#PowerVR
Always rewarding to see some of our contributions go a long way. Great to see this kind of momentum around the PowerVR Mesa driver! #OpenSource #OpenFirst

www.phoronix.com/news/BeagleP...
$99 BeaglePlay Board Achieves "100% Open-Source" Upstream PowerVR Graphics
Going back many years Imagination PowerVR graphics were widely despised by open-source enthusiasts and Linux desktop users for their lack of an open-source GPU driver
www.phoronix.com
January 15, 2026 at 3:30 PM
Browsing the Texture assets from the development disk for Dreamcast Wetrix+. They are stored in Dreamcast PowerVR Texture format ( various compressed format variations ).
February 23, 2026 at 10:20 PM
MDK2 turns 25 in a few days, so here's a benchmark on a PowerVR PCX2
March 28, 2025 at 2:47 AM
wrt chicago videogames, here's midtown madness on a PowerVR PCX2, developed by angel studios (nowadays rockstar san diego)
May 8, 2025 at 9:05 PM
House of the Dead 2 x NEC PowerVR PCX2
November 1, 2024 at 1:06 AM
Long time coming, sry but I finally got the vanilla Win95 release of A-Train 5 ripped and up: archive.org/details/A5Po...
This needs a PowerVR card so if you're not in the top 1% of retro PC sickos you'll want this instead: archive.org/details/A5EG...
A-Train 5 (Original PowerVR Version) - A列車で行こう5 : Artdink : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
The original 1996 release of A-Train 5 for Windows 95. This version supported PowerVR 3D accelerators for its 3D views, including an exclusive realtime 3D...
archive.org
March 26, 2026 at 9:35 PM
The PowerVR architecture is amazing, but incredibly difficult to emulate.
September 21, 2026 at 1:49 AM
March 16, 2025 at 9:11 PM
some old OA3 WIP on a PowerVR PCX2, a '97 3d card that doesn't have blending functions, so you must do it explicitly by texture alpha channels. Brian Hook said "too bad" to PCX2, so this is my spite.

just to inspire something. Limits can be fun. Vertex dynamic lights and (trace) flares work.
May 27, 2026 at 8:45 PM
I guess I will use the bluesky surge to boost this awesome graphics demo only i care about. powervr emulation when
A-Train 5 on both PS1 & PC has an intro movie that looks like prerendered CG, but what you might not know is that it's actually video of a *realtime* intro demo from the PC version, except you needed a PowerVR card to even load it, and a rad person recently captured it. Keep in mind this is 1996:
A5: A-Train 5 / A列車で行こう5 (1996) Opening - NEC PowerVR PCX1 (PC 3DEngine) & Pentium Pro 200 computer
Here is footage of the opening cutscene/cinematic in A5 (Version 1.0.0 compiled on December 20th 1996). This is NOT an FMV cinematic, this is running in real-time (at a resolution of 640x480 pixels) on the NEC PowerVR PCX1 3D accelerator (GPU) and Pentium Pro processor. The shadows that buildings and trains cast in the footage are shadow volumes rendered by the PowerVR 3D card and are part of the hardware features of the Series 1 cards (PCX1 and its successor PCX2). The opening can NOT be watched unless a PowerVR Series 1 card is installed in the system, but the game can still be played without a PowerVR card (albeit without 3D view/3D graphics available, only 2D view will work). The shadow volumes do not appear in the game itself, only in the opening. The Playstation version's opening is an FMV sequence based on a video recording of the original PowerVR version of A5. The game is called "Urban Development Simulation Game A-Train 5" according to the application's title bar. The "バージョン情報" (version information) screen, which is basically the "About..." section of A5, indicates that the game can be run in both "Normal CPU Mode" and also an MMX enhanced mode according to the manual, as A5 is one of the first x86 applications to support MMX instructions usage/optimizations. Here are the specifications for the computer/PC being used: - Dell OptiPlex GXPro case and motherboard (manufactured in July 1996) - Intel 440FX chipset - Intel Pentium Pro 200 Mhz (256KB L2 cache) processor - S3 Trio64V+ (2MB) video card - NEC PC 3DEngine (NEC PowerVR PCX1) accelerator card - Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32 (CT3900) sound card - 256 MBs of EDO DRAM/memory - Microsoft Windows 95 (Japanese OSR 2.1 OEM) operating system Drivers used for the NEC PC 3DEngine card: 1.0.0c1. Drivers used for the S3 Trio64V+ card: Default Win95 OSR 2.1 drivers. The game uses the SGL (Super Graphics Library) API for native PowerVR 3D acceleration. In late 1996, Videologic and NEC together produced and released the first commercially available PowerVR 3D accelerator card (not counting the Midas3 installed/bundled in Compaq Presario 8000 series computers); the NEC PC3DEngine, powered by the Videologic-licensed and NEC-manufactured PCX1 (codenamed Midas4) chip/IC. The PCX1 was a chip ahead of its time in some ways and gravely misunderstood at the time due to its lack of bi-linear filtering and need for a somewhat faster processor to perform at an adequate level in contrast to other 3D accelerators of the time (although that would depend on how any given game was coded). 24-bit color depth and very impressive shadow volume effects were possible thanks to the nature of the PCX1's depth cueing (hidden-surface removal) hardware and tile-based deferred rendering (TBDR), making it possible to get said visual benefits at a negligible performance cost. Despite lacking bi-linear texture filtering, mip-mapping is still accounted for to reduce visual artifacts at a distance. The PCX1 ran at its best using the SGL API developed for the PowerVR Series 1 cards (Series 2 being the CLX2 as used in the Sega Dreamcast). A Ressha De Ikou 5 by Artdink (1996) #windows95 #atrain #powervr #artdink
www.youtube.com
October 19, 2024 at 11:45 PM
While ATi had Ruby and nVidia had Dawn, this is what PowerVR had
January 5, 2025 at 1:27 AM
compatible with Saturn light guns. Indeed, it also comes with a copy of the PC version of Virtua Cop. Interestingly, it has an entire graphics accelerator on board, a PowerVR PCX2, which seems a bit overkill for just screen flashing.
June 21, 2025 at 3:05 AM
A-Train 5 on both PS1 & PC has an intro movie that looks like prerendered CG, but what you might not know is that it's actually video of a *realtime* intro demo from the PC version, except you needed a PowerVR card to even load it, and a rad person recently captured it. Keep in mind this is 1996:
A5: A-Train 5 / A列車で行こう5 (1996) Opening - NEC PowerVR PCX1 (PC 3DEngine) & Pentium Pro 200 computer
Here is footage of the opening cutscene/cinematic in A5 (Version 1.0.0 compiled on December 20th 1996). This is NOT an FMV cinematic, this is running in real-time (at a resolution of 640x480 pixels) on the NEC PowerVR PCX1 3D accelerator (GPU) and Pentium Pro processor. The shadows that buildings and trains cast in the footage are shadow volumes rendered by the PowerVR 3D card and are part of the hardware features of the Series 1 cards (PCX1 and its successor PCX2). The opening can NOT be watched unless a PowerVR Series 1 card is installed in the system, but the game can still be played without a PowerVR card (albeit without 3D view/3D graphics available, only 2D view will work). The shadow volumes do not appear in the game itself, only in the opening. The Playstation version's opening is an FMV sequence based on a video recording of the original PowerVR version of A5. The game is called "Urban Development Simulation Game A-Train 5" according to the application's title bar. The "バージョン情報" (version information) screen, which is basically the "About..." section of A5, indicates that the game can be run in both "Normal CPU Mode" and also an MMX enhanced mode according to the manual, as A5 is one of the first x86 applications to support MMX instructions usage/optimizations. Here are the specifications for the computer/PC being used: - Dell OptiPlex GXPro case and motherboard (manufactured in July 1996) - Intel 440FX chipset - Intel Pentium Pro 200 Mhz (256KB L2 cache) processor - S3 Trio64V+ (2MB) video card - NEC PC 3DEngine (NEC PowerVR PCX1) accelerator card - Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32 (CT3900) sound card - 256 MBs of EDO DRAM/memory - Microsoft Windows 95 (Japanese OSR 2.1 OEM) operating system Drivers used for the NEC PC 3DEngine card: 1.0.0c1. Drivers used for the S3 Trio64V+ card: Default Win95 OSR 2.1 drivers. The game uses the SGL (Super Graphics Library) API for native PowerVR 3D acceleration. In late 1996, Videologic and NEC together produced and released the first commercially available PowerVR 3D accelerator card (not counting the Midas3 installed/bundled in Compaq Presario 8000 series computers); the NEC PC3DEngine, powered by the Videologic-licensed and NEC-manufactured PCX1 (codenamed Midas4) chip/IC. The PCX1 was a chip ahead of its time in some ways and gravely misunderstood at the time due to its lack of bi-linear filtering and need for a somewhat faster processor to perform at an adequate level in contrast to other 3D accelerators of the time (although that would depend on how any given game was coded). 24-bit color depth and very impressive shadow volume effects were possible thanks to the nature of the PCX1's depth cueing (hidden-surface removal) hardware and tile-based deferred rendering (TBDR), making it possible to get said visual benefits at a negligible performance cost. Despite lacking bi-linear texture filtering, mip-mapping is still accounted for to reduce visual artifacts at a distance. The PCX1 ran at its best using the SGL API developed for the PowerVR Series 1 cards (Series 2 being the CLX2 as used in the Sega Dreamcast). A Ressha De Ikou 5 by Artdink (1996) #windows95 #atrain #powervr #artdink
www.youtube.com
May 2, 2024 at 5:15 PM
MrNeo just brought the C-based 2D UI layout library, Clay, to the Sega Dreamcast, with his new direct PowerVR renderer back-end! Yeeeeees!!!!

github.com/mrneo240/cla...

#cplusplus #cpp #gamedev
January 24, 2025 at 1:26 AM
User-generated content (UGC) in a nutshell: Massive spam of physics objects and skinned characters.

Runs at locked 60Hz well on modern phones. The problem is cheap 99€ Android phones with PowerVR GE8320 :(
November 28, 2024 at 1:48 PM
Unreal Tournament is 25!

here's some of the intro in SGLDrv (the regressed leftover video driver for Powervr PCX2 cards no one used by this point in time)
November 23, 2024 at 4:31 AM
PCEm can emulate old PCs with S3 and 3DFX 3D cards (possibly also Matrox?), and there seems to be an abandoned fork of it for PowerVR support.

You can also play 3DFX (via Dgvoodoo2 and nGlide), ATI (via GLRage), and Rendition (via RReady) games natively too, albeit with just the GPU emulated
But now you've got a continuing problem: Just which graphics card do you buy; Matrox? 3DFX? ATI? Rendition?

Buy the wrong one, and you could find yourself with a card unsupported by all but a handful of games. A bit of a minefield, and it's part of what sent my family to PS1 after Amiga.
November 5, 2025 at 11:25 AM
here's a Dreamcast experiment of mine from back in January. I made the level in NetRadiant-Custom, compiled it to a Quake 3 BSP, then wrote all my own code to prepare and render it using the Dreamcast's PowerVR chip (no KallistiOS used, i use a baremetal toolchain). recorded on real hardware.
May 20, 2026 at 10:19 PM
Imagination demos DirectX 11 on PowerVR D-Series, says DirectX is essential for mainstream PC gaming
Imagination demos DirectX 11 on PowerVR D-Series, says DirectX is essential for mainstream PC gaming - VideoCardz.com
Imagination expands PowerVR PC plans with DirectX roadmap update Imagination Technologies said on LinkedIn that it is working toward full DirectX support
videocardz.com
March 23, 2026 at 8:33 PM
The Operative: No One Lives Forever turned 25 last month, so here's that on a PowerVR PCX2. It has severe texture format and blending overlap issues that makes it hard mode
December 8, 2025 at 4:05 AM
one of the curious things I try with different GPUs is r_colorMipLevels 1 in q3dm1 on Quake3
May 11, 2025 at 4:31 AM