I see, especially now since there was some kind of gamma issue where they were being washed out completely.
Still pretty decent though...

leileilol wrote:

Turns out one of the radar modes screw up the targeting box and crosshair. I tried a lot of things in the control panel to speed it up including turning off fog, filtering and turning on automatic mip mapping to barely anything exceeding 25fps. You're getting 40+? Weiiiiiiiiiird... and what's with the F4 key?

Yeah F4 is also screwed up on my side. It darkens everything in a weird way 😒

And no wireframe mode....

But the reticle and crosshair work just fine for me.

EDIT1: I just went back and tried the game...you're right the little 3D enemy window does appear to chew up some framerate. Maybe it's because Mech 2 is a relatively slow paced game (with no vsync?) that perhaps even 30fps is relatively sufficient. Also the controls in Mech 2 are "lagged" (part of the simulation aspect where a huge machine takes a long time to react?) which further masks low framerate. With fast paced action games on my new PC (where everything is vsynced wherever possible) I usually strive to maintain >60fps otherwise gameplay feels unsmooth. Crysis however feels okay even at around 40fps thanks to its nice motion blur.

EDIT2:
Installed an old version of FRAPS (1.9d) and it works on Windows 98! Anyway yes in some cases the framerate gets bogged down a bit but by and large I'm able to maintain 30-40fps. The game looks to be double-buffered vsynced by default it appears so framerates are pegged to (vsync rate)/N.

I used to run 85Hz refresh on my CRT which limits me to 85fps, 42.5fps, 28.33fps, 21.25fps and so on. Most of the time I see 43fps, 29fps, and 21fps register on Fraps.

I tried 160Hz so now I get sligtly finer granularity in the framerate. 54fps, 40fps, 32fps, 27fps are the norm.

EDIT3:
Turning off fog effects helps performance a lot! 40fps+ in most cases!

Oh and once I get some benchmarks going, I'll swap out the 14.3MHz crystal oscillator on my M3D for something like a 18MHz one for a massive boost in performance...if it doesn't kill the video card.

YCH wrote:

Oh and once I get some benchmarks going, I'll swap out the 14.3MHz crystal oscillator on my M3D for something like a 18MHz one for a massive boost in performance...if it doesn't kill the video card.

Overclocking success!

I didn't change out the oscillator; instead I soldered on a simple toggle switch to select the frequency output of the onboard clock generator...effectively enabling me to easily change between 66MHz (default) and 80MHz 😁

Mechwarrior 2 definitely runs smoother now. Running the same wolf training mission for example and stopping at a specific spot in the map, the default 66MHz yields about 32fps while 80MHz yields me a solid 40fps.

Once I receive my copy of Quake and I'm able to run GLQuake on the PowerVR I should be able to easily produce exactly repeatable results. Stay tuned!

YCH wrote:

Overclocking success! […]
Show full quote

YCH wrote:

Oh and once I get some benchmarks going, I'll swap out the 14.3MHz crystal oscillator on my M3D for something like a 18MHz one for a massive boost in performance...if it doesn't kill the video card.

Overclocking success!

I didn't change out the oscillator; instead I soldered on a simple toggle switch to select the frequency output of the onboard clock generator...effectively enabling me to easily change between 66MHz (default) and 80MHz 😁

Mechwarrior 2 definitely runs smoother now. Running the same wolf training mission for example and stopping at a specific spot in the map, the default 66MHz yields about 32fps while 80MHz yields me a solid 40fps.

Once I receive my copy of Quake and I'm able to run GLQuake on the PowerVR I should be able to easily produce exactly repeatable results. Stay tuned!

Thanks pretty cool, you need to setup a "how to" with it's own dedicated thread. I have an extra Apocalypse 3Dx I might be willing to try this out on.

YCH wrote:

Once I receive my copy of Quake

You could also try the Hexen II demo out, that comes with a GL version as well

bushwack wrote:

YCH wrote:

Overclocking success! […]
Show full quote

YCH wrote:

Oh and once I get some benchmarks going, I'll swap out the 14.3MHz crystal oscillator on my M3D for something like a 18MHz one for a massive boost in performance...if it doesn't kill the video card.

Overclocking success!

I didn't change out the oscillator; instead I soldered on a simple toggle switch to select the frequency output of the onboard clock generator...effectively enabling me to easily change between 66MHz (default) and 80MHz 😁

Mechwarrior 2 definitely runs smoother now. Running the same wolf training mission for example and stopping at a specific spot in the map, the default 66MHz yields about 32fps while 80MHz yields me a solid 40fps.

Once I receive my copy of Quake and I'm able to run GLQuake on the PowerVR I should be able to easily produce exactly repeatable results. Stay tuned!

Thanks pretty cool, you need to setup a "how to" with it's own dedicated thread. I have an extra Apocalypse 3Dx I might be willing to try this out on.

Okay if I have some time later this week I'll post a few photos and description. Credit goes to this site though for mentioning the possibility of changing the clock frequencies:
http://www.mlrfutai.demon.co.uk/tfaq/tfaq.html

From there I just downloaded the clock generator datasheet and it was easy work.

leileilol wrote:

YCH wrote:

Once I receive my copy of Quake

You could also try the Hexen II demo out, that comes with a GL version as well

Is there a timedemo benchmark I can run? If so what are the commands?

`
timedemo demo1

That usually works, 😉
though it's best to bind f1 to that command so you can bench with the console getting out of the way

leileilol wrote:

` timedemo demo1 […]
Show full quote

`
timedemo demo1

That usually works, 😉
though it's best to bind f1 to that command so you can bench with the console getting out of the way

Hmm no "demo1" in my demo version of Hexen II, 🤣. Now trying to figure out the commands to allow me to record a demo myself.

EDIT:
Okay created my own custom demo where I just walked around a large room. Results are consistent.

M3D @ 66MHz: 37.1 fps
M3D @ 80MHz: 43.8 fps

That's 18% performance increase for 20% increase in core clocks! Very nice.

YCH wrote:

Hmm no "demo1" in my demo version of Hexen II, 🤣.

Oh I forgot there was no demo in the demo, but there's demos in the full's pak0. makes no sense, but at least Quake didn't do the same! but you can't run glquake on shareware

Also, Quake2.

leileilol wrote:

YCH wrote:

Hmm no "demo1" in my demo version of Hexen II, 🤣.

Oh I forgot there was no demo in the demo, but there's demos in the full's pak0. makes no sense, but at least Quake didn't do the same! but you can't run glquake on shareware

Also, Quake2.

See my previous post for updated numbers

I'm playing MechWarrior 2 PowerVR Edition on my fabulous Apocalypse 3Dx gift from Keropi here and it's pretty awesome. Certainly at least as good as the 3DFX version, other than the inability to run 800x600.

I have to say that the way the PowerVR chip works with the 2D card is fascinating. How does the 2D card affect performance? I'm using it with a Radeon 9600 128MB AGP. Does an AGP card offer advantages or disadvantages over a PCI card for this? I know AGP has slow upload speed but is it the same rate as PCI?

Also, are Neon 250 and Kyro incompatible with the older PCX hardware?

BTW, Radeon 9600 is a pretty nice card for some retro games. After all the cards I've run lately I will say without reservation that it has some of the best image quality around for NFS4. Its anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are excellent. It's better than a Voodoo5 5500 in my opinion because it's so much faster and can still manage 4X AA at high res.

swaaye wrote:

Kyro incompatible with the older PCX hardware?

No!

You mean the later hardware can still work with old ports?

Old ports you mean the PCX1-2 SGL versions of games? No, Kyro can not run those at all, but it doesn't stop the PCX from running them.

Not so sure about the Neon250. That's a failure no one has.

Neon 250 never came out? I didn't know that.

It did but no one wanted it 😜 Good luck hunting down one of those.

Great thread! I remember having a Matrox M3D back in the day, unfortunately I long since have got rid of it, and to my dismay I can't seem to track one down at all.

If I only knew...

you can get them on ebay from time to time but are getting harder and harder to find.
That is were I got my m3d.

I have one actually, it's an interesting little card and my first 3D accelerator but unfortunately you can't keep everything. 🙁
Maybe in the future I'll eBay it.