S3 has decided to jump into the fray with their own card supporting DX9 features and 8-pipelines of texture.

S3 Graphics Inc., a leading supplier to the 3D graphics accelerator market, revealed details today of the completely new DeltaChrome™ display core featuring full hardware support for the newly released Microsoft® DirectX 9.0 application interface using Microsoft's HLSL (high level shader language). Targeted squarely at the top position in mobile and desktop graphics with high resolution connectivity for consumer and professional requirements, DeltaChrome brings exciting new features and unparalleled Hi-Def image quality and performance for 3D and video.

Highlights of the DeltaChrome display core include the V8 8-pixel pipeline 3D engine running at a blistering 2.4 Giga-pixels per second fill rate, hardware implementation of DirectX 9.0 and beyond (Pixel/Vertex shader 2.0+), Advanced Deferred Rendering™ and the powerful and flexible Chromotion programmable video engine with ingenious post processing capabilities. Also integrated into the DeltaChrome is the Hi-Def video encoder that can support up to 1080 lines of resolution in progressive mode.

It appears that S3 is targeting the medium- to high-end graphics market by offering technology that supposedly can offer Photoshop-quality effects at video speed. Could this be the next step towards photorealistic gaming? Check it out at S3's website.