It's an interesting question I wait other opinions about, but I always imagined that the 64MB amount of memory of the few alternative not-Diamond brand cards using that chip were installed more for marketing reasons than actually a games requirement need but maybe some games actually could have used that. But considering which other cards actually had 64MB of much faster ram I wonder if it was like the Savage 4 previous situation when having 32MB of ram probably not often needed (also considering some of those modern games would have used already the texture compression feature).

Yes I doubt 64mb would help (e.g 32mb vs 64mb Geforce 2 MX ), but it is a very interesting card, must have been made pretty late in the game (for s3).

Also considering the Geforce2 MX (the first version) being a much more balanced and advanced GPU not necessary for the working T&L but as a whole design. Considering the one I had on a cheap PCB brand, could be overclocked on the GPU to 215Mhz and having all the possible features of that period. A great GPU indeed in that specific period.
While I always liked that S3 GPU cause that at least they tried to release something that complex and so early compared to others that failed to even try.

Mostly will benefit games with uncompressed textures. You can play large Quake 3 maps without S3TC.

I have the 8 MByte card (savage4, not the savage2000, which is a little bit faster), the only drawback of that is: some game refused to run, and demanded more video memory. 16 MByte is enough for these cards imho, i don't think the versions above 16MB will make too much difference.

Savage 2000 is noticeably faster.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-09-09, 18:00:

Savage 2000 is noticeably faster.

I have googled some benchmarks, and it seems the savage2000 is 10-15% slower than the voodoo3 (which is a 16 mbyte card) according to this anandtech test which was performed in several pentium3 and athlon machines: https://www.anandtech.com/show/410/12

The savage4 arent behind the voodoo3 too much either, so i dont think there are too much difference between the savage4 and savage2000 cards.
Maybe in higher resolutions, the scissor widens, and the difference will be higher... i usually personally use 640x480 tho.

so if its enough for the v3, then 16 mbyte should be enough for these cards.

Savage 2000 is good for Unreal, UT99 and Quake 1/2/3. Anything else is going to be hit or miss. The drivers are quite poor. But for those games it should be significantly faster than Savage 4. The Savage 2000 has about double the fillrate.

It's a bit like comparing a TNT1/2 to a GeForce 256. Or a Voodoo3 to a Voodoo5 essentially. Except the Savage 2000 just isn't as performant, is somewhat broken and has awful drivers. 😀

At 640x480 you will be hitting a CPU bottleneck but I imagine the framerate is so high there's nothing to complain about.

swaaye wrote on 2022-09-09, 22:11:

At 640x480 you will be hitting a CPU bottleneck but I imagine the framerate is so high there's nothing to complain about.

Yeah, the Savage4 is a fantastic performer when used with p1mmx or cyrix cpu with pre-2000 games. In these machines it easily outperforms basically everything except the matrox g200. The stability is also fantastic.

However, the savage4 doesnt scales above this. So in p3-class computers, where finally the geforce and radeon cards can work without producing stuttering mess everywhere, it wouldnt make too much sense to use a savage4. Another con for the Savage4 is the xp drivers which are very bad and unstable.

Its important to note that the only resolution i used this card ever was 640x480 at 16 bit, so if someone wants to use this card in 800x600 i would rather recommend the tnt1 or voodoo3 instead.

swaaye wrote on 2022-09-09, 22:11:

Savage 2000 is good for Unreal, UT99 and Quake 1/2/3. Anything else is going to be hit or miss. The drivers are quite poor. But for those games it should be significantly faster than Savage 4. The Savage 2000 has about double the fillrate.

if you like Max Payne and 3DMark2001, then it's quite a visual disaster.

Also i've had the most random hardlocks with Savages than any other videocard in a Super Socket 7/early Slot1 context, like even opening InControl could set that off. This also applies to the Savage4.

Somehow I don't think having twice the memory of the usual will alleviate anything. Games that required 64MB VRAM minimum tend to be the big 2004 games (FarCry, Doom3, UT2004) well out of savage's league anyway.

Even Quake 3 at max texture settings and 1600x1200x32 will spill over 32 MB.

leileilol wrote on 2022-09-09, 23:02:

Also i've had the most random hardlocks with Savages than any other videocard in a Super Socket 7/early Slot1 context, like even opening InControl could set that off. This also applies to the Savage4.

I also experienced frequent hardlocks with a savage4 on a KT266A system both on 98SE and XP in 3D games.

Yeah my Diamond Viper Z200 / Savage 2000 was trouble with VIA AGP. Even GUI acceleration would stop working sometimes. But with 440BX it worked well so you probably want to use it with Intel AGP.

And that about ali agp? I never heard about that back in the day on reviews.

dondiego wrote on 2022-09-10, 19:49:

And that about ali agp? I never heard about that back in the day on reviews.

savage4 works fine with ali chipsets, at least in the p5a-b

I think I used the Savage3D (Aopen card) on the ASUS P5A without trouble too.

I wonder if forcing the AGP 2X only as the original card could, solved or not some of the problems discussed here. Much time has passed I tested the card. I remember good frame rate, maybe some rendering errors in some games (I think Thief 2).