S3 retires Virge

Graphics specialist S3 has formally discontinued its Virge graphics acceleration chip thanks to lack of demand. That leaves the company pushing its Savage3D accelerator against the likes of 3Dfx's Voodoo2 and nVidia's Riva TNT. Given both those companies' market and mind shares, S3 will have it's work cut out, though it should be encouraged by its recent design win with Fujitsu -- the Japanese giant is building Savage3D into its high-end multimedia PCs. The once-popular Virge family allowed S3 to make major inroads into the OEM PC market. Of late, though, the company lost customers to more advanced 3D graphics technologies from the likes of ATI, which now pretty much rules the PC vendor market roost. ®