Hanamichi wrote on 2021-05-03, 16:43:

Sounds like that mwdmeyer's cool new card is doing the pin lifting mod mentioned in the guide you found Chadti..

Overclocking your FSB/PCI speed really helps all round performance as well.
I am trying to get a system stable with the PCI bus at 50MHz +, then I might test this mod in conjunction.

I may give the pin lift mod a try but do have some crystals on the way.

Curious what mobo+cpu are you running to push 50mhz PCI with the PowerVR? My Asus P3B-F has an option for ~43Mhz I think but maybe a different bios version would help me tweak that higher? But I haven’t tested 43 so def gonna give that a try.

I guess that 43mhz is a strap when the CPU FSB is running stock at 100MHz. So you can set that and see if it is stable first.

Then see if you are able to raise the CPU FSB.
Depending on the bios the strap may "loosen" i.e. go down automatically with more FSB, however, If the strap stays the same..every FSB increase will also increase the PCI speed above that 43Mhz.

Just watch out for storage and audio corruption.

I use an AOpen AX3S Pro-U which handily can lock the straps with jumpers.

Looking at the guide I posted earlier trying to figure out the pin disconnect method mentioned but I can’t seem to find the “AV9107-05” IC on the board. Can anyone point it out? Thanks!

So 18.432 is just a bit too much, seeing some graphics corruption even with a make shift cooler, which admittedly isn’t the best. But damn it’s quite a bit faster!

Unreal@512x384x24=58fps, up from 49
Quake2@640x480x24=30fps , up from 24
Quake@400x300x24=71fps , up from 64

Maybe with better cooling it would resolve but thinking I should back it down to an 18.0 crystal if I can find one.

MMD143AK is original detail in that card? hmm i have modded PowerVR card with heat sink and cooler that i guess from 486 pc processor.
need to look what exactly i have than.
Ist a bit risky to change original details in cards/accelerators =0

RaVeN-05 wrote on 2021-05-07, 06:26:

MMD143AK is original detail in that card? hmm i have modded PowerVR card with heat sink and cooler that i guess from 486 pc processor.
need to look what exactly i have than.
Ist a bit risky to change original details in cards/accelerators =0

Correct, the original was an MMD143AK or a A159H7, which despite info on the link I found, run at the same speed.

I was able to swap the crystal on the 2nd board I have, with the A159H7, but running stable now! I’ve got a socket7 cooler attached. Seeing the exact performance numbers as the card that had the MMD143AK with swapped crystal. Mechwarrior 2 is running super smooth.

Anyone know how to show FPS in MW2?

Anyone else have a Lost Joker 2 card? (Voodoo 3 + PCX2). I am getting BSODs every time I shut down Windows. Also some odd behavior with the PowerVR part where a game will run extremely slow, but then disabling "PowerVR HAL" in settings will fix it and it will use the PowerVR part correctly.

Chadti99 wrote on 2021-05-08, 12:03:

Correct, the original was an MMD143AK or a A159H7, which despite info on the link I found, run at the same speed.

I was able to swap the crystal on the 2nd board I have, with the A159H7, but running stable now! I’ve got a socket7 cooler attached. Seeing the exact performance numbers as the card that had the MMD143AK with swapped crystal. Mechwarrior 2 is running super smooth.

Anyone know how to show FPS in MW2?

See this post for details on how to display FPS in MechWarrior 2: Mechwarrior 2 ATi Rage edition runs super laggy on Rage Pro?

kodt wrote on 2021-05-26, 20:37:

See this post for details on how to display FPS in MechWarrior 2: Mechwarrior 2 ATi Rage edition runs super laggy on Rage Pro?

That only works in some of the accelerated versions. I can't remember which ones.

kodt wrote on 2021-05-26, 20:37:

Anyone else have a Lost Joker 2 card? (Voodoo 3 + PCX2). I am getting BSODs every time I shut down Windows. Also some odd behavior with the PowerVR part where a game will run extremely slow, but then disabling "PowerVR HAL" in settings will fix it and it will use the PowerVR part correctly.

I have one coming soon, so I will let you know! How are you finding it otherwise?

mwdmeyer wrote on 2021-05-27, 01:01:

I have one coming soon, so I will let you know! How are you finding it otherwise?

Great so far! Performance is great. Installation went very smoothly, everything detected without issues.

kodt wrote on 2021-05-26, 20:37:

Anyone else have a Lost Joker 2 card? (Voodoo 3 + PCX2). I am getting BSODs every time I shut down Windows. Also some odd behavior with the PowerVR part where a game will run extremely slow, but then disabling "PowerVR HAL" in settings will fix it and it will use the PowerVR part correctly.

See this post for details on how to display FPS in MechWarrior 2: Mechwarrior 2 ATi Rage edition runs super laggy on Rage Pro?

looks like you need to change the slot occupied by the joker card. i dunno what system you have but the bx based system is highly recommended for a pcx2, not something else.

anthony wrote on 2021-05-28, 19:26:

looks like you need to change the slot occupied by the joker card. i dunno what system you have but the bx based system is highly recommended for a pcx2, not something else.

Yes I am using it with a 440BX board. I will test with different slots.

I last ran a PCx2 on a 430VX with a Cyrix MII at a balls to the wall 83x3.5, ran all the demos fast and smooth but had trouble digging up anything else to play on it. Think it had a TGUI 9680 2MB for output at the time. I bought two of the Apocalypse 3Dx on a clearout deal for peanuts. They should still be around but haven't emerged out of the pile yet. It was a bit of a letdown with the demos being so great but all the non-enhanced DX5 and 6 things I tried running like crap, perhaps that's where I needed a bit more CPU.

Some captured Tomb Raider 1 scenes in 1024x768 24-bit colour with Matrox m3D (Celeron 333 Mendocino Slot 1, i440LX, S3 Savage 4 Pro 32MB AGP, 3Dfx Voodoo² 12MB): https://streamable.com/6nmxfd

Received this bad boy yesterday:

But ofc the fan isn't working, are there any replacement fans still available for purcase today? Also is the agp mod safe? thanks

My PCX2 + Voodoo3 has arrived. I will be testing as soon as possible but here is a quick video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mugr9OhXAmA

Can anyone test if the powerVR at 80Mhz allows Tomb Raider to run at a stable 30 FPS at 1024x768?
I would consider modding my own PCX2 if it does 😁

mwdmeyer wrote on 2021-06-25, 07:51:

My PCX2 + Voodoo3 has arrived. I will be testing as soon as possible but here is a quick video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mugr9OhXAmA

I saw the notification on my phone when I woke up this morning. I can't wait to watch it later!!

Limpem wrote on 2021-06-25, 11:33:

Can anyone test if the powerVR at 80Mhz allows Tomb Raider to run at a stable 30 FPS at 1024x768?
I would consider modding my own PCX2 if it does 😁

Yeah I can test. Does Tomb Raider have a built in benchmark? Is there a demo I can use/download? Never really played it!

Thanks! 😁
Tomb Raider doesn't have a built-in benchmark, but you can display the current fps (I think with F3 but it might be F4 or F2 on the keyboard).
There is a frame-limit of 30FPS, but especially in larger area's the framerate drops to 20'ish on my system at 1024x768.
It's possible to improve performance with single-buffering (I think F9) which makes it better, but I am very curious if the higher clocks would solve this as well 😁