Welcome to the PowerVR PCX-2 fan page!!

What's the PCX-2?

    The (Now Imagination Technologies) PowerVR PCX-2 is a budget-minded power efficient video chipset designed for basic accelleration and rendering. It has driver support for Direct3D in Windows, as well as its own direct API called "SGL". It also supports DOS (special SGL games only). It is not OpenGL compliant, it has no support for it out-of-the-box, and it only works by the use of a "MiniGL" wrapper that translates a limited subset of GL function calls to SGL (which, despite the similar name, has no relation to the OpenGL API).

    The best known card using this chipset is the Matrox M3D, released in June 1997 by Matrox. It retailed for a very affordable $99, which at the time, was a solid deal if you wanted to play any 3D game in 1997, and couldn't afford the $200+ 3dfx Voodoo cards. The problem though, is just that - it's only made for 1997. Many 3D games had to compensate for supporting this card as it was in the market, since it can only handle alpha blending - and nothing else.

    The latest driver is from March 1998, and has been since 'obsolete'. However, some newer games do have a chance of running on the PCX-2.

    The successor to the PCX-2 is the Neon 250, released in December 1999 but was announced in January 1998. Production of it was focused for the SEGA Dreamcast home consoles and NAOMI arcade systems, which is why it was late for production in the consumer video card market. In the wake of the Geforce256's introduction, it was a gigantic flop.

    The PCX-2 is capable of:

24-bit rendering of the screen
8-bit rendering of the screen (Rare feature for 3d cards, which generally require at least 15 or 16 bits per pixel)
Supports up to 1024x768x24, maybe higher
Supports down to 320x200x8, as well
Powerful 16-bit color dithering
Tile-based renderer (this feature was later hyped for the KYRO II)
1-bit and 4-bit channel alpha blending
Bilinear filtering
Quads!

The PCX-2 is NOT capable of:

Natively using OpenGL - limited to wrappers (if you're lucky)
Additive blending
Subtractive blending
Multiply blending
Hardware Transform & Lighting
Texture compression (PVRTC came with the Kyro generation)
DirectX 8 or 9 - the PVR HAL only works for 7 and lower
Being used in Windows NT, 2000 or XP - only Windows 95 drivers exist

PowerVR PCX-2 Compatibility List

Now! The part you've been waiting for! All games tested under Windows 98 Second Edition.

Game Name	API	Year	Status	Notes	Screenshots
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a
Alien vs. Predator (Rebellion, FPS)	Direct3D (DX6)	1999	Crap	Stuff doesn't blend. Vision modes rely on additive blend so it makes the game unplayable
Alien vs. Predator 2 (Monolith, FPS)	Direct3D (DX7)	2001	Crap	Stuff doesn't blend. It's also slow and there is no lighting
b
Blood 2	Direct3D (DX6)	1998	Okay	Freezes when mouse is fired, but otherwise, it looks as it should except for some colorful funkage in the lighting. (!!!?)
Break Neck	Direct3D	1999	Fail	Does not start.
c
d
Descent 3	Direct3D, OpenGL	1998	Crap	OpenGL black screens using any PowerVR MiniGL. Direct3D bombs to desktop. It detects and recognizes the card though, and sets for medium detail (!?!)
Doom (Doomsday) (id software, FPS)	OpenGL Direct3D (DX7)	2009	Untested	Expecting to see black flares and lights...
Doom (GZDoom) (id software, FPS)	OpenGL	2009	Untested	Works on KYRO II, at least.
Doom (Vavoom)	OpenGL Direct3D	2009	Untested	Vavoom is a port that uses Quake's renderer, so here's hoping for compatibility!
e
f
g
Grand Theft Auto 2 (DMA Design, Action)	Direct3D (DX6)	1999	Okay	Sluggish near buildings. Explosion effects don't blend. Vertex lighting is visibly choppy in Dusk.
h
Half-Life (Valve Software, FPS)	OpenGL	1998	Good	Everything looks like it "should", sans the proper blending. Lighting is a bit blocky, but that's expected. Using pvr_half.zip's MiniGL driver. Can go 1024. Direct3D mode in the game does not work, by the way.
Half-Life 2	Direct3D (DX7, 8, 9)	2004	untested	I have to find some third party non-steam version if I want to play this in Win9X. I own the game, it's just that Steam retired its Win9X support.
Hexen II (Raven Software, FPS)	OpenGL	1997	Good	Sluggish, but that's Hexen II for you. Using official MiniGL wrapper.
i
j
k
l
Laser Arena	OpenGL	2000	Okay	Lightmap can't blend properly, leading to super bright level. Quake-based, modified (illegally, the gpl code was never shared and no credits of code authors were even honored)
m
Metal Fatigue	SGL	2000	Good	Everything blends properly and looks as it should! FPS is stable at 640x480, gets a bit choppy at 1024x768 though.
n
Nerf Arena Blast	SGL, OpenGL, Direct3D	1999	Fail	Although the game ships with an SGL driver, it does not detect the PCX-2 (According to its logs). Direct3D and OpenGL also don't work at all with it, falling back to software no matter how hard you try. UnrealEngine 1.5.
Nightmare Creatures	SGL	1997	Good	Natively supported, fast at 1024x768 (shocker!)
o
OpenArena	OpenGL	2008	Crap	The characters 'explode'. Map polygons are warped. Using pvr_half MiniGL
p
q
Quake (GLQuake v0.98) (id software, FPS)	OpenGL	1997	Good	Used official MiniGL driver
Quake II (id software, FPS)	OpenGL	1997	Good	Colored lighting looks better when it's alpha blended, IMO Beautiful, no bad color drenching! Can go 1024x768. Using the "PowerVR OpenGL" driver that is supplied by the game.
Quake III Arena (id software, FPS)	OpenGL	1999	unknown	Had this 'going' with the MiniGL wrapper with a r_primitives 4 setting, but had bad results.
r
Revolt	Direct3D	1999	Crap	No textures except for a horribly resampled loading screen. Everything is rendered goraud shaded, and ONLY that. Effects aren't blended.
s
Sonic R (Travellers' Tales, Racing)	Direct3D (DX5)	1998	Crash
t
Thief: The Dark Project	Direct3D	1998	Crap	White lightmaps can not blend, so the world is covered in white completely destroying the atmosphere (and making the game a ton easier too). Particle effects blend properly. 1024x768 crashes.
Turok 2: Seeds of Evil	Direct3D (DX6)	1999	Okay	Luckily being a N64 port, most things in the game are already appropriately blended for the card. Menu text gets eaten by its own shadow (sorting issue), so it is hard to read. Can go 1024, but is slow! 32-bit no problem. Iguana logo has white sky (the horror!)
u
Urban Mercenary	OpenGL	2001	Crap	Although GLQuake based in its engine, the mouse cursor is invisible, does not appear to have a clickable UI and all textures are resampled to 256x256.
v
Viper Racing	Direct3D	1998	Crash	Log says it can't find a transparency image format supported by card, so just gives up completely.
w
x
y
z
#