Trident Microsystems, Inc. is a graphics chip manufacturer that has been around for many years. I memember my graphics card from ten years ago had a Trident chip with 512 kB of video memory. Trident is a public company, one of the few graphics chip companies still standing (NASDAQ Symbol: TRID), but it has focused primarily on the value segment of the market, mobile graphics, and integrated chipsets.
Still, Trident has some interesting technology in its Blade graphics core, which is to be expected considering the company has a wealth of experience in graphics. For Trident, the only way back to the top is hard work, good timing and a little luck. Currently, it has two graphics chipsets ready that are both based on the Blade core. Let me first list the features that both chips have in common:
256 Bit architecturs
128 Bit memory interface
16 or 32 MB SDRAM
0.25 micron
AGP 4x
DVD decoding with motion compensation
300 MHz RAMDAC
The two chips differ in their core and memory clock speeds. While the Blade XP runs at 166 MHz, the little brother Blade T64 has to live with 143 MHz and a memory interface which is only 64 Bits wide, running at 125 MHz.
Unfortunately, Trident does not presently support OpenGL. That's the reason why I could not get any results in Quake III or Dronez.
Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
