Slashdot Log In
S3 Jumps On GPGPU Bandwagon
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:30 PM
from the trying-to-get-their-groove-back dept.
from the trying-to-get-their-groove-back dept.
arcticstoat writes "It's sometimes easy to forget that the PC graphics market isn't owned by ATI and Nvidia, and the company that first gave us 3D acceleration, S3, is very much still around. So much so, in fact, that it's now even developed its own GPGPU technology. S3 claims that its Chrome 400 chips can accelerate gaming physics, HD video transcoding/encoding and photo enhancement. To demonstrate the latter, S3 has released a free download called S3FotoPro, which enhances color clarity and reduces haze in photos. However, the company hasn't yet revealed whether it plans to support OpenCL in the future."
The Tech Report also points out that this could allow S3's parent company, VIA, to compete with Intel and AMD in graphics processing technology.
Related Stories
[+]
AMD Banks On Flood of Stream Apps 124 comments
Slatterz writes "Closely integrating GPU and CPU systems was one of the motivations for AMD's $5.4bn acquisition of ATI in 2006. Now AMD is looking to expand its Stream project, which uses graphics chip processing cores to perform computing tasks normally sent to the CPU, a process known as General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU). By leveraging thousands of processing cores on a graphics card for general computing calculations, tasks such as scientific simulations or geographic modelling, which are traditionally the realm of supercomputers, can be performed on smaller, more affordable systems. AMD will release a new driver for its Radeon series on 10 December which will extend Stream capabilities to consumer cards." Reader Vigile adds: "While third-party consumer applications from CyberLink and ArcSoft are due in Q1 2009, in early December AMD will release a new Catalyst driver that opens up stream computing on all 4000-series parts and a new Avivo Video Converter application that promises to drastically increase transcoding speeds. AMD also has partnered with Aprius to build 8-GPU stream computing servers to compete with NVIDIA's Tesla brand."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
not the first time we hear that S3 can compete... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is definitely not the first time in recent years that we hear S3 can compete with ATI and Nvidia again. As much as I'd like to see that, I certainly won't believe it until I see some decent independent benchmarks.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, give them a chance. If their excellent 3D graphics chipsets are anything to go by this could give you the power of a 386 processor ON YOUR DESKTOP! Imagine it: DooM running in practically real-time. This baby could render the teapot POV example in 3/4 mins rather than the hours it would take on the older XT class machine.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
America really has gone downhill.
Re:not the first time we hear that S3 can compete. (Score:4, Informative)
Long ago they used to be, back when ATI and Trident were big names in the video card business.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ATi, Trident, Matrox, S3, the good old days... I remember when I worked in a computer shop, we used to burn through S3 Virge and S3 Trio cards like they were going out of fashion.
Unfortunately they were left for dead when people no longer needed a 2D card to go with their 3DFX card - the combo cards from Diamond were killer cards and removed the need for the usual S3 Virge/Trio or Trident.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
3Dfx got bought by Nvidia, so no.
Re:not the first time we hear that S3 can compete. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
i thought in a recent /. interview [slashdot.org] with the VIA open source rep he said that VIA didn't own S3 (not entirely at least):
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
S3 is from the age of 3dfx cards and pre Nvidia Geforce cards. I don't remember any of their cards being very successful? Other than some late Savage cards, but even then, not equal to 3dfx, ATI, or Nvidia offerings.
I still have stuff with 3dfx logos.. i miss them :(
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As I stated in an post further up - the Trio and Virge cards are what S3 made a killing on.
I actually remember a server board that basically required a Trio - other cards would cause the system to hang mid use. They were great little cards and even were able to have expanded memory added.
Direct3D texture compression (Score:3, Informative)
The original name for "DXTC" was .... "S3TC"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture_compression [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
S3 Graphics [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Yep (Score:3, Interesting)
First we need to see a video card that performs well. Serious. The whole reason that nVidia (and ATi) cards can do well at GPGPU stuff is that they are fast at gaming stuff.
Gaming graphics are at their heart a whole lot of parallel single precision floating point math. Thus, that is what modern video cards are good at calculating. Well the GPGPU idea was just someone saying "Hey, these things are amazingly fast as number crunching, and graphics aren't the only sort of thing this is relivant to. Let's get an
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do games later.
For now, let's see some really small, low-power, low-heat video chips with enough power for HD video and basic 3D acceleration. If they do that and release documentation for Linux, they can pwn the netbook market. Guess what S3 appears to be aiming at?
what (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:what (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
nVidia already has this market covered with the Cuda API. In fact, the new version of photoshop is GPGPU accelerated with nVidia cards that support Cuda.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm fairly sure that's what he said. He even specifically mentioned photoshop
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much... oh noes, Nvidia wasn't mentioned.
Either someone is a bit too much of a pedant or we're seeing some fanboyism.
Re: (Score:2)
Except in Aperture there the GPU acceleration is much slower than Lightroom thanks to Apples retarded decision of using 128 MB vram. Hurray for less choice.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
How is enhancing photos the business of a central processing unit? That can be done in hardware acceleration at incredible speeds without software.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Or you can just squint a bit, or step back a little. Cheap and fast and used to work just as well.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Hos is enhancing photos the buisness of professional equipment and lighting? That can be done with a few lenses, a cheap pen light and some cardboard.
Re: (Score:2)
Off-topic my ass, funny or insightful :D
Why ISN'T enhancing photos the business of the central processing unit? Does it matter how it's done as long as you get the results you want?
Anyway, all enhanchments will still try to fix what the exposure didn't.
S3 (Score:3, Funny)
Easy to forget (Score:4, Informative)
It's sometimes easy to forget that the PC graphics market isn't owned by ATI and Nvidia
That's right. Intel own it too.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, Intel has like 60% market share.
And they have the worse performance.
Sounds like a perfect take over target for good old Microsoft, if I ever saw one.
Re:Easy to forget (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, Intel has like 60% market share.
And they have the worse performance.
And they have some of the easiest Linux support.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
And they have some of the easiest Linux support.
That surely explains their 60% market share
VIA (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks like VIA is really serious about this whole x86 business - they are the little (compared to Intel and AMD) thorn in the side to the big boys. With so many bald decisions regarding their own x86 roadmap, it's a miracle they're still around!
What I mean is: AMD has been on the razor's edge for many years already, always in danger of unprofitability due to the thin or sometimes non-existent margins they had in order to keep with the top-dog. And AMD has a substantial slice of the x86 market, definitely way bigger than VIA. Imagine what sort of creative management it takes for VIA to stay competitive.
S3's role in VIA's x86 plans could be crucial. I can definitely see them help VIA into the emerging netbook market. Cheap and low-power, is what VIA and S3 are good at, and that's exactly what netbooks are all about.
Re: (Score:2)
With so many bald decisions regarding their own x86 roadmap, it's a miracle they're still around!
Uh.... I shouldn't be posting minutes after waking up from an afternoon slumber :o)
Obviously, I meant bold decisions! Oh well - at least it's a funny typo!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Incidentally, I put together a completelly fanless audio system based around via esther at 1Ghz (the only noise producing thing is HD and I used a quiet barracuda HD and even that gets annoying after a while). The little box soon expanded into torrent downloader, file and web server and is incredibly stable platform. The best ever spent $400 (it is actually more stable than my 8 core xeon monster worth $8000 last year that I use at work).
Re: (Score:2)
A small bag of gemstones.
Re: (Score:2)
Potentially interesting (Score:3, Interesting)
WTF? (Score:2)
Is it me or is there "S3FotoPro Enhancement" in TFA looks like nothing different than mere contrast adjustment?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But does it run on Linux? :)
Re: (Score:2)
I think the program simply performs some basic automatic tunings such as contrast, saturation and sharpness adjustments. It is not supposed to be a replacement of Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom with tons of sophisticated filters (which mostly are meaningless without manually inputted parameters anyway). It's simply a demo app to show the effect of RELATIVE performance gain one can get from GPU hardware acceleration. Even though it is likely that the stuff still runs faster on my Xeon PC without acceleration than
Wasnt Nvidia and Diamond the first to bring us 3D? (Score:2)
If i remember correctly, it was Diamond that first brought us the Diamond EDGE cards which used Nvidia's first 3d chip. It was the same chip used in the Sega Saturn.
I believe S3 Virge came after. As far as i can remember... the Diamond EDGE PC cards were the first 3D accelerator cards. ... And that would make Nvidia first no?
After Edge flopped, Matrox gave us the Millenia cards which had terrible 3D support on them. Voodoo then took the entire market for a while until Nvidia launched the TNT2 which was a gr
My dream job? Working for S3! (Score:2)
I want to work as a GPU designer for S3 and put my heart and soul into a product that will be laughably pathetic compared to nVidia and ATi's offerings.
I also want to fight two MMA champs at the same time, just so I can push my body to the limit and get utterly humiliated and destroyed anyways by two laughing guys drinking beer while they are beating me up.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you must mean you want to work for S3's driver team- it's the drivers which are laughable. S3's hardware is- like many other things VIA and its subsidiaries have come up with, such as the Envy and the Nano- good engineering.
S3 cards have done fairly well in benchmarks compared to parts from nV and AMD/ATI of the same classes (midrange and low end- S3 doesn't bother with the high end)- an impressive achievement considering that 800-lb gorilla Intel has consistently failed to even come anywhere close
Without adoption of OpenCL by S3 and it's... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think the whole point of OpenCL is that one doesn't need to be concerned about the underlying hardware. It can be a discrete Nvidia/ATI GPU, an chipset integrated GPU, or even a hybrid multi-core CPU with graphics acceleration cores. I've read that both NVidia and ATI/AMD claimed to support OpenCL in the future. From Apple's point of view it's a matter of choosing a vendor who can provide them with the best(by Apple's own standard) hardware solution.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, Nvidia supports Cuda on everything above the 6000-series I think.
Two other reasons is probably that:
a) It's faster.
b) Transgamings Cider software don't support the Intel graphics, and now with this one EA:s "mac games" such as C&C 3, Spore and such will run on the Macbook aswell.