DOS Days
Old PC Computing Resource
S3
S3 was one of the manufacturers of graphics cards for the IBM PC and its compatibles during the 1990s.
Its popular ViRGE (Virtual Reality Graphics Engine) chipset, launched in 1995, was one of the first 2D/3D accelerators designed for the consumer market, and it was the first to integrate it all into a single chip.
What started out to be very promising turned into disaster, with the company falling from top spot in 1996 to being run out of town by competitors within just 3 years. Their 3D engine continued for long after in the Trio line, but despite their bad form and possibly in a last attempt to turn their fortunes around, they acquired Diamond Multimedia in 1999.
These day S3's cards have a bad name and aren't a popular pick for retro gamers.
S3's numbering system was a little confusing and are not exactly chronological, and some are named after Porsche model numbers and names. They started with the 911, then the 924. The first Windows accelerators then followed with 801 and 805. The 928 was then released to replace the 924. These were all succeeded by the "Vision" range which comprised 864, 868, 964 and 968. After all of these S3 entered the "Trio" era, then "ViRGE", and finally "Savage".
86C801
Launched: 1993 The 86C801C was a great-performing SVGA chipset. The reference design required the use of 70ns DRAM memory chips as a minimum. Some video card manufacturers including Diamond, Metheus, Mirage, Nth, Orchid and VideoSeven opted to go for faster 60ns memory on their boards. Most '801 cards came with 1 MB onboard with the option to expand it to 2 MB (the maximum) later on. "The S3 86C801, which is found on more boards in this review than any other chip, proved the price/performance leader. Boards sell for as low as $160 on the street, and this chip's Super VGA, 256-color test results in the 10- to 13-megapixel-per-second range sets it above its peers. [The 86C801-based boards] relying on cheaper DRAM to keep costs down.
Boards based on the S3 86C801 chip have matured to the point where they have overtaken the older S3 86C924-based products, even though the latter have faster VRAM. Affordable acceleration is what you get when you choose a graphics card based on the S3 86C801 accelerator. For no more than you might pay for last year's Super VGA frame-buffer board, you can buy speedy Windows performance complete with all the resolution you can squeeze out of most reasonably priced monitors. As little as $160 (street price) will give you a board that delivers a Graphics Winmark score of about 10 megapixels-per-second at 800-by-600 and 1,024-by-768 at 16 colors. And at these resolutions with 256 colors, some of the 86C801-based boards provide Winmark scores in the 11- to 13-megapixels-per-second range. You also get 1,280-by-1,024 capability at 16 colors with 1MB (or 256 colors with the optional 1MB most of these boards can support), and as many as 16.70 million colors at 640-by-480 resolution on-screen. The virues of the 86C801 accelerator include its 32-bit internal architecture (though it connects directly only to the 16-bit ISA bus), its 32-bit path to its display memory, and its support for true color. Additionally, the chip supports a 72-Hz refresh rate at 1,024-by-768 noninterlaced resolution. It manages 60 Hz in 1,280-by-1,024 noninterlaced and 43 Hz at 1,280-by-1,024 interlaced modes. The 86C801-based boards turned in DOS speeds similar to - even a little faster than - the more costly 86C928-based boards, which hover in the $400 to $500 list price range (with 1MB). In the 86C928 and 86C801, S3 incorporates a dual-address bus for DOS text mode; the 86C801 adds a scheme to reduce wait states. In all cases where a company supplied both a '928 and '801-based board, the '801-based board provided the faster DOS performance of the two." PC Magazine, April 1993
Found on the following:
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86C805 / 805i
Launched: 1994 The 86C805 was essentially the VESA Local Bus version of S3's 86C801 chipset. It supported up to 70ns DRAMs. The 86C805i can be found on: |
Vision864
Found on the following:
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Vision868
Found on the following:
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911
The 86C911 was discontinued in early 1993, replaced by the 86C924. Found on the following:
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924
The 86C924 was the successor to the 86C911, launched 2 years earlier. It was fully software and hardware backward-compatible with the '911, but now added 24-bit colour. It has a 16-bit data path to memory, so it supports up to 1 MB of VRAM and a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768 with 256 colours, or 1280 x 1024 with 16 colours. At launch they were comparably-priced to newer 86C801-based SVGA cards, even though '924 boards used more expensive and faster VRAM. Despite this, their performance was outpaced by the newer '801 boards. "Typically, 86C924-based boards - even those designed for the EISA bus - managed only about 7 megapixels-per-second in 800-by-600 and 1,024-by-768 modes at 16 colors, and about 5 to 6 megapixels per second at those resolutions with 256 colors. This mirrors the results we found in our previous roundup of accelerator cards. You can partly chalk the slower performance up to factors such as the 86C924's narrower (16-bit) display memory data path and the fact it has fewer pattern-fill operations than the 86C801." PC Magazine, April 1993
Found on the following:
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928
"S3 Corp's latest entry in the accelerator race is the S3 86C928. As a group, products based on this chip prove to be among the front-runners in the S3 product line. Indeed, in terms of Windows performance they have few competitors among all the reviewed boards that are based on other vendors' accelerator or coprocessed chips.
With a maximum of 4MB of VRAM, the fully VESA-compatible 86C928 chip offers true-color support for resolutions up to 1,024-by-768 and a maximum resolution of 1,600-by-1,200 noninterlaced at 16-bit color. With 1MB of VRAM, you can achieve 16.7 million colors in VGA mode, 64K colors in Super VGA mode, or 16 colors at 1,280-by-768. Another feature of the 32-bit chip is its linear address mapping for faster memory-to-screen operations. Its shared memory architecture will allow it to support hooks to a video coprocessor for full-motion video. As a class, the S3 86C928-based boards distinguished themselves with fast Windows performance. Most of the boards managed scores of at least 13 megapixels per second in 256 colors. The ISA-based Number Nine #9GXE, however, topped them all with its score of 25.74 megapixels per second in 256-color Super VGA mode, but its driver cached text strings - a contraversial move." PC Magazine, April 1993
The Vision928 chipset can be found on the following cards:
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Vision964
Maximum non-interlaced resolution 1600 x 1200. Max colours at this resolution = 65,536 (at 1024 x 768 the chipset supports 16.7 million colours).
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Vision968
Found on the following:
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ViRGE
This card has excellent DOS compatibility via its Trio 64+ engine with 135 MHz RAMDAC. The 3D feature set is quite rich for its time and price, but performance is inadequate. The ViRGE series introduced S3's "S3D" technology, which was supposed to be an API that game developers could specifically use to draw out the power of the ViRGE - unfortunately only about 20 games were ever written to take advantage of S3D. When Direct3D took off, proprietary API support was dropped in favour of a single open one. One advantage of the 86C325 is that it can be overlocked by 50% and still remains very cool. It was also sold by other manufacturers as:
Tip: To speed up DOS games, try the S3VBE20 and S3SPDUP utilities if the specific games support VBE 2.0 and/or are compatible with S3SPDUP. |
ViRGE/VXLaunched: 1996 The ViRGE/VX clocked its core at 52 MHz (lower than the original ViRGE), but the card got dual-ported RAM so was able to read from the frame buffer without preventing communication to the graphics chip. The ViRGE/VX on average runs approx 6% faster than the original ViRGE, so this is still a slow card. Still, in 1996, the ViRGE and ViRGE/VX made up about half of all 3D cards on the market. Key features:
It was also sold by other manufacturers as:
Tip: To speed up DOS games, try the S3VBE20 and S3SPDUP utilities if the specific games support VBE 2.0 and/or are compatible with S3SPDUP. |
ViRGE/SMX
Comes with 15-pin DSUB and a DFP (Digital Flat Panel) output port. The image above is a Gainward-branded version, model 9811-11A. |
ViRGE/DX
On average the DX is ~40% faster than an original ViRGE. Sadly, this is still not on par with other 3D cards available in 1997. Key features:
It was also sold by other manufacturers, some with empty memory sockets ready for expansion from 4 MB up to 8 MB, others with 8 MB soldered directly onto the board, and others again with sockets populated with memory. Here are some of them::
Tip: To speed up DOS games, try the S3VBE20 and S3SPDUP utilities if the specific games support VBE 2.0 and/or are compatible with S3SPDUP. |
ViRGE/GXLaunched: 1997 The GX has a small performance improvement (5-10%) on the ViRGE/DX. Sadly, this is still not on par with other 3D cards available in 1997. The picture above is of an STB Systems-branded version, called Nitro 3D/GX. Key features:
As with most ViRGE series cards, the GX was also OEM'd:
Tip: To speed up DOS games, try the S3VBE20 and S3SPDUP utilities if the specific games support VBE 2.0 and/or are compatible with S3SPDUP. |
ViRGE/GX2
Despite being their flagship product, poor software drivers and poor performance compared to the competition meant this card was a commercial failure. Similar performance to ATI's Rage IIc. Key features:
It was also sold by other vendors as:
Tip: To speed up DOS games, try the S3VBE20 and S3SPDUP utilities if the specific games support VBE 2.0 and/or are compatible with S3SPDUP. |
ViRGE/MX
The MX was succeeded by the ViRGE/MXi which integrated 2 MB of 85 MHz DRAM into the chip for even greater power efficiency. Key features:
These chips tended to run a RAMDAC at 135 MHz, whilst memory speed was at 83 MHz and the core ran at 55 MHz. Compared to the GX, an MX is approximately 11% faster. The premium Toshiba Tecra 750DVD (1998) came with an embedded ViRGE/MX 3D graphics controller. For MX drivers, it's recommended to use a OEM Compaq driver v3009. |
Trio 3D/2X
Bus: AGP 2x The Trio 3D/2X came with 4 MB or 8 MB of RAM. Vogons member sliderider said this of the Trio 3D/2X: "The Trio3D was kept in production long past it's expiry date. You could still buy new cards or find it on motherboards even when you couldn't buy dedicated Savage cards anymore. I had a machine a long time ago with Trio3D video on board and I couldn't play a single game with it. They did 2D functions reasonably well, had a high degree of software compatibility, got along reasonably well with other hardware and were cheap, which is why OEMs kept buying them, but the 3D was worthless. Dedicated Trio cards are more a novelty than anything else. For games you're going to need a lot more power." Vogons member muses "Trio 3d is Virge rebranded as business accelerator. It fixed the blending bugs of Virge. The 2x version has its own drivers and can do better in some geometry tests, so I think small improvements happened. Direct3d games are rendered more or less correctly, but it does not have the clocks of Virge GX2 and falls behind by 10-15%. At some point wirebond packaging limits memory interface speed, but I guess Trio 3D was about lowest price possible. Finally, Vogon user noshutdown' says this of the Trio 3D: "you are mostly correct, the trio3d is based and improved on the design of s3virge. as a result, trio3d can run 3dmark01 while virge can't. however, a third party opengl wrapper for virge based on s3d can't run on trio3d, guess its driver may have dropped s3d support and attempted to support d3d instead. in general, i never considered s3virge or trio3d as a real 3d card, as neither of them could support opengl. the rendition1000 is from the same year as s3virge but outperforms it by times." |
Trio 32
The Trio 32, as the name implies, is a cut-down version of the Trio 64, with a narrower 32-bit DRAM interface. Unsure if S3 released a card of their own with this, but the Trio 32 chipset can be found on the Diamond Stealth SE graphics card.
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Trio 64 V2/DX
Chipset: 86C775 The Trio64V2/DX was essentially the same card as the ViRGE/DX, but used the 86C775 instead of the earlier 86C375. S3's Trio was essentially their range of fully integrated solutions (with graphics core, RAMDAC and clock generator all on a single ASIC) based upon the earlier Vision 864 and 868 accelerator chipsets. Like the 868, the 64V+ has a video acceleration engine that can perform YUV to RGB color space conversion and horizontal linear filtered scaling. Unlike the Vision964/968, the Trio chips do not support VRAM, and are limited to FPM DRAM and EDO DRAM only. The 2D graphics hardware was later used in the ViRGE. The Trio64V2 improved on the 64V+ by including vertical bilinear filtering. The 2D graphics core was later used in the ViRGE/DX and ViRGE/GX. Like the corresponding ViRGE chips, the 64V2 also came in /DX and /GX variants, with the latter supporting more modern SDRAM or SGRAM. The final version, called the Trio3D, was effectively the 128-bit successor to the ViRGE/GX2. The picture above is actually of a rebranded Trio 64 V2/DX, in this case a VideoLogic GrafixStar 410. More Images |
Trio 64V+
The S3 64V+ was launched in 1995. Like the 868, the 64V+ has a video acceleration engine that can perform YUV to RGB color space conversion and horizontal linear filtered scaling. Trio chips do not support VRAM, and are limited to FPM DRAM and EDO DRAM only.
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Savage3D
Chipset: It was designed to provide Voodoo 2 performance in 3D rendering for a much reduced price. In benchmark testing, Savage3D outperformed Voodoo 2, and scored almost the same as 3Dfx other card, Voodoo Banshee. Since Savage3D only has the one texturing unit, Voodoo 2 still does better when used with multi-texture fills. Furthermore, it does not fully make use of AGP 2x, with poor AGP transfer performance compared to Matrox G200 which makes full use of the AGP 2x greater bandwidth. Key features:
The Savage3D chipset was also released on:
"Pros
Integrated Solution - The Savage3D offers both 2D and 3D acceleration with good 2D quality, but it's not up to snuff with the potential of the Matrox G200. Good Performance - Running Direct3D games, the Savage3D chipset stays neck and neck with Voodoo 2. Supposedly Free Trilinear Filtering - Triliner filtering should provide some hit on the 3D hardware, but early benchmarks show that enabling the feature results in no drop in framerates. S3TC Texture Compression - The same texture compression scheme Microsoft has licenced for DirectX 6.0, S3TC (6:1), is supported in hardware by the Savage3D. This should be useful for getting more texture variation if developers support the new DX6 API in their upcoming games. Cons No Multitexturing - Multitexturing support is a key component of Direct3D in DirectX 6.0 and is supported in most other emerging 3D technologies. Too Expensive - S3 has traditionally dominated low-cost video solutions. Its first viable entry to the 3D world is priced quite high (products should cost between $150-$200). On The Horizon Future incarnations of the Savage3D will include support for features like anisotropic filtering, hardware bump mapping, shadows, full scene anti-aliasing, geometry and lighting setup, and more. Savage expects to release a new chip each year, so you won't see any of these features until the third quarter of '99." PC Accelerator, Issue 1 September 1998
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Savage 2000Having purchased Diamond Multimedia in 1999, the Savage 2000 was born. |