In this topic we are going to discuss S3's API that's S3 MeTaL.
S3 made other great things also, Texture Compression and TransForm & Lighting aka T&L.
The S3 Savage4 was the first to bear S3TC and the S3 Savage2000 was the first to bear S3TL, T&L originated from S3 and not nVidia aka NV.
NV kinda stole everybody's designs, it still hurt's my eyes to see them still around, I liked 3dfx, S3, ATi and Matrox more than ever and even nowadays I would choose for ATi, Matrox or S3 maybe XGi if they improve, because they are the Underdogs still do'n thier jig.
Oh not to forget S3 MeTaL that API looks frikk'n great with Unreal Tournament 1999, man it's a shame that S3 MeTaL didn't get further. I still Play UT 1999 with my S3 Savage 2000 with the S3 MeTaL API, it looks way better than D3D or OpenGL, 3dfx Glide has it;s speciallity also, but if you like 32Bit Texture compression in UT 1999 S3's MeTaL is the way to go.
The bad news is that UT GOTYE 1999 is the only game that supports S3 MeTaL, Unreal 1 support's S3 MeTaL also with patch 2.26.
well here's my Card and it's boxed
Diamond Multimedia VIPER II Z200 AGP x4 32MB + S/Video -out & Composite TV-Out:
The card:
Box front:
Box angled:
Diamond Multimedia VIPER II Z200 AGP 32MB
Based on the S3 SAVAGE 2000 GPU.
128Bit Core @ 150Mhz
128Bit SDRAM @ 150Mhz
Single Pass Quad Texture Engine, the first ever btw.
here a comparison of the then current cards left & S3' SAVAGE 2000 right:
here the Block Chart of the Savage 2000 GPU:
here the tech specs: