Gona found Verite 2 to be the fastest in Tomb Raider. By the way reults may vary between different PowerVR chips. Verite did not do well for me with PCX1, but was the only choice for Midas 3, and just as fast as Virge. Otherwise Riva 128 and Virge is safe bets, as usual. From newer cards Rage 128 works. I doubt anything younger will allow PCX to take over.

That's an M3D, what else could a Matrox labeled card with a PowerVR chip be??
AGP doesn't hurt, I used my M3D with an AGP Rendition card. Don't know if that was the best option, it was just what I had. I suppose most faster PCI cards will be OK.
You could even use a more modern card with DVI output if you want to connect a TFT. That's the nice thing about the way PowerVR cards work, you can't do this with 3dfx cards.
It has been mentioned before that Geforce cards are troublesome in Windows in connection with PowerVR cards, the nvidia drivers will insist an doing all acceleration functions. I don't remember if this gave trouble only with Direct3D or also with PowerSGL, though. That's probably what Putas is referring to.

Man I dunno! Expansion cards are often labeled in misleading ways, thanks to shady OEM practices (Sound Blaster Live Dell OEM cough cough).

If I paired it with an ATI Rage II+DVD would the Rage take precedent over the PowerVR entirely?

It's Direct3D that give trouble with Geforce cards. PowerSGL works with all cards I've tested.

The ATI Rage II should work fine with the M3D.

Dunno what is the fastest pairing card in every situation (Gona benched in Tomb Raider and fond Rendition cards to be the fastest as mentioned by Putas). When the cards were new Videologic recommended the Matrox cards as pairing, atleast this is what I got from Simon (previous developer of the PowerVR cards over at Beyond3D). From my testing Voodoo3/5 cards also work very well.

I'd just pair it with another Matrox card like a G200 or G400 but when Videologic released their own all in one card, they went with a Tseng ET6100 2D part, so a stand alone Tseng card would work.

Okay cool, I can try pairing it with my G220 or the Rage II and see if there's a difference between them. A friend of mine also has a line on an S3 ViRGE I might buy off of him for cheap. Lots of options I take it. 😀

I'd pair it with a Voodoo3 3000 for excellent video capture quality and purposing the machine as a Glide/SGL powerhouse, where a 440BX is an ideal fit for IMO 😀

Also experiment with PCI and AGP video cards. The PCX2 works through a bus transfer and this, and the colordepth used for the PCX2 does matter. Try to prefer 32-bit color

Interesting, thanks for the tips!

The primary reason I want to experiment with the PowerVR is for the PowerVR version of MechWarrior 2. Which I don't actually have, and have never seen on eBay. I've been perusing Vetz's list of PowerVR compatibility for other stuff to play with.

Well, there is the MechWarrior 2 | 3D card conversion files thread which should help you.

Yes, I'll convert a standard/Pentium install to PowerVR, but I'd rather have a disc.

I have discs for Diamond Monster, ViRGE, and RAGE, and use those when I can.

I've got another question for your perusal. I've got some old, possibly crummy ATX power supply that I'm worried about using in this new build.

It's an HEC 250W power supply, with a sticker indicating compatibility with Intel V 2.03. I'm worried less about compatibility than I am about the power supply being sufficient for a Pentium II system AND three or more expansion cards (two graphics cards, an SB32 ISA card).

What options are out there for buying a more robust, modern power supply while maintaining compatibility? My knowledge of ATX standards is limited.

Honestly a Pentium II system doesn't need all that much power - the CPU is maxed at what? 30? 35W? And the expansion cards added up will probably be lucky to match that. If the board can take an ATX PSU, I'd just get a modern one and not worry too much about it - while modern ATX PSUs don't have as substantial +5V rails, computers from the middle-to-late 1990s tended to not have the 30-50A 5V rails either (that was more of an Athlon-era thing afaik). I've never had issues running older ATX-compatible boards without the 4-pin/8-pin/etc connected as long as the 20-pin can be hooked up. If the PSU doesn't have a 20/24-pin switchable plug, you can get a 24 to 20 pin adapter.

Cool! I'll test it out with the 250 but I'll probably use a modern 500W supply because it's got an efficiency rating and all that. 😀

I assembled the machine, but so far am unable to get any sort of display out of PCI cards I've tried.

The machine seems to POST, and the activity lights look good, but I get no display whatsoever from either the Matrox Mystique G200, or the ATI RAGE II+DVD. I tried an AGP RIVA 128 card (EDIT: er, TNT2 M64), and it popped right up with no problems.

The computer has NO operating system yet, so is this a driver issue? Or are those older cards not compatible with the LCD screen I'm using?

Check BIOS, set "Primary VGA BIOS" (or "Primary Video Adapter") to PCI. You can actually install both the AGP and PCI cards no problem, and just set which one to use as the primary card.

Pentium II Deschutes should have less than 30W TDP btw. What are you using?

It's a Pentium II Deschutes @350Mhz, and should be well within the limits of my power supply. Mostly I was worried about it being an old, crusty power supply, and lighting my workbench on fire.

Do I need to jumper the board and get into the BIOS config menu to set that? It's not an option from the regular SE440BX BIOS.

I tried booting with both cards in, and the monitor still connected to the AGP card, and that time I got nothing. So I'm assuming A, that PCI card is already set to Primary, and B, the card is toast. 😀

Have you tried while connected to the PCI card? I've encountered on some motherboards that they will default to a PCI VGA if available, even if there's an AGP (or PCI Express, believe it or not) card present.

Yep, no dice. When the PCI card is installed, I can't get video regardless of which card I'm connected to.

No, you shouldn't need to change any jumper. I can't find the manual for your exact model so this is from the SE440BX-2, I hope it's similar:
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/440939/Intel … ?page=36#manual
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/440939/Intel … ?page=38#manual
http://www.manualslib.com/manual/440939/Intel … ?page=43#manual

OK, so it's listed under Advanced Menu >> Video Configuration submenu >> Default Primary Video Adapter >> AGP or PCI

Alright then, first get to the BIOS with the AGP card only and check the above setting.