So I guess I need some additional input.
As you have probably guessed from my YT videos I got a PCX2 running, but it is annoyingly difficult to get it working.
I have a Slot Athlon System on a GA-7IX, Win98SE, Matrox m3D. (connected to my IP-KVM btw.)

Let me sketch the issues:
Latest Matrox m3D driver is older than the Videologics and still has serious problems with D3D, f.e. already Final Reality crashes.
Latest Videologic driver works well with D3D as seen in leileilols videos but it complains that it was not written for my m3D. Of course I can still force it to load and check if f.e. Final Reality works. I had this config running once.
What combination of DLLs and VXD is recommended to use? (version/size/date please)

I usually install the PowerVR Tech Demos to check if SGL works. This is not always the case after reboot.

Also some graphics drivers of the main card seem to be problematic.
I tried f.e. the Laguna3D and Geforce2 with Forceware. Usually the correct switching of D3D devices fail. You disable/enable the PVR HAL but f.e. in 3DMark you see that the main card still stays as card of choice. Though if you start the benchmark 3DMark crashes or the system freezes. In the case of Forceware the DirectDraw part of the NVidia driver seems to crash.

I tried a lot with Unreal because you have the different renderers and can switch and compare directly. In my video I had 2.26 running with SGL. Now I did a bit of reinstall Win98SE and so on and have the problem that a fresh installed unpatched Unreal runs SGL, though as soon as I patch to 2.26 it falls back to Software.

Some more infos:
PCX1 is VENDOR 1033 DEVICE 002A
PCX2 is VENDOR 1033 DEVICE 0046

For PCX1 Midas4 libraries should be installes, for PCX2 Midas5.
The Apocalypse driver is for PCX1 with Midas4,
the m3D is depending on version for both or just PCX2/Midas5.
(Interestingly in the Apocalypse uninstaller there is also Midas3 uninstalled.)
my m3D is a PCX2.

Matrox m3D driver 4.1.1.5
For Unreal:
fresh install: PowerVR is detected and works.
2.20b: PowerVR is detected and works.
2.26f: PowerVR is detected and on startup Unreal falls back to software rendering, but Unreal does not say SGLDrv.SGLRenderDevice (failed load).

After exchanging SGLDrv.dll in the Unreal System directory did not helped, I tried to install additional stuff on Win98SE as IE6SP1 and so on and
after installing KernelEx 4.5.2 Unreal 2.26f worked again with SGL.

Nvidia's Geforce drivers don't get along at all with PowerVR when it comes to the D3D HAL. Radeon, Kyro, 3dfx however will work.

The apocalypse drivers I used were a5dv412.exe

I still have no idea what KernelEx does to solve the SGLDrv issue.... it is a mystery

I more or less found now a solution for the crashing D3D apps.
It seems to be a registry setting combination for PVRHAL (or it's default branch).

The settings from the Matrox 4.1.1.5 installation do not work at all.

So my approach now was:
Install Matrox 4.1.1.5 drivers for PCX2 with Midas5 dlls.
Replace all files with the newer Apocalypse 5D version. The Apocalypse brings only Midas4 dlls, so I keep the older Midas5 dlls.
I also have to change the Registry Settings to the ones from the INF from the Apocalypse 5D driver.
Otherwise it crashes as before with the Matrox installation.

I could not identify a single different setting (Matrox vs. Apo5D) causing the D3D crashes yet. (and I do not want to spend more time figuring this out)
I made a Registry Export of a working config though which is basically Apocalypse5D + PowerStrip optimized setting.

In my experience the latest and oldest drivers for the GeforceFX don't change the crash, but different video cards do

If you're serious about D3D capturing the PCX2 and you don't want to spend a lot of time finding the solution (I don't think anyone did) i'd use a non-Geforce

I know the crash - i'd get 1 second of PowerVR D3D usage and then it'll bomb ddhelp and prevent any 3d from happening period until you restart. It's why all my recent recordings have been SGL and OpenGL stuff

Well I forgot to mention that I already removed the GF2 and put back in the Ati Rage Pro PCI.
So it's not that D3D card switching problem. The switching between PCX2 and Rage works.
The crashes with the default Matrox 4.1.1.5 driver with PVRHAL + D3D seem to be independent of the card. It is just some misconfiguration of the PVRHAL itself.
In this case f.e. Final Reality crashes always to Desktop after the Tunnel scene before the rotating Spaceship scene.
3DMark2000 crashes to desktop as soon as any 3D scene should be shown... (I could continue here... 😉 )

Another oddity is, that I have to boot Win98SE always twice. So on first boot the PowerVR API is not loaded (no exclamation mark in the device manager though). If I reboot Win98SE holding shift everything is there.

That is indeed strange and diferent

I do know the PCX2 can do 3dmark2000 w/ 3dfx Voodoo3 as the host, it looks *VERY* screwed up though as usual. It can't do XL-R8R

I didn't even know A5D only came with PCX1 only drivers which is strange as it's a PCX2 card.

leileilol wrote:

I do know the PCX2 can do 3dmark2000 w/ 3dfx Voodoo3 as the host, it looks *VERY* screwed up though as usual. It can't do XL-R8R

Yeah well I didn't knew, so I just ran XL-R8R on the PCX2 here. 😉

It looks a bit strange though with all the usually transparent textures being opaque.

What 2D card has been found to work best with the PCX2?

Well, I had several chipsets running recently
S3 Trio3D, ATI Rage II, ATI Rage Pro, Riva128 worked.
Geforce2 GTS did not work, as D3D HAL switching is somehow suppressed by the ForceWare driver. As for SGL I don't remember exactly, but might have worked.
Laguna3D seems to have similar problems with D3D HAL switching, though I haven't tested on a fresh Win98SE.

Which card worked best I can not tell, since it is usually a 'it works' or 'it doesn't' situation. So if it works, differences are negligible.
Still it would be an experiment to see how a PowerVR works with a slow PCI card and/or ISA card.

I know PowerVR is very very slow with onboard graphics 😜

I wonder how it works with a Nvidia TNT2 Ultra PCI.

I had PowerVR running on Unichrome onboard graphics and couldn't see a a noticeable slowdown.

The other thing is, that it doesn't work with Voodoo2. I tried several Voodoo2s in Win98SE and whenever Win98 reaches the desktop I get a green horizontal stripe on top of the screen and the system freezes. If I remove either the PCX2 or Voodoo2 everything is fine again.

That's strange as my Voodoo2 worked fine with PCX2 😖

I had an issue running a PCX2 and a pair of Voodoo 2's once. The only way to get them to play nice was to place the PCX2 in between the Voodoo 2s. I ended up making a extra long SLI cable out of a floppy cable. Even though I could change PCI resources in the BIOS, the only fix I found was the weird sandwich placement of the cards.

Midas 3;

(thumbnails, click for larger)

Markings on the chips;
Topleft;

NEC JAPAN
D62002GL001
Videologic
9626KK005

Topright;
NEC JAPAN
D62001GL001
Videologic
9628K005

Bottom;
Can't read it, glue-remains from a compaq sticker obscure the text. Will try to clean it up better later.

http://nitrox-infinity.tweakblogs.net/blog/7573/powervr.html

It should look the same sans filtering, right?

In my search for a PowerVR card I found this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/240113-001-HP-Compaq- … #ht_1832wt_1270

It's clearly a version of the Midas 3 that is being sold, but it doesn't look like the one shown earlier in this thread. The really bad picture in the auction looks more like a Apocalypse PCX1 ( http://tweakers.net/ext/f/gxESWQXfAw8P0nsSl6Sj8IJ6/full.jpg ). It makes me think that this is the replacement part for the 240111-001 which is pictured in this thread.

Will the drivers and everything work on this card? Do anyone have any information regarding this card? I want to play games, not just collect, so is it worth getting this or wait for a PCX2 to pop up?

This thread got me interested. Are there any notable differences between Apocalypse 3D and Matrox m3D?

vetz wrote:

It's clearly a version of the Midas 3 that is being sold, but it doesn't look like the one shown earlier in this thread.

Midas 3 was multichip, this looks like Apocalypse.

silikone wrote:

This thread got me interested. Are there any notable differences between Apocalypse 3D and Matrox m3D?

Apocalypse 3DX uses PCX2, so that is a match with m3d.

I have contacted the seller. He confirmed that it is the Midas 3 as pictured above that is for sale. So no Apocalypse unfortunately. The image used in the auction is wrong.