um....3-5 years? Nvidia became a "really strong competitor" back in 98 with their TNT. Even their RIVA 128's were some of the best performing 2d/3d combinations, though the image quality was lacking in 3d.

S3 (sonicblue) sold their graphics division to VIA. It is now up to VIA to continue any work that S3 (Sonicblue) began. Considering VIA's traditional role as "less performance, but considerably cheaper" manufacturer, I doubt much will come of those technologies.

With regards to that, VIA has integrated the Savage4 core into chipsets, which is higher performing than both the i815, and the newest SIS chipset in 3d (not 2d though). If the remnants of S3 are to be successful in the way that VIA seems to be positioning, VIA will need to come up with something like deffered rendering, AND dual channel DDR or dual channel RAMBUS chipsets just to get the bandwidth needed if they are to be UMA chipsets, like they are now.