Michael Viramontes, Senior Product Marketing Manager
ELSA, Inc.
408-919-9100 ext. 105
michaelv@elsa.com

Courtney Zoog
Focal Point Communications
415-289-0351
courtneyzoog@earthlink.net

ELSA ANNOUNCES THE ELSA WINNERTM II GRAPHICS BOARD

WINNER II Leverages the S3 Savage4 Chip For Intense Performance

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- March 16, 1999 -- ELSA, Inc., a world leader in computer graphics add-on and peripheral solutions, today announced the WINNER II graphics accelerator based on the Savage4 graphics chip from S3. The WINNER II offers home consumers and corporate desktop customers unprecedented graphics performance with 32-bit rendering and the support of immense texture capacities.

Optimized for future generation processors and motherboards, WINNER II utilizes the new Savage4 chip featuring AGP 4X to push the data transfer rate between graphics accelerator and CPU to its technical performance limits. The Savage4 chip also supports next-generation digital flat panel-based systems via the ELSA WINNER II DFP connector. With S3 Texture Compression (S3TC), S3 technology that has been integrated as a standard in Microsoft's Direct3D, the WINNER II delivers extremely detailed graphics images with high contrast by compressing textures. This unique method of data compression enables the processing of data which would normally need six times the RAM storage capacity of that actually available on the graphics board.

"In the early 90's we achieved revolutionary success implementing the S3 graphics technology on our ELSA WINNER 1000 boards," said Uli Theissen, president of ELSA, Inc. "We're thrilled to extend this long-lasting and successful cooperation with S3 with the Savage 4 graphics chip. The new Savage4-based ELSA WINNER II board, which is conceived for the mainstream PC user, is destined to set new price/performance standards."

"S3 is pleased to have found in ELSA a strong partner with a well built sales channel structure, especially with regard to system integrators," said Ken Potashner, president and CEO of S3 Incorporated. "We are absolutely convinced that the performance of the Savage4 chip meets today's market expectations 100 percent, and we're certain that this cooperation will play a role in the success of the ELSA WINNER II." [This is the quote from the European release -- do we have the rights to re-use it?]

Leading game manufacturers like ID software, Epic MegaGames, Argonaut, and Digital Image Design (DID) have also announced their support for the new S3 Savage4 graphics chip and the S3TC texture compression.

Product Availability The ELSA WINNER II is scheduled for availability as a retail version in Q2 1999. A subsequent version will target the specific needs of system integrators.

ELSA Information ELSA, Inc. is a subsidiary of ELSA AG, a Germany based publicly listed company, trading on the 'Neuer Markt' trading segment of the Frankfurt stock exchange. Founded in 1980, ELSA has built a world-class reputation in high-performance 2D and 3D graphics solutions for professional workstations, commercial desktop and consumer PCs. In addition ELSA offers a wide range of communications products such as modems, ISDN-internet access solutions and PC based videoconferencing products.

The ELSA logo is a registered trademark of ELSA AG. All names mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.