Ooooh! Interesting to see some Neon 250 experimentation!

This should be moved to Marvin

Hi!
I happen to be one of the lucky basterds who own the Videlogic Neon 250 32 MB PCI as well.

Furthermore, I feel obliged to "defend" this card a little after Gona present it in a quite negative way.

First of all, the card has VERY GOOD support for PowerSGL API. The Compatibility with MOST of PowerVR games is really great! I have tested around 10 games out of which only 1 did not seem to work...

Secondly, the drivers are not that bad. There are some problems with NEWER Direct 3D games, but the ones that run on PowerSGL API work just fine 😉

Finally, I think that this card is one of the rarest (I have counted only 5 people who have it) and coolest card made at that time. Of course it is slower then the competition from 1999, but I do not think that is so relevant. It was simply released to late, the company have been working on the chip for a long time so I think that this card should be treated as a competition to the cards from 1998 not 1999

Tomorrow, I am planning to submit a video on YouTube showing you the real possibilities of the best PowerVR chip (in my opinion...) 😁
Right now you can check out this very poor and video that I recorded one week ago just to show the world that this card works 😉

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M42HIkaEKWU&l … 3vcCkOexTK_xxkA

In the future I am going to thoroughly test it and compare it mainly with it's predecessor PCX2 (for SGL games) and with ALL the chips from 1998 and 1999(for D3D games) 😀

I am not sure what configuration Gona used for testing his card, but for some reason mine refused to work on my regular Testing Machine - ABIT ST6 with Tualatin 1400 MHz and 512 MB RAM so I had to swich to ABIT BE6-II Pentium 3 600 (Katmai) with 256 MB RAM.

To sum it up, PowerVR Neon 250 is, was and will be the BEST card for SGL based games forever 😁 I do not a penny that I spent on this card cause I think it is worth all the money that you can give for it 😀

Regards

To sum it up, PowerVR Neon 250 is, was and will be the BEST card for SGL based games forever 😁 I do not a penny that I spent on this card cause I think it is worth all the money that you can give for it 😀

You have done comparisons with the PCX2 to back this statement up?

I would be careful to make conclusions like this that completely contradicts previous testing done by Gona without any results posted.

vetz wrote:

To sum it up, PowerVR Neon 250 is, was and will be the BEST card for SGL based games forever 😁 I do not a penny that I spent on this card cause I think it is worth all the money that you can give for it 😀

You have done comparisons with the PCX2 to back this statement up?

I would be careful to make conclusions like this that completely contradicts previous testing done by Gona without any results posted.

You will get the results tomorrow 😁

To support my statements you have to answer yourself a question: "Can you play games on PCX2 with a resolution higher than 800x600 without losing FPS?"

The plot thickens. Can Voodooman deliver? 😎

VooDooMan wrote:

I am not sure what configuration Gona used for testing his card, but for some reason mine refused to work on my regular Testing Machine - ABIT ST6 with Tualatin 1400 MHz and 512 MB RAM so I had to swich to ABIT BE6-II Pentium 3 600 (Katmai) with 256 MB RAM.

I have used a very similar configuration: ASUS P3B-F (also Intel 440BX chipset), Pentium III Katmai 500 CPU and 256 MB RAM too.
Please write to us that PowerSGL games that you have tested and worked fine, and please test them what I have tested.
My card is full the same as your card but my bios version is a later one "Rev 2.01i" as your bios version is "Rev 1.66i".
If you can run a PowerSGL game what not works on my card, I will ask you to save/dump your bios version.

I also wonder if the Neon250 can also work with the Techland SGL MiniGL that I use to beat some OpenGL games to work on PCX2 😀

MDK2 comparisons using that (as 3dfxvgl.dll in windows/system/ to get it to load) and with Neon250's ICD could do

I have finally recorded the video. It is in better quality than the previous one and I do not hold the video-recorder in my hands so the image is more stable. Nevertheless I could not configure the camera in the right way so it is not always sharp. I wish I had a direct VGA-Capture device but I don’t, so this has to be enough for now... There is no sound because this video is just to present the graphics 😉

Games using PowerSGL that worked:
- Turok
- MDK
- Nightmare Creatures
- Actua Soccer 2
- Motorhead
- Star Trek KHG
- Metal Fatigue
- Quake II (MiniGL)
- Half-Life (MiniGL)

Games that did not work:
- Tomb Raider – There reason why it did not work is probably because there are separate patches for PCX1 and PCX2, and in this case I would have to use a patch for Neon250.

Are you ready for the moment of truth? OK so here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0akkZWRwsk&feature=youtu.be

I made 2 other videos with a special dedication to Vetz 😁 It is a comparison between PCX2 and Neon 250 on the basis of Turok and Quake II. You can see which one is faster in PowerSGL and MiniGL:

Turok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP34Di7gheY&l … 3vcCkOexTK_xxkA

Quake II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZPxphRtvUg

Any comments on that ? 😁

I would love to test other games but there are two things that hold me back. The first thing is that I do not have much time at the current moment of my life… and the second thing is that I do not have the rest of the games!!! So if you would like to see some of other games that work then please help me out, and eventually you gonna see that card runnin on all the PowerSGL games 😉

I know that this whole test is not the way it should look like… but please note that it’s been only 1 week since I got the card, and I did not play with PowerSGL before that much… In the future I will do it the right way (Benchmarking, image quality, DOS performance, 2D tests, comparison with other cards….) and I hope that you gonna help me with that 😀
Right now you can see that this card works, and it works almost like it should… What else do we need?

Regards

Thanks for your posts and videos. I'm going to flashing my card with an older bios version (Rev 01.116) and I will retest all games I have tested.

Could you download the PowerVR SDK uploaded at vogonsdrivers and run Tower4/Tower5 demo to see if the card is able to display the shadow effects?

I will test it.

leileilol wrote:

I also wonder if the Neon250 can also work with the Techland SGL MiniGL that I use to beat some OpenGL games to work on PCX2 😀

MDK2 comparisons using that (as 3dfxvgl.dll in windows/system/ to get it to load) and with Neon250's ICD could do

I want to test that as well 😉 Please send me a PM with the things that I need to do, have and know.

It would be nice to play Qauke III Arena too 😁

In Quake II test, Neon 250 is almost 4 times faster than PCX2...

Results:

Matrox M3D - Quake II Timedemo
800 x 600 = 14,5

Videologic Neon250 - Quake II Timedemo
800 x 600 = 56,5
1024 x 768 = 43,2

And I forgot to mention that PCX2 Uses faster CPU and Neon has AA enabled 😜

Is there a way to benchmark Turok?

IIRC in Quake II PCX2 is limited by lightmap texture uploads.
Out of interest: The values for Neon250 are with the MiniGL, right? How fast does it run with native OpenGL? (Assuming it runs properly.)

Regarding benchmarking Turok:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/3d-accele … -step,51-2.html
"start it with command line option '-benchmark -alldrivers'. Then you can choose the 3D device you want to use and can adjust the performance settings."

idspispopd wrote:

IIRC in Quake II PCX2 is limited by lightmap texture uploads. Out of interest: The values for Neon250 are with the MiniGL, right […]
Show full quote

IIRC in Quake II PCX2 is limited by lightmap texture uploads.
Out of interest: The values for Neon250 are with the MiniGL, right? How fast does it run with native OpenGL? (Assuming it runs properly.)

Regarding benchmarking Turok:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/3d-accele … -step,51-2.html
"start it with command line option '-benchmark -alldrivers'. Then you can choose the 3D device you want to use and can adjust the performance settings."

Thanks! I will bechmark Turok on Sunday. I would also try other games like: POD, Ultimate Race Pro, Interstate 76 Gold, Hardcore 4x4 and other... but I do not have those games and cannot find the correct versions. It would be the best to have the ISO image of those.

I did not manage to run native OpenGL. I am not sure if there is an official support for it... or maybe I need different drivers? Perhaps Gona has more experience with playing with OpenGL on that card?

Also you should test the PCX2 in 32-bit color as it'll be a little faster going through the bus.

also why is the lighting broken on Quake II? I know PowerVR MiniGL is bright, but not THAT bright to the point there's no shadows at all. must be some pro shit or something

leileilol wrote:

also why is the lighting broken on Quake II? I know PowerVR MiniGL is bright, but not THAT bright to the point there's no shadows at all. must be some pro shit or something

Well, it's not broken... Quake II was always to dark for me so I had to modify it a little bit 😜

It is highly advisable to not modify the games and keep things as vanilla as possible when doing video chipset comparisons..

The Neon250 supposedly has a MiniGL of its own, could you try using that and replacing 3dfxgl.dll (not pvrgl.dll) in Quake2 with it?

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

Could you download the PowerVR SDK uploaded at vogonsdrivers and run Tower4/Tower5 demo to see if the card is able to display the shadow effects?

I have downgraded my bios version from the "Rev 2.01i" to an earlier one "Rev 01.116". This is better because the Ultim@te Race now works,
but Mechwarrior 2 and Cybertroopers still not run.
I have tried Tower4/Tower5 demo from the PowerVR SDK but these are also not run. None demos of the "SGL" directory has run.
In the "sgldirect" directory all of the demos are run except the "Stained".

Test setup:
Neon 250 PCI 32MB - bios Rev 01.116
Asus P3B-F (Intel 440BX) - bios 1008f.004
256MB RAM
Vibra16VX soundcard (might some games not run without sound device)
Windows 98 (4.10.1998)
DirectX 6.1
Neon 250 drivers that I have tested:
v3.1.1.36 (4.11.01.10035)
v3.1.1.101 (4.11.01.10055)
v3.2.1.2 (4.11.01.10079)

Gona wrote:

I have downgraded my bios version from the "Rev 2.01i" to an earlier one "Rev 01.116". This is better because the Ultim@te Race […]
Show full quote

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

Could you download the PowerVR SDK uploaded at vogonsdrivers and run Tower4/Tower5 demo to see if the card is able to display the shadow effects?

I have downgraded my bios version from the "Rev 2.01i" to an earlier one "Rev 01.116". This is better because the Ultim@te Race now works,
but Mechwarrior 2 and Cybertroopers still not run.
I have tried Tower4/Tower5 demo from the PowerVR SDK but these are also not run. None demos of the "SGL" directory has run.
In the "sgldirect" directory all of the demos are run except the "Stained".

Test setup:
Neon 250 PCI 32MB - bios Rev 01.116
Asus P3B-F (Intel 440BX) - bios 1008f.004
256MB RAM
Vibra16VX soundcard (might some games not run without sound device)
Windows 98 (4.10.1998)
DirectX 6.1
Neon 250 drivers that I have tested:
v3.1.1.36 (4.11.01.10035)
v3.1.1.101 (4.11.01.10055)
v3.2.1.2 (4.11.01.10079)

Many thanks; it is good to finally see results. A shame that those demos don't work...

How does the card run Ultimate Race? Does the game run with the fancy shadows on the cars?