keropi wrote:

Since I got some M3Ds I started testing them... tombraider/DOS was a nice surprise once Single Buffering was activated. Is there a list of "true" powervr accelerated games? Don't care about D3D ones... I searched but I can't get a definitive list 😐

Also I don't know if it's of interest, I have both games that Matrox gave with M3D cards: MDK Mission Laguna Beach and Hexen II Continent of Blackmarsh. Anyone looking for either?

There's a list here 3D Accelerated Games List (Proprietary APIs - No 3DFX/Direct3D)
My boxed copy came with Mission Laguna Beach and Ultimate Race.

^ oh, thanks!!!

I am currently uploading Hexen2 disc, the links will be in my previous post 😉

edit: hexen2 online

all uploads completed!

Re: PowerVR Fun Thread

Thanks a lot for Hexen2!

awesome uploads, I'll need to hook up my M3d now to test these out

Got a Matrox m3d last weekend. I love it so much 🤣
My host cards are: Voodoo3 3000 AGP & Rendition Vérité V2200 PCI.
I wondered about the quality difference, in direct3d games, when using these host cards. This lead me to check the 3dfx settings.
What I find really cool is, setting the "3D filter quality" for the Voodoo3 has an effect on the output of the PowerVR card.
This means, you can set the 4x1 linear filter (normal) and get the typical 3dfx Voodoo look.
With the 2x2 box filter (high) you get the 3dfx 22-bit output quality. 😘
As how it is, with the 3dfx cards, you don't see it on screenshots.
This worked for all direct3d games so far.
I also tested it with Monster Truck Madness 2, PowerVR renderer setting, it worked.
This doesn't work in Quake 2.
Now I go install Mechwarrior2 and test it. 😈

btw. I'm using V.Control to setup my Voodoo3 settings. It is much faster done this way.
http://www.3dfxzone.it/koolsmoky/vctrl.html

And a big thank you to keropi

3dfx V3's filter never worked on PowerVR D3D HAL output for me, not even by accident. What else are you doing in the PCX2's settings?

leileilol wrote:

3dfx's filter never worked on PowerVR output for me, not even by accident. What else are you doing?

I'm using elianda's driver installation method
PowerVR Fun Thread
I took these drivers from his server
ftp://78.46.141.148/driver/Matrox/m3D/
and followed this instructions

Install Matrox 4.1.1.5 drivers […]
Show full quote

Install Matrox 4.1.1.5 drivers

Then replace files with the files from Apocalypse5D.
Only for files that are already present.
in C:\WINDOWS and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM

Registry HKLM Software
delete PowerVR branch
import reg file

But I didn't use his Apocalypse 5D drivers.
I took the "Videologic Apocalypse 5D 4.1.2" drivers files from the vogonsdrivers driver package.
Some files need to be replaced in Windows save mode.
And don't forget the Apocalypse 5D help file 🤣

I use the Amigamerlin 2.9 driver on my Voodoo3.
directx8.2
Windows98SE with KernelEx and service pack 2.1d

I tested some games with the Matrox m3d + Voodoo3 combination.
Only direct3d games worked with the Voodoo3 Ramdac filter.
So far I can say the PowerVR output (for d3d games) reacts to "3D filter quality" in the 3dfx d3d contol panel & the gamma setting for d3d games.
I will investigate this further.
I was thinking to try different driver versions first.

Games tested so far:

Monster Truck Madness 2 (d3d & powervr setting)

SGL:
Mechwarrior 2
Turok demo
Unreal
Tomb Raider 1
Quake 2 (PowerVR OpenGL)

direct3d:
Dethkarz
G-Police
Monster Truck Madness
Re-Volt (all white, no textures)
System Shock 2 (all white, no textures)
Tomb Raider 2 (all white, no textures)

Edit: OK, tested some drivers for the m3d & Voodoo3 and directx7.0a, V3 Ramdac filter still works for d3d games on PCX2 card.

leileilol wrote:

darksheer wrote:

The difference really shocked me the first time I tried it because I was really used to the Voodoo 1 rendering 🤣

Yeah, and guess what? 15 years of NOT maining a Voodoo card for all 3d games made me miss and want that muddy filter back.

It's hard to believe it's "only" been 15 years since 3dfx went belly up. Look at how far video cards have advanced in that relatively short span of time. We've gone from DX6 in the last Voodoo cards to the release of DX12 being on the horizon. We've gone from Windows ME/2000 to Windows 10 being released in a few days time. CPU speeds have jumped from 500mhz to 4ghz and CPU's have 8 cores or more. Ram has gone from 1gb to 8gb or more and hard drives have jumped from 20gb to 3TB+. More technological history has happened in just the last 15 years than in my grandparent's entire lives.

Well, I wouldn't call 15 years a short timespan... after all, the timespan between the release of the first Voodoo and 3dfx's bankruptcy was much shorter. IMHO advances in PC technology have slowed down tremendously after the release of the Core2 Duo family. Pentium D's were already approaching 4GHz through OCing 9-10 years ago, DirectX 10 is 8 years old (and DirectX is an incremental update to that), and Windows 8.1 is, under the hood, essentially another incremental update to the 8-year old Vista core. The 1GB to 8GB also seems small compared to the 2-4MB in the beginning of the 90s to the 128MB, which were not uncommon in 2000. The big leaps were in the 90s and the early 2000s, afterwards it was mostly incremental or making things more portable.

I'm new here in the forum . Unfortunately, my English is very bad. I wanted to ask you if anyone could Resident Evil Power VR upload as iso ? I am in a very long time looking for it . Regards Apollonios

@keropi: are u sure you don't risk ban for uploading gamez? Vogons is not the best site for sharing games you know...

^ none of the games are complete versions, the m3D cds are just a bunch of demos that have power-vr support. Even the mdk/hexen2 ones are demos in reality and not complete games like the box would want you to believe...

So I have an m3D on a PIII 800MHz with a Voodoo3 as main card. (Thanks for everything, you know why ^ 😉 ). The setup is intended to be my only and perfect Windows old PC, as Win98+V3+PowerVR is all I need to cover the Windows software I'm interested in.

The card functions correctly, all (Windows) technology demos are enjoyable and Tomb Raider in pure DOS as well, performance as expected. I'm facing a problem with Ultimate Race that came with it: Even in the main menu, moving that wrench cursor takes ages. I'm not talking about it being laggy, I'm talking about moving it a bit and wait for 3-4sec for it to move. Of course actual gameplay is out of the question, you can literally count frames while rolling a cigarette 😀

I'm thinking the card is not even used in the game, because of the Voodoo. Does this make any sense? How could I possibly make sure/configure that the game uses/will actually use the m3D? In m3D's display properties I only found a checkbox about "Use the m3D hardware" which is obviously checked and nothing caught my attention in 3dfx's properties.

Any ideas? Maybe I'm missing something obvious, so please feel free to point it to me.

Ultimate R@ce has issues with fast mouse polling. I've encountered this only in Windows Me because of it

That "use the m3d" checkbox only applies to overriding the Direct3D HAL, which the old not-pro Ultimate R@ce does not use at all.

leileilol wrote:

Ultimate R@ce has issues with fast mouse polling. I've encountered this only in Windows Me because of it

That "use the m3d" checkbox only applies to overriding the Direct3D HAL, which the old not-pro Ultimate R@ce does not use at all.

Thanks for heads-up on that checkbox, had no idea. But still, I did try to start the game after the menu and the actual gameplay as I wrote is frame-yawn-frame

There's no information on what the the PCX2 does when reading/writing addresses is there?

So far i'm assuming the tile information are in the 0x0C - 0x3F range, 750% wrong though.

I don't know if this has been asked here before but:
Should I be concerned about adequate cooling if I couple it with a highly clocked Tualatin 1.4 or Athlon XPs or something along those lines? There is no factory cooling solution included...

The PowerVR won't heat up much when there's a transfer bottleneck keeping it down. It's no Voodoo2. I never needed to give it extra cooling in a P4.