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PowerVR Fun Thread

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Reply 560 of 1096, by dr.zeissler

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I have a serius issue in quake2 with stuttering sound 🙁 I am using the Onboard Crystal-Chip of the D981 Mainboard.
Beside that the PowerVR SGL-Version of Quake2 looks good. In my opinion better then the 3dfx-opengl (voodoo1).
The performance of the voodoo1 is very bad in quake2, I think there is an issue with the software or drivers. It can't
be so slow.

Turok1 performance with PowerVR is very different. The Intro-Text-Animation is SLOW, the game is OK, the performance
is on the Level of the Voodoo1. There are some effects missing, like the sky-animation at the intro. (it's only one color)

Doc

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 561 of 1096, by dexvx

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Just got a Hercules Prophet 4000XT, Kyro I in PCI form factor. Also has manuals, original driver CD, and box (but box was in pretty bad shape). So far boots up fine. Looked like it was new (no dust whatsoever).

Edit: Have serious issues getting drivers working. The 2.xx drivers won't load. I have 1.8 loaded, but Direct3D doesn't work. Hmm.

VVCEbYO.jpg

Reply 562 of 1096, by dexvx

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So far no drivers are working for Direct 3D. The Hercules drivers will load and 2D (Direct Draw) seems fine. But Direct3D never works, the screen just displays a bunch of garbage.

On a side note, DxDiag is reporting 24.5 MB video memory instead of 32 MB. I've searched and it seems that the card may be defective, but it varies on the symptons. Anyone got any ideas for a fix, if any?

Reply 563 of 1096, by Tuxality

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I know that you have the first Kyro on PCI, but I had the same issues when trying to run my AGP Kyro II on quite modern, Core 2 Duo and VIA chipset based rig. By the same I mean dxdiag reporting only fraction of available memory, Direct3D not working (garbage on screen or freeze), only DirectDraw was working but not always, although apps using OpenGL sometimes were working (it's really weird). Then I've tried this card on my older PCs, one AMD Athlon (Slot A) based and Pentium III (Socket 370) and there were no problems - full memory, Direct3D was working great and there were no freezes. Can you post more details about PC in which you are trying to use your card?

Reply 566 of 1096, by VooDooMan

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Meet Midas 1 😉

Midas-1-1024x768.jpg

The picture was taken from this article:
https://www.imgtec.com/blog/back-to-the-start-powervr-25/

It is the first time I see Midas 1 on a photo...

Notice that at first they used external cable similar to the one used later in Voodoo graphics.

http://felyx.org/the-powervr-architecture-is-25-years-old/

Does anybody here has this card? Or seen it before?

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ECS P6S5AT at 166 MHz
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Reply 568 of 1096, by spiroyster

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dr.zeissler wrote:

I have both PCX1 and PCX2 but in terms of performance and supported games, the voodoo1 is still the best choice for me.

Is there any noticable performance difference between PCX1 and PCX2? Are there games which only work on one or the other? I have a PCX1 and not many PowerVR games, but not a PCX2 and have always wondered what I'm missing 🙁

Reply 569 of 1096, by Scali

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spiroyster wrote:

Is there any noticable performance difference between PCX1 and PCX2? Are there games which only work on one or the other? I have a PCX1 and not many PowerVR games, but not a PCX2 and have always wondered what I'm missing 🙁

I believe the main differences are that PCX1 has no bilinear filtering, and PCX2 is clocked somewhat higher (60 MHz vs 66 MHz, so about 10%).
I don't think it makes any difference at the application level, so they should be 100% compatible.

http://scalibq.wordpress.com/just-keeping-it- … ro-programming/

Reply 570 of 1096, by Stiletto

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VooDooMan wrote:
Meet Midas 1 ;) […]
Show full quote

Meet Midas 1 😉

Midas-1-1024x768.jpg

The picture was taken from this article:
https://www.imgtec.com/blog/back-to-the-start-powervr-25/

It is the first time I see Midas 1 on a photo...

Notice that at first they used external cable similar to the one used later in Voodoo graphics.

http://felyx.org/the-powervr-architecture-is-25-years-old/

Does anybody here has this card? Or seen it before?

I've seen a photo of it before, but it was much grainier. This is a lot better.

Also important: one of vetz's videos got shared by ImgTec! Congrats vetz! 😁

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 571 of 1096, by vetz

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Hehe, thanks Stiletto.

I actually spoke to Simon after the release of the Ridge Racer PowerVR video I made. He did mention in that conversation that he/his office still had Midas 1/2 cards from that timeperiod, so its nice to finally see a good resolution picture!

3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
3D Acceleration Comparison Episodes

Reply 572 of 1096, by Scali

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The one I found even more interesting was the Trident FPGA card in that article:
trident-front-med-1024x356.jpg

I recall a discussion about some code in the drivers somewhere that indicated ISA support. I suppose this prototype explains that. There WAS an ISA card from ImgTech at some point.

http://scalibq.wordpress.com/just-keeping-it- … ro-programming/

Reply 573 of 1096, by leileilol

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A still from my blurtastic Mechwarrior 2 video (around 0:52) made it into the article as well and it's also the main image for it. PowerVR-senpai noticed me 😀

And yeah I did mention about the existential possibility of an ISA powervr card earlier. Glad to know i'm not crazy

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Reply 575 of 1096, by tanasen

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Someone gave me a Kyro II the other day(Hercules 3d Prophet 4500 TV-out). I'm impressed by the performance boost over the Geforce2-MX400. Max Payne is now playable on medium settings 1024x768 and I get 36fps avg. With the MX400 I only got 20fps...

PC1😜 III-S 1.4GHz, GA-6VTXE, 512MB SDRAM, Albatron FX5900XTV 128MB, SB Live! 5.1
PC2😜 III 800MHz, MS-6178, 256MB SDRAM, 3DFX Voodoo3 2000 PCI, Creative CT4810
PC3😜 MMX 200MHz, SY-5EAS5, 128MB SDRAM, Diamond Monster 3D, Diamond Viper V330, ESS 1868F

Reply 577 of 1096, by Fusion

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Locally I have seen a Hercules 4500 64MB for $100 Canadian. I'm SOOO tempted to buy it, but $100 seems like a lot. Considering I just picked up a x800XT for $10. But I want it, bad. 🤣

I used to own a 4000XT 64MB back in 2001 and it was a massive improvement over my ATI Rage 128 16MB, but it wouldn't overclock, the drivers were a HUGE PAIN in the ass, and my 560Mhz P3 couldn't provide enough frames to keep it happy.

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Reply 578 of 1096, by leileilol

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If anyone's curious about how Hardwar looks on the PCX2...

All of the flares seem to lose their white blend (despite being all entirely alpha blended so it could've worked. Probably a sorting compromise)

Supported resolutions range from 640x400 to 1024x768. No 640x480. Max fog distance, building smoke, etc.

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Reply 579 of 1096, by leileilol

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And here's the same shot as above but with the RGB565 channels split off, reposterized and rejoined to work around PCX2's odd RGB565 output (that I should reverse into a shader some day...) The amount of colors is identical.

it's almost like it's outputting RGB454

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