S3 ViRGE

The S3 ViRGE (an abbreviation for Virtual Reality Graphics Engine) graphics processor was one of the first 2D/3D-Beschleuniger for the mass market.

2D

1995 brought from S3 Inc. to market the ViRGE marked a new milestone for 2D Acceleration: Equipped with EDO DRAM and aggressive one -cycle timing was the ViRGE/325 the fastest 2D accelerator of that time. The fact that the chip was also pin-compatible with an older member of the S3 Trio family, allowing an easy and inexpensive launch from cards.

3D

While the chip was so far revolutionary that there were now affordable 3D accelerator with superior 2D quality, he earned relatively quickly the dubious title, the first "Graphics Decelerator " ( roughly " graphic brakeman ," as a pun on " Accelerator " = " accelerator " to be the world since the 3D acceleration was not competitive ). Although the ViRGE could calculate simple 3D scenes faster than the processor-based software rendering, enabling features such as bilinear filtering or Z- corrected fog led to a drop in velocity, so that software rendering was faster. Furthermore, the 3D features of the ViRGE were very limited. Ironically, the 3D acceleration on the teuerem VRAM based ViRGE / VX ( 988 ) because of low clock rates was even slower than ViRGE/325.

API support

Together with the ViRGE family tried S3, the S3D -called application programming interface ( API) as a standard for 3D games to establish. Despite the lack of 3D performance probably some S3D games came from the name S3 to the market: Terminal Velocity, Descent 2 and later Tomb Raider.

Although the ViRGE certainly offered an acceptable speed in these adapted games, the framework end of 1996 drastically changed by the introduction of the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics and Rendition Vérité and the increasing importance of DirectX. Both chips offered a much better 3D acceleration at a similar price. So were all the chances that S3D has established itself firmly, zunichtegemacht.

Another negative aspect was the fact that ViRGE lacked any sort of OpenGL support and the chip was therefore useless for the then extremely popular Quake engine.

Variants

Between the edition of 1995 and the final in 2000 from the ViRGE family received various upgrades. The ViRGE / DX improved the speed of the original ViRGE/325. The ViRGE / GX received support for the more modern SDRAM / SGRAM. The ViRGE/GX2 was a graphics chip with support for the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)

The ViRGE was largely replaced by the Savage 3D 1998. Nevertheless, remained a derivative of the ViRGE, Trio3D, even after switching off the Savage 3D in production.

Model data

699233
de