A new 128-bit engine- one of the reasons that the Savage4 fell short at the high-end gaming spectrum was because the technology itself was limited by a 64-bit memory interface. This meant that 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions were the 'real' ceiling for fast frame rates. 1024x768 and beyond was too slow for our liking and that of many a Quake 2/3 player. For Savage 2000, S3 has sensibly upped their technology to 128-bit, a very good move indeed. A full list of specs is provided below: And where would an S3 part be without S3TC texture compression? Need a reminder of what this technology is capable of? Why not….
Screen shots taken from Unreal
Top: Savage4 with S3TC large textures (2048 x 2048)
Bottom: Other card with 256 x 256 texture size limitation
Expect to see S3's texture compression become more and more popular throughout the games industry. If you took a peek at our article earlier this week, several game developers were adamantly keen on texture compression technology. And it shows too. S3 will no longer be flying the flag alone and in the doldrums. S3TC, which was included in DirectX6 but did not receive much initial support on the developer side, is fully supported in DX7 and is getting a much better reception this time 'round both from developers and other hardware designers that are licensing it for support in their hardware. This means a larger installed base of hardware that supports it and therefore a more compelling reason for developers to allocate resources to incorporating it into their products.
With 3dfx open sourcing their FXT1 tools, the games industry may become a bit defocused on compression formats, but eventually it should all lead to not only be pushing more geometry (through T&L) but also more texture. Since the Savage 2000 covers both angles (it has its own T&L engine dubbed S3TL) it could end up becoming a very safe choice. For a full explanation of how S3TC works take a look at the explanation here.