Preview: S3 Graphics DeltaChrome S8 Nitro
by Derek Wilson on March 9, 2004 3:44 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test
For this preview, we will be using a subset of our game test used in our fall round up series, and we will be using the same test platform as in the budget GPU shootout. In fact, we will simply be dropping our DeltaChrome data into the budget GPU shootout graphs since this is simply a preview and not a real test of final performance -- we should only expect to get a fairly general idea of where things are and where they may go. Here is a list of the hardware we used:
AMD Athlon 64 FX-51
ASUS SK8V (VIA K8T800 chipset)
2x 512MB Registered DDR (2-2-3-6)
Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
As far as drivers go, midrange cards used the ForceWare 52.16 and Catalyst 3.8 drivers, while the budget cards made use of the 53.03 and 3.9 versions. The driver revision we will be using for the S8 Nitro is 15.08.09.b driver.
We have chosen not to do a full image quality analysis at this point becuase we feel it would be a waste of time. These drivers are very early and things are still very much in flux. There are already internal drivers that fix parts of the problems we will note in the following tests, and issues pointed out in previews such as this will most likely be addressed by S3 as well. We have seen how final WHQL certified drivers can change image qulaity between revisions, but fluctuations are even more dramatic on preview hardware and software. We will mention any visual issues we had when running certain tests, but beyond that we will wait for the actual release of the product to post our full analysis on uncompressed screenshots in all their glory.
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cliffa3 - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
noone read over this one before posting...page 1 - companies can surive...survive
page 3 - addes screen height,...added
page 10 - This game is definitely one of the hot games to make sure are stable and running smoothly.
not sure what needs to be done w/the one on page 10...i didn't even read the whole article, i just caught those in skimming.
shady06 - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
wow, another POSjoeld - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
Notice how the card rocked in UT2003 but nothing else - reminds me of the diamond viper 2 (savage2000 core from s3) that I had back in the day - driver optimized for Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 and nothing else...araczynski - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
...err "but that" rather then "back that"...araczynski - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
didn't notice the card was from S3 :) back that only reaffirms my original though, they'll stay int he on-board market, where they've done well in the recent past, i'm guessing this solution is an attempt at rising to the mid-upper performance tier in on-board solutions.JAGedlion - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
I hope they put this in their mini-itx mobos, it would increase their funcionality many times folddrteserect - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
Having owned both a Virge and Savage 8 motherboards, I realize that S3 has not always been a startup, but it has been out of the competitive fray for so long it is essentially a startup. My suggestion also applies the company that is behind the Volari.Idoxash - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
"The only hope I see for a new graphics chip company would be to set up an open source environment for their driver software. The development leads of ATI and NVidia are immense, but possibly the collective genuis of people who like to play with such tasks would give a startup some sort of chance."You say this like S3 is a new starup company? If that's the case you are very wrong. S3 is very old and has been making gfx chips for many, many years. If I misunderstood wut you sed then I'm sorry.
In either way they should open up their drivers. That probly help them out a lot because they had plenty of time to tweak and fix their drivers before this release and the drivers are still crap over.
--Idoxash
drteserect - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
The only hope I see for a new graphics chip company would be to set up an open source environment for their driver software. The development leads of ATI and NVidia are immense, but possibly the collective genuis of people who like to play with such tasks would give a startup some sort of chance.araczynski - Tuesday, March 9, 2004 - link
agreed, too little too late, perhaps the "on-board" market will have more room for these guys...