@Obi_Wan  - umm...yeah, it is the BIOS chip on the board!

Mine has no sticker so I could read the flash type.

If you don't want to remove the sticker though, then someone else will have to look at their card!

HALLO ANYONE? ??? DOES ANYONE HAVE HIGH RES PICS OF A DIAMOND VIPER II FLASHROM...or at least the flash type info? ???

(Yes, I'm just SHOUTING to get attention...LOL! And no offence meant people!)

@Obi_wan - Did you check yet? ???

P.S. Sorry for the shouting!

That was Capstain America!

Quote:


Whatcha' mean?  Is there a sticker on the other card like your Viper II, or is the flash chip the same type as mine? ???

Hmm...thanks for the drivers link, but I already tried them!

So maybe it's the mainboard I'm running the card in?

What mainboards are your Viper II cards running in (Brand and Model). ???

Strange? ???

I'm running my Savage 2K on a BX system too...

PCCHIPS P6BX-A+ mainboard with a 433MHz Celly.

And I STILL can't get the card to work? ???

D@mn weird I tell ya'!

S3 lives on!

with S3 Chrome 20 series S25 and S27

here the specs of thier fastest card the S3 Chrome S27:

Chrome S27 Highlight Features

PCI Express™

The Chrome S27 employs a native PCI Express high speed serial link implementation. Dynamic support for 16x, 8x, 4x, and 1x lane configurations enables up to 8.0 GB/s transfers between host system and graphics subsystem.

Full DirectX™ 9.0 Support

Support for Dual graphic card implementations enabling performance increases for applications such as 3D gaming.

HDTV Hi-Def™ Experience

Get more value from your HDTV using the integrated Hi-Def, HDTV encoder technology, which supports all 18 ATSC DTV standards, including 1080p. In HDTV Hi-Def mode, the Chrome S27 brings the theater experience into your home for all your PC media, video games explode to life before your eyes in vivid detail, and Hi-Def corporate presentations will set new standards.

Chromotion™ 3.0 Programmable Video Engine

The Chrome S27 includes the advanced Chromotion3.0 programmable video engine that is fully compatible with Microsoft DirectX-VA media acceleration. Its powerful programmable video effects can be applied to almost all video codecs, including Windows Media Video 9 (WMV9), MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. Post-processing filters enhance video from poor, low bit rate source materials. Real-time rendering capabilities bring video effect processing to mainstream home video enthusiasts, who can now exercise as much ArtisticLicense™ as advanced video artists.

Class Leading Core and Memory Clock rates

The Chrome S27 leads the industry with 700MHz core and memory clocks, thanks to the advanced 90nm manufacturing process.

Advanced 90nm Manufacturing Process

Manufactured using world leading 90nm technology from Fujitsu, the S3 Graphics Chrome S27 leverages high speed transistor technology to achieve leading performance per watt operation.

DeepColor™ Precision

DeepColor 10-bit-per-color component rendering precision allows for 1024 shades of pure color or grayscale, compared to only 256 shades available using standard 32-bit display modes.

Vertex Shader 2.0+ and Pixel Shader 2.0+

• DirectX 9.0 VS/PS 2.0 + hardware – 8 PS and 4 VS
• 128-bit (4xFP32) vertex precision and 96-bit (4xFP24) pixel precision per clock
• Up to 16 concurrent texture map references per pass
• Shadow Volume acceleration with two-sided stencil
• Non-power of 2 textures
• High accuracy floating point render targets for cinematic quality image rendering
• High quality advanced 16x anisotropic filtering
• High quality rotated grid full screen anti-aliasing with 4x super-sampling up to 1600x1200
• Volume and cube maps for photo-realistic reflections
• Programmable per pixel gamma correction
• High Performance Fast Tri-Linear filtering

Crisp Rendering

• Zero latency – ultra fast zero cycle clear
•  Optimized Z-buffer write and read
•  Triangle mask optimization
•  Fast Clear technology

Full Precision Pixel Pipeline

•  Full floating point precision ALU for single clock execution per pipeline for PS 2.0+ operations.
•  Programmable cache for engine speed and efficiency
•  Unified superwide pipeline for seamless 2D/3D/Video context switching
•  Optimized advanced shading dependency read pipelines
•  Programmable render target blending
•  Programmable depth shader
•  Microsoft Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) support
•  Real time post processing
•  ArtisticLicense real-time video effects

GDDR1 / GDDR2 / GDDR3 Memory Interface

• 32/64/128-bit ( ChromeS27 ) memory bus
• 32/64/128/256 MB frame buffer w/ GDDR1/GDDR3
• 32/64/128/256/512 MB frame buffer w/ GDDR2
• Peak memory bandwidth to 22.4 GB/s @ 700MHz (max –GDDR3)
• Peak memory bandwidth up to 16 GB/s @ 500MHz (max – GDDR1/GDDR2)
• Dynamic CKE controlled power management
• Support for "termination free" low cost board designs

Integrated Hi-Def HDTV & Standard TV Encoder

• Comprehensive support for all 18 ATSC DTV standards
• Component (YPbPr) output
• 4:4:4 conversion with 10 bit DAC resolution
• ChromoVision™ full screen video on secondary HDTV / TV
• Full desktop view in HDTV mode
• All NTSC/PAL standard TV output formats (S-video, composite)
• Macrovision compliant
• Flicker filter with programmable coefficients
• Vertical over/under-scan compensation
• Adaptive aperture correction
• Non-linear scaling: for panorama 16:9 viewing on HDTV
• ChromoColor™ , including full range RGB to YUV color space conversion with Hue , Saturation, Brightness, and
Contrast adjustment
• Smooth vertical overscan compensation with programmable contraction factors

Duo-Rotate™

• Hardware acceleration for display rotation for desktop and TabletPC (90°, 180°, 270°)
• Displays can be independently rotated
• Rotation acceleration for 3D ,2D & media playback
• Full operation of geometry, lighting and texture effects

High Performance 400MHz 10-bit CRT DAC

• 1+ billion colors (Giga-Palette)
• 2048x1536 QXGA (3.1M) display resolution capable
• Excellent INL/DNL characteristics (+/- 1 LSB)
• Dual mode compatible (HDTV/CRT, DVI/CRT, TV/CRT or LVDS/CRT)
• High precision Gamma control

Here a diagram of the S3 Chrome S27 GPU:


With MultiChrome technology you can make a Dual S27 setup like ATi's CrossFire & nVidia's SLI idea.


The performance of 1 S27 is the same as 1 GeForce 6600GT / Ati Radeon X700XT which isn't bad, in MultiChrome setup the performance would lay around that of an ATi Radeon X800XT Platinum Edition / nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra, and that for a total of 260 US Dollars, I find that very attractive.

here more info of it's performance:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27438

Way to Go S3! Welcome Back!

well fro the asian countires it's still very acceptable, they also support Multi GPU sepups from 2 to more cards so like 4 S27's ahve the equal performance as 2 6800Ultra 512's. but still cheaper than one 6800Ultra 512.

4 S3 Chrome 27's will be like 512 Euro's, and 2 6800 Ultra 512's will be still 900 a 1000 euro's so you get the same performance of 4 S3 S27's and it's alot cheaper also, that what clients are asking and looking for, I think S3 is playing thier cards very smart, the also use lot's lesser power than conventional cards, about 30 watt per card and that is very low for a High-Mainstream gamer card.

I am willing to give S3 a go some time next year.

the most cards sold are the low end and Mainstream cards, Ultra High end arn't sold much in total, clients rather have some thing which is cheap but still fast enough to runj thier apps, I have learnt that in the Computer Store where I help out regulairy.