Psyched!

Is there a remote possibility of some work on this and/or s3 wrapper during jul/aug?

No ‎criticism intended.

Myloch wrote:

Is there a remote possibility of some work on this and/or s3 wrapper during jul/aug?

Actually I came back to my hometown for almost 2 months (jul/aug), I have some discretionary time also all my devices and tools are here so I can work on it! I've bought S3 Virge/VX (Elsa Winner 3000-L) specially for S3DTKW wrapper, I need to do some tests because I have little problems as for now. Stay tuned.

Myloch wrote:

No ‎criticism intended.

😉

Is anybody interested in alpha preview of my PowerVR wrapper? It would support only two games for now, Virtual On (no overlay) and Biohazard (fully working), the rest will be not only unsupported but intentionally or unintentionally completely not working. Is it a good idea to release this preview version or just wait for a more mature version to release preview?

Yes so I can put it through much torture in the unsupported games much like I do with the real card. 😀

Tuxality wrote:

Is anybody interested in alpha preview of my PowerVR wrapper? It would support only two games for now, Virtual On (no overlay) and Biohazard (fully working), the rest will be not only unsupported but intentionally or unintentionally completely not working. Is it a good idea to release this preview version or just wait for a more mature version to release preview?

I'll gladly come and help you test alpha preview sent program to me please 😊

I'd test the shit out of it if only I could find on sale some awesome gems like english resident evil powervr edition or Purevex (I wonder if anybody on earth still owns full version other than that corsairabit guy on youtube 😠 )

Myloch wrote:

I'd test the shit out of it if only I could find on sale some awesome gems like english resident evil powervr edition or Purevex (I wonder if anybody on earth still owns full version other than that corsairabit guy on youtube 😠 )

Are you telling me vetz doesn't own them? 😀

Stiletto wrote:

Are you telling me vetz doesn't own them? 😀

🤣 Probably even Leileilol doesn't own all of them. 😉

I'm sorry for quite (yeah, right...) long absence and all this delays, that year was really painful for me... anyway, alpha preview will be released on late february/early-mid march. I've got Mechwarrior 2 PowerVR Edition, just need to get it working on more modern operating systems (any help from Mech2 bugfix wizards is really welcome), so there may be three compatible games. Also I'll try my best to add Ultimate Race to this list, but I can't promise this (as well Mech2).

Also, in the latest version of my wrapper I've introduced unified interface that allows to change renderer, which is implemented as an additional DLL. I hope that nobody will find this idea stupid, it allows me to implement entire base that does not depend on target API - we will see how this will work, if badly I'll just scratch this idea. Also this may allow other people to utilize additional functionality (mostly shaders) that newer APIs gives without modyfing my wrappers. The biggest letdown for me is performance of my DirectDraw wrapper, I really need to check that before making any release. For older GPUs and slower CPUs, there is an option that allows to disable most of DirectDraw functionality, for example Biohazard does use DirectDraw only for blitting surface, the rest is done purely in SGL as opposed to VirtualOn.

Umm, I think that's all what I wanted to say. I hope that still there are people interested in this. 😀

I for one, am certainly interested in this. Please keep up the good work. 😀

Your idea, sounds far from stupid to me. I have done similar when utilising multiple different versions of GL (i.e immediate mode vs a more retained mode) with custom rendering engines. Engines implemented with certain architectures, can then use compatibility layers/wrappers to send these calls to different api's/renderers for display with those compatible devices.

The only risk, are constraints imposed by the 'unified interface' are kept minimal. i.e if your unified interface holds data sorted/formmated in a certain way, this may not be directly compatible with 'other' renderers which mean you are likely to introduce overhead in terms of processing (sometimes usually done by a driver) as you receive instructions from one interface, and pipe them to another output. This can be something as mundane as texture mapping origin being from the Top Left corner, as opposed to a Bottom left corner, or something much more delicate such as vertex ordering. Most problems are pretty easy to 'translate' correctly as part of the program flow (simply swapping values or negating others), however every now and then (ime) I have come across issues which mean a lot processing between these 'translations' and they cause you to rethink your pipelines when compositing frames (in worse case scenario, it just cannot be done with acceptable performance). The only designs which seem to be good for this end up being rather low level and complex (counter intuitive sometimes). Perhaps this is why engines tend to stick with one or few similar api's supported under the hood. 😉

Exposing this functionality in your wrapper is certainly beneficial and I think worth the extra effort.

Will this wrapper be open source? If so, is there a possibility of being hosted on one of them hipster code hosting thingys on the great cloud in the sky o.0 ? If not, you might have to write some documentation 😵 to describe how 'third party' extensions/renderers can be written for it.

P.S Is the SGL sdk and associated examples downloadable anywhere these days?

I also want to give my support and say keep up the good work! Mech2 would be awesome to get running in the wrapper! Especially if the resolution can be cranked higher 😀

spiroyster wrote:

P.S Is the SGL sdk and associated examples downloadable anywhere these days?

http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=431&menustate=0
original host: http://web.archive.org/web/20130401013357/htt … oads/legacy.asp
(it was only online again for a brief window in February 2013, which archive.org did not archive)

Now you have to request it (and the others from that page) by following the link here: https://community.imgtec.com/developers/powervr/installers/

I'm keen, even though I sold all my PowerVR stuff years ago. In an ideal world vetz would share Ultim@te Race 1 track, as it was never a commercially released title, then we can all try it (the single track wasn't part of Ultim@te Race Pro)!

Also I'd be keen to one day play Moon Racer, as I had the demo back on PowerVR, and collect futuristic racing games. However I'm not sure any commercial copies are easy to find these days.

VirtuaIceMan wrote:

In an ideal world vetz would share Ultim@te Race 1 track, as it was never a commercially released title, then we can all try it.

In an alternative universe someone would have already dumped those two frickin rare moonracer and purevex (full versions). Yeah commercially released but I guess they produced like 10 copies 🤣

Seriously dude, I can understand your frustration: I searched for buying those bastards for ages! (still looking for them unluckily).

Stiletto wrote:

http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=431&menustate=0 original host: http://web.archive.org/web/20130401013357/htt … oads/ […]
Show full quote

spiroyster wrote:

P.S Is the SGL sdk and associated examples downloadable anywhere these days?

http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=431&menustate=0
original host: http://web.archive.org/web/20130401013357/htt … oads/legacy.asp
(it was only online again for a brief window in February 2013, which archive.org did not archive)

Now you have to request it (and the others from that page) by following the link here: https://community.imgtec.com/developers/powervr/installers/

Excellent thank you 😀

@spiroyster:
Yes, I'm aware of the issues that comes from the unified interface, but they are relatively easy to overcome with no or (at most) negligble performance cost.

As I've made my statement at the beginning of this topic, this wrapper may and probably will be opensourced but only after making it stable and useful enough. Although, there will be SDK released with documentation that will allow anybody to implement easily their own renderer for most of my wrappers, let it be for SGL or S3DTKW. Oh and don't count on releasing this on hipster code hostings. 😉

@VirtuaIceMan:
Is Moon Racer at least good game and worth getting to run? I've got it to boot on my first version of my wrapper, although with null rendering because it does use most of the high-level API that I have mostly not implemented yet. Also I've checked it and I can confirm that it still does run with the latest version of my wrapper but of course with null rendering, so it should be not that hard although a little time consuming to get it going. Of course I'm talking about the demo of this game. 😀

I think moonracer is average, purevex is far more enjoyable

Many people are interested in this, Tuxality. Don't give up on this 😀.

Just want to add my support