Not bad eh? The Savage/MX and /IX are clearly not TNT2 Ultras but they offer a massive step up in performance compared to what's currently available in laptops.

We benchmarked Quake2 on an S3-provided 400MHz P2-equipped laptop with alpha-hardware and alpha-driver build versions of the Savage/MX and found it performed very strongly...for a laptop:

800x600x16bpp: 46.7fps
1024x768x16bpp: 31.6fps

S3 has achieved scores higher than these using drivers that were three weeks newer than the ones we witnessed. Think 55+ fps for the 800x600 score and 36+ fps for the 1024x768 score in regards to how fast the parts are shaping up. S3 hopes to hit in the low 60s regarding the 800x600 score by the time the parts begin to ship in retail laptops (September/October).

As far as we're concerned, just the fact that the Savage/MX and /IX are capable of providing the performance we've seen already is amazing. Throw in the fact that the parts support some very high end 3D features like bump mapping, S3's texture compression, and anisotropic filtering, and the picture of how important they will be when they arrive becomes very clear.

For the record, the differences between the MX and IX come down to one factor: Integrated DRAM. The IX version of the mobile Savage uses up to 16MB of DRAM integrated on a Multi-Chip Module along with the graphics core, while the MX forgoes the on-die RAM in favor of external modules.

Both are expected to perform similarly, no matter what the configuration the OEM selects.

In addition to Quake2 and Forsaken, we ran Quake3: Arena at 640x480x32bpp on the prototype Savage/MX equipped notebook and were impressed with its playability. Quake3 supports texture compression out of the box, which enables the Savage/MX to provide playable frame rates from the get go.

To see a game with the high end features that Q3 supports running on a laptop is mind-bending, easily as impressive as the first time we saw a DVD movie playing on one almost two years ago.