S3 Trio

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The S3 Trio range is probably one of the most successful graphics chipsets of all time for personal computers, offering excellent 2D integration. The S3 Trio was S3's first integrated graphics accelerator. The name comes from the integration of the graphics core, RAMDAC and clock generator. The 64 bit versions were S3's most successful product range.

[edit] Variants

The Trio64 and 64V+ were based on the existing Vision864 and Vision868 chips respectively and were essentially integrated versions of the latter. Like the 868, the 64V+ has a video acceleration engine that can perform YUV to RGB colour space conversion and scaling. The scaling was rudimentary however and was limited to horizontal linear filtering. Unlike the Vision964/968, the Trios did not support VRAM and were limited to DRAM only. The 2D graphics core was later used in the ViRGE.

The Trio32 was a budget version of the 64 that has a 32-bit DRAM interface.

The Trio64V2 improved on the 64V+ by including vertical bilinear filtering. The 2D graphics core was later used in the ViRGE/DX and ViRGE/GX. Like the corresponding ViRGEs, the 64V2 also came in /DX and /GX variants, with the latter supporting more modern SDRAM or SGRAM.

The final version called the Trio3D was in fact the successor to the ViRGE/GX2 chipset, which had acquired such a poor reputation for performance that the brand was retired.

[edit] Integration

Trio chipsets offered strong yields, competitive pricing, and excellent performance. They were integrated into motherboard chipsets, and have even featured in PC emulators, as a standard piece of reference hardware. They marked the high point of the 2D graphics chipset era.