really interested to see S3 get back in game. Even if it's just at the low/mid range. Everytime they release a new chip I keep hoping they learned their lesson and will spend significant time and funding to make solid stable drivers. And each time they've disappointed me.

Well, here's to hoping yet again that they don't do a half arsed job on the drivers.

Regards,
SB

 

[Techno+]

any hint for a fusion-like chip in the mid or long term? I think that would make sense.

VIA (S3) already have a processor called CoreFusion that integrates the CPU and the IGP chipset onto a single package. However this is a very simple version of AMD's Fusion because unlike Fusion, it doesn't have any gfx related instructions to the x86 ISA. However, I do think that AMD would license it to VIA so as to standarize their tech, just like they did with 3DNOW!.

 

[Blazkowicz]

does Fusion really add yet another set of instructions to x86, or do you rather have some form of instruction set for the additional units instead? and I'm thinking : at least in the beginning you have DX10, opengl, HLSL etc. and what you might want to license is CUDA maybe.

pointless speculation without any basis, but I can imagine a chip with two C7 cores (improved with wider FPU), 16 scalars shader units, all of that running around 1.5GHz or higher, one quad worth of ROPs / TMU running at 500-600MHz, a 64bit memory controller supporting both DDR2-1066 and DDR3, and 512K L3.
plus a few more integrated things (Gig ethernet, USB, PCIe)

 

[Techno+]

does Fusion really add yet another set of instructions to x86, or do you rather have some form of instruction set for the additional units instead?

If (and a really huge if) AMD is to be believed, these instructions are going to be as much of a revolution as the AMD64 instructions. However, you should take into consideration that huge if.


Edit : AMD64 not X86-64

 

[Geo]

If (and a really huge if) AMD is to be believed, these instructions are going to be as much of a revolution as the x86-64 instructions. However, you should take into consideration that huge if.

Hmm? I guess I hadn't given that detail of transition much thought. So backwards compatibility with existing API vers is out the window? Is that what you're saying?