NationMaster - Encyclopedia: S3 ViRGE

The Virtual Reality Graphics Engine (ViRGE) graphics chipset was one of the first 2D/3D accelerators designed for the mass market. Image File history File links S3_logo. ... A chipset is a group of integrated circuits (chips) that are designed to work together, and are usually marketed as a single product. ... 2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital imagesâ€”mostly from two-dimensional models (such as 2D geometric models, text, and digital images) and by techniques specific to them. ... Modern graphics cards are extremely complex and power-hungry, as seen with this Geforce 7800-based graphics card that has its own cooling fan. ...

Introduction

Introduced in 1995 by then graphics powerhouse S3, Inc., the ViRGE set a new standard for 2D-speed, for DRAM-framebuffer VGA cards. Aggressive 1-cycle EDO timing made the ViRGE/325 the fastest benchmarked DRAM-based 2D-accelerator of the period. The chip was also pin compatible with an older member of the Trio family, making implementation of ViRGE on boards easy and cheap. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... S3 Graphics, Ltd design graphics chipsets for PCs. ... Dram can mean several things: For the imperial unit of volume see dram (unit), commonly used to describe a measure of Scotch whisky For the imperial unit of weight or mass see avoirdupois and apothecaries system (of mass) For the Armenian monetary unit see dram (currency) DRAM is a type... Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a computer display standard first marketed in 1987 by IBM. VGA belongs to a family of earlier IBM video standards and largely remains backward compatible with them. ... Dram can mean several things: For the imperial unit of volume see dram (unit), commonly used to describe a measure of Scotch whisky For the imperial unit of weight or mass see avoirdupois and apothecaries system (of mass) For the Armenian monetary unit see dram (currency) DRAM is a type... In electronics, a pin-compatible device, such as a logic chip or microprocessor, is one that has the same functions assigned to the same particular pins. ...

Support

Part of S3's marketing plan for the ViRGE included the "S3D" standard, stating that members of the ViRGE family carried the S3D Graphics Engine. Games that supported ViRGE directly put this logo on their box so owners of the 3D card would know that it would run as well as possible on their computer. And, despite its lackluster 3D-speed, the ViRGE did receive some S3D enhanced games, due in large part to the brand prestige S3 carried in this period: ViRGE-enhanced versions of Terminal Velocity, Descent 2, and later Tomb Raider. In-game screenshot of Terminal Velocity Terminal Velocity was a renowned video game during the mid-1990s, developed by Terminal Reality and published by 3D Realms in 1995. ... Descent is a 3D first-person shooter video game noted for popularizing the use of true 3D rendering technology and providing the player with six full degrees of freedom (often abbreviated 6DOF) to move and to look around. ... For the activity of raiding tombs, see grave robbing. ...

Performance

While revolutionary in that the mass-market could now have an affordable 3D accelerator complete with good quality 2D, the ViRGE quickly earned the unofficial title as the world's first "graphics decelerator" due to abysmal 3D performance. While the ViRGE could render basic 3D-scenes faster than host-CPU based software rendering, the activation of features such as bilinear filtering and Z-depth fogging, caused the card to slow down to the point where software-rendering would again outrun the ViRGE. To this extent, the practical feature set of the ViRGE range was extremely limited. In a twist of irony, 3D-rendering on the expensive VRAM based ViRGE/VX (988) was even slower than the ViRGE/325 due to the VX's slower core and memory-clock frequency. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x680, 173 KB) Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1024x680, 173 KB) Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ... A GeForce 4 4200-based graphics card A graphics card or video card is a component of a computer which is designed to convert a logical representation of an image stored in memory to a signal that can be used as input for a display medium, most often a monitor... Computer software (or simply software) refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of a computer for some purpose. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A zoomed small portion of a bitmap of a cat, using nearest neighbor filtering (left) and bicubic filtering (right). ... VRAM an acronym for Video RAM. Generally a term used in computers to describe RAM dedicated to the purpose of displaying bitmap graphics in raster graphics hardware. ...

While ViRGE did offer adequate performance in natively-ported titles, in late 1996 the introduction of the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics and Rendition Verite, along with Direct3D's growing significance, rewrote the playing field for all future 3D-cards. Any chance the ViRGE had of establishing itself as a 3D-gaming platform market effectively disappeared. 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... 3dfx Interactive was a company which specialized in the manufacturing of cutting-edge 3D graphics processing units and, later, graphics cards. ... Rendition was a maker of 3D graphics chipsets in the mid- to late-90s. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

The ViRGE was also shunned for its lack of any sort of OpenGL support, which meant that it was useless when it came to being used with the extremely popular Quake engine. OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ... The Quake engine is the game engine that was written to power 1996s Quake, written by id Software. ...

Variants

Between its birth in 1995 and retirement near the year 2000, the ViRGE family received regular upgrades. The ViRGE/DX boosted the speed of the original ViRGE/325. The ViRGE/GX added support for more modern SD/SGRAM. The ViRGE/GX2 was one of the first VGA chipsets to support AGP, although the level of support extended little beyond electrical compliance. Substantial use of AGP's feature-set would have to wait until the Savage 3D. 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Synchronous Graphics random accsess memory SGRAM is based on SDRAM, but includes graphics-specific read/write functions SGRAM also retrieves blocks of data and so reduces the number of reads and writes that memory must carry out. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Savage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3. ...

The ViRGE was ultimately replaced by the Savage 3D in S3's top-end graphics segment in 1998. However, at least one derivative (Trio3D) of the ViRGE remained in production even after the discontinuation of the Savage 3D. 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean [1]. // Coated in ice, power and telephone lines sag and often break, resulting in power outages. ...

Specifications

In computing, a 64-bit component is one in which data are processed or stored in 64-bit units (words). ... 2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital imagesâ€”mostly from two-dimensional models (such as 2D geometric models, text, and digital images) and by techniques specific to them. ... 3D computer graphics are different from 2D computer graphics in that a three-dimensional representation of geometric data is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images. ... The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the SI unit of frequency. ... Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter is a combination of three fast DACs with a small SRAM used in graphics display adapters to store the color palette and to generate the analog signals (usually a voltage amplitude) to drive a colour monitor. ... A representation of additive color mixingâ€”In CRT based (analog electronics) television three color electron guns are used to stimulate such an arrangement of phosphorescent coatings of the glass, the resultant reemission of photons providing the image seen by the eye. ... Example of U-V color plane, Y value = 0. ... Color depth is a computer graphics term describing the number of bits used to represent the color of a single pixel in a bitmapped image or video frame buffer. ... Indeo Video (commonly known now simply as Indeo) is a video codec developed by Intel in 1992. ... Compressed with Cinepak, quality 40% Cinepak is a video codec, developed by Radius Inc to accommodate 1x (150 kbyte/s) CD-ROM transfer rates. ... MPEG-1 defines a group of Audio and Video (AV) coding and compression standards agreed upon by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group). ... â€œPUIâ€ redirects here. ... Bit blit (bitblt, blitting etc. ... Spherical texture mapping Texture mapping is a method, pioneered by Edwin Catmull, of adding detail, surface texture, or colour to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. ... Shading refers to depicting depth in 3D models by varying levels of darkness. ... Gouraud shaded sphere - note the inaccuracies towards the edges of the polygons. ... A zoomed small portion of a bitmap of a cat, using nearest neighbor filtering (left) and bicubic filtering (right). ... Trilinear filtering is an extension of the bilinear texture filtering method, which also performs linear interpolation between mipmaps. ... In computer graphics, texture filtering is the method used to determine the texture color for a texture mapped pixel, using the colors of nearby texels (pixels of the texture). ... In 3D computer graphics texture mapping, MIP maps (also mipmaps) are pre-calculated, optimized collections of bitmap images that accompany a main texture, intended to increase rendering speed and reduce artifacts. ... In computer graphics, alpha compositing is often useful to render image elements in separate passes, and then combine the resulting multiple 2D images into a single, final image in a process called compositing. ... Distance fog is a technique used in 3D computer graphics to enhance the perception of distance. ... Z-buffer data In computer graphics, z-buffering is the management of image depth coordinates in three-dimensional (3-D) graphics, usually done in hardware, sometimes in software. ... UXGA is an abbreviation for Ultra eXtended Graphics Accelerator referring to a standard monitor resolution of 1600 Ã— 1200 pixels, which is exactly quadruple the default resolution of SVGA (800 Ã— 600). ... The refresh rate (or vertical refresh rate, vertical scan rate for CRTs) is the number of times in a second that a display is illuminated. ... SXGA is an abbreviation for Super eXtended Graphics Array referring to a standard monitor resolution of 1280 Ã— 1024 pixels. ... XGA, the eXtended Graphics Array, is an IBM display standard introduced in 1990. ... Super Video Graphics Array, almost always abbreviated to Super VGA or just SVGA is a broad term that covers a wide range of computer display standards. ... Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) is a type of random access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. ... Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) is a type of random access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. ... A mebibyte (a contraction of mega binary byte) is a unit of information or computer storage, abbreviated MiB. 1 MiB = 220 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes = 1,024 kibibytes 1 MiB = 1024 (= 210) kibibytes (KiB), and 1024 MiB equal one gibibyte (GiB). ... Dynamic random access memory (DRAM) is a type of random access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The VESA Local Bus (usually shortened to VLB) is a local bus defined by the Video Electronics Standards Association, mostly used in personal computers based on the Intel 80486 CPU. VESA Local Bus worked alongside the ISA bus; it acted as a high-speed conduit for memory-mapped I/O... Bus mastering is a feature supported by some bus architectures that enables a controller connected to the bus to communicate directly with other devices on the bus without going through the CPU. Most modern bus architectures, including PCI, support bus mastering because it significantly improves performance. ... Display list - a group of GL (graphics language, e. ... Video capture usually refers to the various methods of capturing video on a computer. ... Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. ... OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... BRender (abbreviation of Blazing Renderer) is a development toolkit and a real-time 3D graphics engine for computer games, simulators and graphic tools. ... RenderWare (RW) is computer and video game middleware from Criterion Software. ... OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ... VESA Display Power Management Signaling (or DPMS) is a standard from the VESA consortium for managing the power supply of video monitors for computers through the graphics card. ... The Display Data Channel or DDC is a digital connection between a computer display and a graphics adapter that allows the display to communicate its specifications to the adapter. ... PQFP, or plastic quad flat pack, is a type of IC packaging. ... For the Bulgarian Go Association, see Bulgarian Go Association. ... In electronics, a pin-compatible device, such as a logic chip or microprocessor, is one that has the same functions assigned to the same particular pins. ... The S3 Trio range were popular graphics chipsets for personal computers. ...

References

External links

S3 Graphics graphics processors

v • d • e

S3TC | S3 Trio | S3 ViRGE | Savage 3D / Savage4 / Savage 2000 | Chrome series S3 Graphics, Ltd design graphics chipsets for PCs. ... S3 Texture Compression (S3TC) (sometimes also called DXTn or DXTC) is a group of related image compression algorithms originally developed by S3 Graphics, Ltd. ... The S3 Trio range were popular graphics chipsets for personal computers. ... Savage was a product-line of PC graphics chipsets designed by S3. ... S3 Graphics Chrome series of graphics accelerators arrived in 2004 with the DeltraChrome line of chips. ...

Contents

Introduction GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");