For more info on the S3 graphics, check out the OpenChrome project and mailing lists. They have a lot of info on the various chips and the subtle differences in features/support.<br><br>I think the easiest (maybe only) way to go is to get a motherboard with Unichrome video.
<br><br>Also, I think S3 Graphics is owned by VIA, aren't they? Are they at risk for going under?<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 12/8/05, <b class="gmail_sendername">Bob</b> <<a href="mailto:spam@homeurl.co.uk">
spam@homeurl.co.uk</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Todd Ignasiak wrote:<br>> I looked into these a while back, and I was unable to find any
<br>> standalone video cards available for purchase. With the video<br>> processing capabilities they have, the S3 products would make ideal<br>> HTPC video cards.<br>><br>> As you mentioned, the Unichrome is available integrated into many
<br>> motherboards. S3 also announced a couple new models recently, the<br>> S25 and S27.<br><br>I belive these are PCI Express models<br><a href="http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/index.jsp">http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/index.jsp
</a> but I'm sure someone<br>could put them on an AGP card with a converter like some of the Nvidia<br>cards, I think it's the 6600s that are natively PCI-E but have AGP<br>versions available through the magic of a little chip.
<br><br>> If you can find one, there are still a few questions.. Does the<br>> driver from the unichrom project support these chips? Do the<br>> standalone cards have the same MPEG decoder capabilities as the<br>
> unichrome?<br><br>Don't know but I'd have thought their'll be plenty of similarities<br>though one big difference is going to be in memory handling, I'm pretty<br>sure the on-board unichrome GPU uses some of the system RAM but an
<br>expansion card model won't. As for the MPEG stuff, the specs claim<br>acceleration and given the man hours involved in developing such a<br>feature it's probably the same~ish but I'm speculating.<br><br>> I currently use an Nvidia FX5200 (it's fanless, and supports XvMC
<br>> MPEG2 acceleration). But, I would like to replace it with a card<br>> that has open source drivers.. if something is out there.<br><br>Me too, lets hope a the turnover provided by the VIA boards is enough to
<br>stop S3 going under (as everyone on /. seems to think it will) until a<br>major card fab puts the chips on something we can buy and thus promote<br>better support for open source software from hardware manufacturers.<br>
<br>--<br>tveeprom: Hauppauge: model = 34132, rev = J158,<br>tveeprom: tuner = Philips FM1236 MK3 (idx = 58, type = 4)<br>tveeprom: audio_processor = MSP3416 (type = 14)<br>(new type Model 401)<br>model name : mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP Processor
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