S3 Savage 2000

Written by - on 07 November 2009. Posted in S3 Savage 2000

The Savage 2000 chip from S3 is the first announced chip with hardware support for lighting and transformation calculations. It is the first one, because the chip was announced on August 30, 1999 - the day before the announcement of the GeForce 256 chip by NVIDIA. Despite this, the chip came out much later than its competitor. We can say that S3 just wiped the nose of nVidia, but could not outdo itself. But still. The chip is out. But, as many observers write, it would be better if he did not. As always, in one Savage 2000 chip we are offered a solution for 2D, 3D and Video. Savage 2000 supports its own texture processing and lighting standard - S3TL. The chip supports overlaying four textures per clock, providing a fill rate of 500,000 texels per second.

The chip was produced in two versions: Savage 2000 and Savage 2000+, oriented to different niches of the computer market and differing in frequencies.

Specifications S3 Savage 2000

type	2D/3D
Technology	0.18 Micron
Core frequency	125 - 150 MHz
Memory frequency	125 - 166 MHz
Memory bus	128 bit
Throughput	12mPolys/sec
Fillrate	300 Mpixels/sec 600 Mtexels/sec
API	DirectX 7.0 / OpenGL
OpenGL	ICD
RAMDAC	350 MHz
Memory vol.	Up to 64 Mb
memory type	SDRAM/SGRAM
Max 3D resolution	2048x1536
Max. texture size	2048x2048
Texture compression	S3TC
32-bit rendering	Yes
Z-Buffer	16 / 24 / 32 bit
Template support	Yes
Template Buffer	8 bit

And now for the worst. First of all, quality. It's disgusting. Compared to previous versions of the Savage 4 series chips, it has become much worse. Trilinear filtering was poorly implemented, poor-quality dithering. Very low speed in 3D compared to competitors. Low speed and poor OpenGL support.

The first video card based on the Savage 2000 chip was the Dimond Viper II Z200 from Diamond Multimedia. I must say that the Viper brand has always been used to designate cards based on nVidia chips. Viper330 - Riva128, Viper550 - RivaTNT, Viper 770 - RivaTNT2. But since Diamond Multimedia was completely bought by S3, the logo of the fastest video cards is now used for S3 products. And I would call the new card something like Monster 2000, because this logo is even more famous and familiar to everyone.

As always, one of the shortcomings of the Savage 2000 was the unfinished drivers.