Aim higher. P3 or better.

Sorry, my PIII is already occupied by my Voodoo 2 SLI system 😉

Mine's never been happier with a northwood.

Also again, M3D != PowerVR 2. PowerVR2 = CLX2, Neon250, NG/SG

leileilol wrote:

Also again, M3D != PowerVR 2. PowerVR2 = CLX2, Neon250, NG/SG

Yea, the M3D is the PowerVR PCX2, which is known as 'Series 1'.
Someone spent a lot of time putting all series and chips on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR#Series1_(NEC)

ildonaldo wrote:

Sorry, my PIII is already occupied by my Voodoo 2 SLI system 😉

Assuming you've got the PCI slots, this isn't necessarily a problem.

leileilol wrote:

Mine's never been happier with a northwood.

I still find it odd that Gona's DOS video compatibility tests show that Tomb Raider has better results with some very specific PCI cards regardless of CPU speed. My target for the M3D is Tomb Raider, Mechwarrior 2, Resident Evil, and Virtual-On, with anything else being a bonus. I think Virtual-On is the only one that does a lot better with a faster CPU, but that also means the period-correct MMX machine is still not the best machine still won't do it for me 😵

At this point, I might as well ask you for benchmark methods and results, even if it means I get beat over the head with topics and posts I'm sure I've read before. I just want to make this little accelerator SCREAM, much like the OP.

Thank you for sharing your ideas, but it would be great if someone could contribut a opinion to my initial question - should it be a, b or c?

FYI: I have several retro machines in my collection, but I like to stick with period correct hardware (+/- 1 year) in combination.
So e.g. my PIII or my XP 3200+ are no option for this project.

Scali wrote:

Someone spent a lot of time putting all series and chips on Wiki

unfortunately the PowerVR2 part of it is written in a bit of a misleading DC fandom gush making it sound more advanced than it actually is. 😐

ildonaldo wrote:

Thank you for sharing your ideas, but it would be great if someone could contribut a opinion to my initial question - should it be a, b or c?

FYI: I have several retro machines in my collection, but I like to stick with period correct hardware (+/- 1 year) in combination.
So e.g. my PIII or my XP 3200+ are no option for this project.

I'd go with Option B (the K6-3) - I have mine in a similar system, and it does OK. Most of the stuff that you'd want to play on it runs reasonably well. Although as Leilei mentioned, the faster the CPU, the better.

Thank you xjas, I tend to this too, but is there any further (qualified) opinion on that matter?
Should it be a, b or c ...

Second or third system. While being period correct, a 200 MHz system could prove to be a bottleneck for certain games. To make full use of the card it should be a PII or better.

More CPU-Power is mostly better (if there is no tp-bug in the software), but how about the real frames on the m3d compared in:
- Pentium1 200
- Pentium2 350
- Pentium3 500

Doc

I always wondered how far these things would scale. I remember either an Anandtech or Tom's Hardware article about it that showed that the PCX2 ran faster with faster processors.

I also remember an article on the M3D, specifically, that showed ever so slightly better framerates when paired with a Matrox Mystique. That's how I ran mine: Matrox M3D with a Mystique 220 on a SS7 board (Matsonic board w/K6-2 300 at the time)

misterjones wrote:

I always wondered how far these things would scale. I remember either an Anandtech or Tom's Hardware article about it that showed that the PCX2 ran faster with faster processors.

Yes, the deferred rendering approach means that there is more work involved on the CPU to sort and bin all polygons to the correct tiles in the correct order, before performing the final rendering.
The more polygons a game uses, the larger the difference with immediate mode renderers will become.

Faster faster faster, to me more interesting is since what cpu you get acceptable framerates.
For me a Voodoo1 or any other early 3D chip is good if it reaches 30fps at minimum 512x384 (because it looks great on a 15" eizo 1024x768)