The Official S3 Discrete GPU Rumours & Speculation Thread

[Blazkowicz]

It will be low end.

in my book 128bit bus is mid range. (especially given the huge RAM speeds nowadays)

their DX9 GPU looked nice, were they not late and wih MSAA support I would have found them somewhat decent, worthy of looking at it. (and : why aren't they in laptops? they look pretty power efficient.)



what I don't like

f*ck the crappy connectors (composite, HDMI), they could have put a VGA instead

 

[kyetech]

Whats that coming over the hill? is it a monster?...... is it a monstaaaaaer?

Im so lame for posting that !








sorry !

Stealth edit by anonymous mod: Ooooh No! There goes Toe-key-o! Whoa, whoa, Godzilla!!

edit by me : Never heard that until now, catchy tune.... good guitar. lol ;-)

 

[Simon F]

Whats that coming over the hill? is it a monster?...... is it a monstaaaaaer?

Im so lame for posting that !
edit by me : Never heard that until now, catchy tune.... good guitar. lol ;-)

OT:

When I first heard it I thought it was Midnight Oil except the lyrics weren't serious enough.

 

[santyhammer]

Ooohh btw, i'm thinking about that HDMI connector... Do the DX10-compatible cards need a HDMI connector with DRM-enabled protection to be logoed-for-windows-vista? I read some time ago about this and if I remember well they need it.

See http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=65829
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_nvidia_hdcp_support/


About the VGA connector... you always can put one of those DVI-to-vga connectors that they gift you when you go to the supermarket and you buy some meat!

 

[nonamer]

Somewhat off-topic: Seeing how S3 is coming out with a DX10 part, would it have been wiser for AMD to buy S3? Buying ATI for superior versions of the same tech seems highly excessive to me.

 

[the maddman]

in my book 128bit bus is mid range. (especially given the huge RAM speeds nowadays)

their DX9 GPU looked nice, were they not late and wih MSAA support I would have found them somewhat decent, worthy of looking at it. (and : why aren't they in laptops? they look pretty power efficient.)



what I don't like

f*ck the crappy connectors (composite, HDMI), they could have put a VGA instead

It's probably not composite, but SPDIF in to feed the audio over HDMI.

 

[RejZoR]

As far as i know HDMI can transfer both, audio and video (just like SCART can). So no need for extra plug.

 

[Zaphod]

As far as i know HDMI can transfer both, audio and video (just like SCART can).

This is true.

So no need for extra plug.

But this isn't. There are a shitload of recievers out there that are no good as video switches in a digital world (mostly compisite and/or s-video, some component). Many of these are quite recent, have multiple digital imputs, handles most audio formats (Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES and Dolby Pro Logic II) and could generally serve for many more years without replacement.

Thus, the option of SP/DIF passthrough makes perfect sense.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Somewhat off-topic: Seeing how S3 is coming out with a DX10 part, would it have been wiser for AMD to buy S3? Buying ATI for superior versions of the same tech seems highly excessive to me.

but S3 belongs to VIA, the other x86 CPU maker

 

[nonamer]

They should've bought VIA then.

 

[the maddman]

This is true.
But this isn't. There are a shitload of recievers out there that are no good as video switches in a digital world (mostly compisite and/or s-video, some component). Many of these are quite recent, have multiple digital imputs, handles most audio formats (Dolby Digital EX, DTS-ES and Dolby Pro Logic II) and could generally serve for many more years without replacement.

Thus, the option of SP/DIF passthrough makes perfect sense.

Actually, I was saying that's for SPDIF in from your sound card to be added to the HDMI port. I doubt S3's new GPU is going to be a generating the audio as well.

 

[Zaphod]

Actually, I was saying that's for SPDIF in from your sound card to be added to the HDMI port. I doubt S3's new GPU is going to be a generating the audio as well.

Ah, yes. That's probably more likely. I remember seeing my interpretation mentioned wrt. an earlier HDMI prototype (ATI?) with regards to passing through from an internal SP/DIF header, but I guess they've may also have made the same mistake in that it's just as likely (or more so) to have been two inputs (or two connectors for the same input).

 

[Arun]

Since Techno+ mentioned this in another thread, I thought I'd bump it and rename it "The Official S3 Discrete GPU Rumours & Speculation Thread"...

 

[Techno+]

Since Techno+ mentioned this in another thread, I thought I'd bump it and rename it "The Official S3 Discrete GPU Rumours & Speculation Thread"...

Arun, by setting a more attractive name for this thread I'm sure more people will visit it. Good idea.

Getting back to the topic, I've been reading about S3's latest efforts, and I have produced a list of what they are good at and what they need to work on.

The good part

S3 has been designing GPUs for the embedded space for a long time, thus they have a lot of experience in low power devices. Their current GPU (S27) show extremely low power consumption, and nearly two times the performance per watt of competitor GPUs.

What S3 needs to work on

Their current drivers need a LOT more optimization, I've seen reviews suggesting that the poor drivers cut down the S3 GPU performance by 50%. S3 also needs to work on convincing game developers to optimize games for their GPUs.

 

[Blazkowicz]

yes, it's well known that drivers are almost everything. also, I keep saying this everytime there's a S3 or VIA thread but I want my small, silent, cool running laptop powerful enough for common apps and older games, with a VIA C7 and low power discrete S3 GPU.

 

[Techno+]

yes, it's well known that drivers are almost everything. also, I keep saying this everytime there's a S3 or VIA thread but I want my small, silent, cool running laptop powerful enough for common apps and older games, with a VIA C7 and low power discrete S3 GPU.

I don't want to go off topc, but the features u mentioned will be available when AMD releases 'Fusion', if you want to further discuss with me, then I'd be happy to, but using PM.

 

[craghack]

The only thing that S3 needs are money . They simply don't have enough fresh money to convincing game developers to optimize games for their GPUs or hire engineers

 

[Techno+]

The only thing that S3 needs are money . They simply don't have enough fresh money to convincing game developers to optimize games for their GPUs or hire engineers

S3 were once performance leaders, they should look back at what brought them to this ugly position, and work their way from there. Secondly, they must look at their competitors, what they have brought to the table, and what they are likely to bring in the future. Then develop something innovative never brought by anyone. their DX10 chips are supposed to be out by Q2 2007, let us hope they bring good performance for their price.

 

[anaqer]

S3 were once performance leaders,

This was around... when?

 

[Blazkowicz]

S3 964/968?
I got a free socket 3 motherboard with ISA/VLB/PCI and an Am5x86 133MHz on it. such a card either in the VLB or PCI variant would be a good fit.