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Concept
S3 ViRGE
Summary
The S3 ViRGE (Video and Rendering Graphics Engine) graphics chipset was one of the first 2D/3D accelerators designed for the mass market.
Introduced in 1995 by then graphics powerhouse S3, Inc., the ViRGE was S3's first foray into 3D-graphics. The S3/Virge was the successor to the successful Trio64V+. ViRGE/325 was pin compatible with the Trio64 chip, retaining the DRAM-framebuffer interface (up to 4MB), and clocking both the core and memory up to 80 MHz. In Windows, Virge was benchmarked as the fastest DRAM-based accelerator of the era. The VRAM-based version, ViRGE/VX, was actually slower in lower resolutions, but had a faster RAMDAC to support high-resolution modes not available on the 325.
Part of S3's marketing plan for the ViRGE included the "S3D" standard, stating that members of the ViRGE family carried the S3D Graphics Engine. Games that supported ViRGE directly put this logo on their box so owners of the 3D card would know that it would run as well as possible on their computer. And, despite its lackluster 3D-speed, the ViRGE did receive some S3D enhanced games, due in large part to the brand prestige S3 carried in this period. Some examples of the ViRGE-enhanced versions were: Terminal Velocity, Descent II, Monster Truck Madness, Tomb Raider, MechWarrior 2, FX Fighter Turbo, Terracide, POD, Incoming, and Jedi Knight.
With the successful launch of the Sony PlayStation home game-console, pressure was on the PC market to incorporate hardware that could compete in the area of realtime 3D graphics rendering, something that software-based host-CPU rendering could not do well on its own. That is, main-CPU software-based rendering could render realtime 3D graphics—as demonstrated by games like Descent, which used only the main CPU and standard VGA hardware to render full-screen 3D video with 6-degrees-of-freedom motion in real time—but the resolution, polygon count, and quality of shading, smoothing, etc. were not competitive with dedicated 3D rendering hardware.
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