SavageXP question

[Bulge]

Well, I remember visiting the S3 graphics website around 3 or 4 months ago and saw this SavageXP thing that they have. So whatever happened to it? Well, sure gone were those times when S3's out of the race. But since SiS and Trident still have a couple of mainstream/low-end solutions, how come we don't hear about S3?

[Todd a]

They got baught up by VIA and VIA is using the Savage care in their integrated chipsets. They have added to it a bit, but it still sucks (even worst as an integrated solution). They have been advancing it a bit, but I doubt they will ever release a stand alone card for graphics. The S3 companie is partially in tact under the tittle Sonic Blue (or something like that). They had to keep the old company around as part of a cross lisense agreement S3 made with Intel to make an integrated chipset for the P4. This was an open license with no royalty fees, but Intel was not happy about VIA doing this and has been fighting them in court for almost two years now over their P4 licenses. Intel did manage to prevent VIA from penetrating the market by scaring the major motherboard makers with a threat of lawsuits if they used the VIA P4 chipsets. The only thing going against VIA is that the integrated chipset that the lisense was for did not come out until many months after the regular chipset and they do not push this chipset like they do the others.

VIA provided little or no support for older cards from S3, so you likely will have to search for 3rd party drivers, which there are few of (not like 3DFX 3rd party drivers that still pop up every now and then).

Savage XP sound like the integrated solution that is coming out after their next one (call something like Utopia) or was that InfinateXP, I cant remember.