RaVeN-05 wrote on 2022-02-04, 18:41:

Anyone who have Neon 250 or compatible can you please do a video capture of PowerSGL2 exclusive demos?

PowerVR Neon250 (tech demos) (SGL2 only)

I think I tried running these but didn’t have any luck. Let me try again this weekend.

RaVeN-05 wrote on 2022-02-04, 18:41:

Anyone who have Neon 250 or compatible can you please do a video capture of PowerSGL2 exclusive demos?

PowerVR Neon250 (tech demos) (SGL2 only)

Update your thread with some cams.

Thank you very much!

Had some fun today with my Matrox M3D.
The point was to compare performance with period correct primary cards + PowerVR 3 (because it's fun).
All tests have been done with Final Reality.
All default, same PC, in a row.

PC Specs :
Mainboard : NMC-6BEX (440BX, Slot1)
CPU : Pentium III Coppermine 733 @842MHz
FSB : 153MHz - AGP : 102MHz - PCI : 38MHz
256mb SD-RAM
AGP aperture : 64mb
Palette snoop : enabled
OS : Windows 98SE

Tested cards :

In a reader's order :
Videologic PowerVR PCX2 itself (Matrox)
Imagination PowerVR 3 (Powercolor Kyro II) (AGP)
Cirrus Logic Laguna3D (GD5465) (Chaintech) (AGP)
Tseng ET6000 @100/100MHz (NMC) (PCI)
Intel 740 (Real3D Starfighter) (AGP)
SiS 6326 @100/100MHz (Diamond SpeedStar A50) (AGP)

Planned : ATi 3D Rage Pro Turbo.

I know my setup won't make my data usable as a reference. I know FR isn't the best way to bench a PowerVR. I know that OCing some of the cards makes it even worse as a reference (even though it's from factory in 6326's case). I was just having fun and I'm sharing results here with no pretension.

Results

Imagination PowerVR 3 :
Overall : 4.61
3D : 2.35
2D : 7.94

Cirrus Logic Laguna3D
Politely declined to ride my AGP 102MHz slot.

Tseng ET6000 @100MHz
Overall : 4.10
3D : 2.28
2D : 8.19

Intel 740
Overall : 4.79
3D : 2.37
2D : 8.52

SiS 6326
Overall : 4.20
3D : 2.20
2D : 8.13

I fail to explain why the Starfighter performs so well. It was the first card to be benched, I benched it once more after the others to make sure it was consistant. It was. Typically, the i740 isn't the best card to be paired with a PCX2.
It's among the worst in other benchs I came accross (including one here, with Tomb Raider).
I'm a bit disappointed by the Kyro II's performance here. Might try other early 2000's cards.
The ET6000 performs slightly better than the 6326 (at the same freq.) even though it shares PCI's bandwidth. The gap between the i740 and these two ones is definetely noticeable in 3D.

In Robots :
6326 @100MHz : 24.21fps
Starfighter : 30.18fps

In City Scene :
6326 @100MHz : 21.55
Starfighter : 25.66

More data attached.

My conclusions :
Even though my data can't be a reference to others, it shows (once more) that the primary card is a factor in PCX2's speed. More suprisingly, in these tests with Final Reality, the fastest wasn't the one I expected.
According to Gona's tests on Tomb Raider, the 740 is among the slowest when paired with a PCX2. Maybe it's related to the benchmark itself (didn't find a way to benchmark TR for now). Or maybe it's related to my OC'ed platform : the i740 might be better at using system's RAM and since the FSB and the RAM itself are faster than in a stock system, it would become a serious advantage. I might test again with @133 FSB. It would strange though, since the Starfighter card features 8mb of video RAM, which should be enough without the need of the System RAM. Also it wouldn't explain why it does better than the Kyro II card (with its 64mb).

I've got issues running the 2 Virtuality KK titles on my M3D: Moon Racer and Revolte. Everything else I tried (Ultimate Race 1 & 3 track, Purevex, Virtual On) all work fine.

But Revolte just shows either a white screen or a strobe effect when you start a game, whilst Moon Racer has very flickery menus with layers flashing a lot, and video with flickering background behind it, then in-game it's either black screen or you can see the 3D but it flickers wildly and updates slowly.

I'm running a Connect3D ATi Radeon 9600 AGP card, not sure if that's less compatible on the 2D side? I tried Windows98 Catalyst 4.3 and 6.2 with same results.

Should I get a different 2D card? What have M3D owners had success with? AGP or PCI? There's a Moon Racer demo out there to try, if you haven't tried it before: http://www.mediafire.com/download/15wg8wa74i1 … 1m/e_mrdemo.exe

P.S. running on Pentium 4 3.2GHx Extreme Edition with 512MB RAM and Windows 98SE

VirtuaIceMan wrote on 2022-02-20, 11:55:

I've got issues running the 2 Virtuality KK titles on my M3D: Moon Racer and Revolte. Everything else I tried (Ultimate Race 1 & […]
Show full quote

I've got issues running the 2 Virtuality KK titles on my M3D: Moon Racer and Revolte. Everything else I tried (Ultimate Race 1 & 3 track, Purevex, Virtual On) all work fine.

But Revolte just shows either a white screen or a strobe effect when you start a game, whilst Moon Racer has very flickery menus with layers flashing a lot, and video with flickering background behind in, then in-game it's either black screen or you can see the 3D but it flickers wildly and updates slowly.

I'm running a Connect3D ATi Radeon 9600 AGP card, not sure if that's less compatible on the 2D side? I tried Windows98 Catalyst 4.3 and 6.2 with same results.

Should I get a different 2D card? What have M3D owners had success with? AGP or PCI? There's a Moon Racer demo out there to try, if you haven't tried it before: http://www.mediafire.com/download/15wg8wa74i1 … 1m/e_mrdemo.exe

P.S. running on Pentium 4 3.2GHx Extreme Edition with 512MB RAM and Windows 98SE

I'm planning to make some more tests this afternoon, I have a lot of primary cards to pair with the PCX2, I will give it a try.
Your Avatar is from a racing game I used to play that I'm unable to find. What is it ?

My avatar is from Midnight GT: Primary Racer, a lesser-known, but sometimes nice-looking arcade street racing game from Rage.

And thanks for your help. I saw user GordanFreeman had the M3D and Moon Racer working on a Pentium 4 with Voodoo 3 3000, but that's not a cheap main card! I've tried 4.3 and 6.2 ATi Catalyst drivers and both M3D and PowerVR generic drivers.

I also disabled the Radeon in Windows, so the game ran just on VGA, and the corruption was still present, so I'm wondering if it's something else (BIOS settings perhaps? I'm no expert!).

Please let me know what your tests find, especially if you find Moon Racer to work with Radeon+PowerVR. If I did need a different 2D card I'm now considering Matrix Millennium (of some sort) or S3 Virge (then I can play accelerated Screamer too 😁)

VirtuaIceMan wrote on 2022-02-20, 14:08:

My avatar is from Midnight GT: Primary Racer, a lesser-known, but sometimes nice-looking arcade street racing game from Rage. […]
Show full quote

My avatar is from Midnight GT: Primary Racer, a lesser-known, but sometimes nice-looking arcade street racing game from Rage.

And thanks for your help. I saw user GordanFreeman had the M3D and Moon Racer working on a Pentium 4 with Voodoo 3 3000, but that's not a cheap main card! I've tried 4.3 and 6.2 ATi Catalyst drivers and both M3D and PowerVR generic drivers.

I also disabled the Radeon in Windows, so the game ran just on VGA, and the corruption was still present, so I'm wondering if it's something else (BIOS settings perhaps? I'm no expert!).

Please let me know what your tests find, especially if you find Moon Racer to work with Radeon+PowerVR. If I did need a different 2D card I'm now considering Matrix Millennium (of some sort) or S3 Virge (then I can play accelerated Screamer too 😁)

Thanks !
Midnight GT is a very nice looking game for 1997.
Just tested the demo with a i740, it runs fine.
Have you tried the demo yourself ? Maybe it's related to the game's version.
Also, which PowerVR Generic drivers ? I used the one modified by PowerVR Revolution. On W98SE.
If exploring these two ways don't resolve the issue, I might try with a Radeon if I can find one in my mess. Probably not the exact same though.

I tried 4.1.2 but not the modified ones.

I'll try the demo later to compare.

I wondered if it's because the 9600 has VGA and DVI ou, and Windows 98 detects it as a primary and secondary card. But then I also wonder if it's PCI talking to AGP on my IC7-G motherboard, BIOS settings or something else entirely.

Since other games work, I don't think so.
Please try the demo and PowerVR R driver.

I tried the PowerVR R driver and it's the same situation (using Catalyst 4.3 for Win98 now).

The Moon Racer demo behaves the same as the game for me, flickery menus items then you can see a lens flare moving around (leaving a trail) and hear game sounds effects, but the picture is missing, you still see the previous 2D backdrop from the menu screens.

Revolte still flickers like a strobe light, 2D overlays will appear but no 3D at all.

I even tried enabling palette snoop in the BIOS but no difference.

VirtuaIceMan wrote on 2022-02-20, 15:40:

I tried the PowerVR R driver and it's the same situation (using Catalyst 4.3 for Win98 now). […]
Show full quote

I tried the PowerVR R driver and it's the same situation (using Catalyst 4.3 for Win98 now).

The Moon Racer demo behaves the same as the game for me, flickery menus items then you can see a lens flare moving around (leaving a trail) and hear game sounds effects, but the picture is missing, you still see the previous 2D backdrop from the menu screens.

Revolte still flickers like a strobe light, 2D overlays will appear but no 3D at all.

I even tried enabling palette snoop in the BIOS but no difference.

Just experienced the same thing with a Radeon 7000.
You might resolve the issue by changing your primary card.

Thanks, that sounds like useful information.

Any idea what primary cards you'd suggest, that definitely work well? Having spent about £150 on the M3D I don't want to spend a lot on a primary card 😀

The only 2 host cards for PVR I tried is a Diamond rendition PCI Verte and a STB compaq voodoo 3. would be curious to know if there are better cards.

I'm pretty sure years ago I ran either a Tseng Labs card, and later a Matrox Millennium as the primary card for my Apocalypse 3D. But all those are long sold.

I think this thread confirms Radeon isn't good for Revolte/Moon Racer. Back to eBay I go 😂

If you go by gonas chart every video card he tests lags with powervr. It may just be the game. No idea what system he used. Was stated that he tried differn't systems and determined that the pvrs are CPU independent under dos at least with those 2 games. I'm not so certain that FPU speed isn't involved though.

VirtuaIceMan wrote on 2022-02-20, 16:55:

Thanks, that sounds like useful information.

Any idea what primary cards you'd suggest, that definitely work well? Having spent about £150 on the M3D I don't want to spend a lot on a primary card 😀

I'm currently testing a lot of cards but I'm focusing on Final Reality benchmark for now.
The results I obtain are very different from Gona's benchmarks on Tomb Raider : Re: Power VR PCX2 - pair with (see attached excel file).
The Sis 6326 is the best cheap card in his tests. It's not the case in mine but it's very compatible (I have some graphical bugs with some cards, especially from ATi and 3Dfx, none with the 6326).
I would recommend to stick to his tests instead of mine because he is testing a PowerVR SGL game (while I'm running a benchmark using D3D).

If you consider picking one you should know that :
- it might be incompatible with your newer motherboard. I think voltage changed around this time. Check that before buying
- It exists in PCI. In this case you can be 100% sure it will work. But it's more expensive.
- 6326's are very different depending its year, revision, brand. You should pick one from a good brand (Diamond, Aopen) or a very late one (easy to tell : its form factor is generally reduced).
- As a standalone card, it's highly compatible (will run anything) but slow, even for a '97 card.

Warlord wrote on 2022-02-20, 17:22:

If you go by gonas chart every video card he tests lags with powervr. It may just be the game. No idea what system he used. Was stated that he tried differn't systems and determined that the pvrs are CPU independent under dos at least with those 2 games. I'm not so certain that FPU speed isn't involved though.

He has graphical glitches, not a speed issue. I experienced the same with a Radeon 7000.
MoonRacer runs very well with a 740, a 6326 and a ET6000 as primary cards on a 440BX/PIII 733 platform.

So, what do we think of AGP vs PCI for the primary card? As SiS 6326 is available as both AGP and PCI, as you mention JustJulião. Gona lists the AGP one, which do you have?

Also: if I wanted something with a bit more power (to run Direct3D games that only work on Windows 98 like Johnny Herbert's Grand Prix), any suggestions there? The Radeon 9600 did run that well, but it sounds like the 6326 won't be great for Direct3D and Nvidia cards take over a bit too much?

VirtuaIceMan wrote on 2022-02-20, 19:59:

So, what do we think of AGP vs PCI for the primary card? As SiS 6326 is available as both AGP and PCI, as you mention JustJulião. Gona lists the AGP one, which do you have?

Also: if I wanted something with a bit more power (to run Direct3D games that only work on Windows 98 like Johnny Herbert's Grand Prix), any suggestions there? The Radeon 9600 did run that well, but it sounds like the 6326 won't be great for Direct3D and Nvidia cards take over a bit too much?

I have an AGP one from Diamond, 8mb SD-RAM (a 100MHz version, which is pretty much the maximum for this chip, even by overclock).
But I have to reconsider my advice, I'm afraid. I don't know how Gona benchmarked it (I don't know how to benchmark TR), but my first tests on Turok (PowerVR SGL version) tend to confirm my previous Final Reality tests...
With the 6326, Turok's integrated benchmark is around 20.5fps in normal 640x480 on my rig while the i740 is at... 31.5fps. That's quite a gap. I also benched the ET6000 which is around 29.5. Not that similar to Final Reality (in which the ET6000 and the 6326 were closer to each other than to the i740) but I can't recommend a card that performs so poorly in my tests. I need to do more of them.
About the PCI vs. AGP match, I have Voodoo 3s in both versions, it didn't make a big difference. I'll soon test PCI cards paired with my M3D on 41MHz PCI ports.