PowerVR Kyro Series: Better than it really should be

3 роки тому

View Vlask's video on the PowerVR PCX2 here: • Rare Graphics Cards - ...
Special thanks to Fouquin for lending his voice and a picture of his Kyro 2 PCI for this project.
In this video we take a look at Imagination Technologies' final desktop graphics card on the desktop PC market with the PowerVR Kyro and Kyro 2.
Platform specs:
Athlon XP 3000+ (Barton) @ 2.1GHz
512MB PC3200 @ 333MHz
Shuttle AK35GT2/R (VIA KT333)
Aureal Vortex 2
Western Digital WD800 80GB HDD
Windows 98SE Unofficial SP3
The cards:
Hercules 3D Prophet 4000XT 32MB (115MHz core/memory)
Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB (175MHz core/memory)
Radeon VE 32MB DDR (166MHz core; 333MHz memory)
Radeon 32MB SDR (166MHz core/memory)
Radeon 64MB DDR (183MHz core; 366MHz memory)
Radeon 7500 64MB (290MHz core; 460MHz memory)
GeForce2 MX200 32MB (175MHz core; 166MHz memory)
GeForce2 MX400 64MB (200MHz core; 175MHz memory)
GeForce2 GTS 32MB (200MHz core; 333MHz memory)
GeForce2 Ti 64MB (simulated) (250MHz core; 400MHz memory)
Voodoo5 5500 64MB (166MHz core/memory)
Drivers:
PowerVR Kyro Series - Driver v2.01
ATI Radeon Series - Catalyst 4.1
NVIDIA GeForce Series - Forceware 45.23
Purchase a Digital Foundry Retro T-shirt: teespring.com/digital-foundry...
Intro Animation By Ken Gruca Jr - Inquire at kjgruca@gmail.com!
○Join the Pixel Talk Discord server! / discord
○Instagram! / pixelpipes
○Follow me on Twitter! @pixelpipes
○Donate via Paypal: @pixelpipes

КОМЕНТАРІ: 358

@ruxandy 3 роки тому

9:14 "GeForce 2 MX, later renamed MX 200" - this is false, the MX is almost as fast as an MX400, while the MX 200 is much slower, with lower frequencies and a 64 bit memory bus.

@smiththers2 3 роки тому

yea, i had a GF2 MX and i dont remember it being a steaming pile of dog shit

@PixelPipes 3 роки тому

Yeah someone else also pointed this out. Apologies for the inaccuracy.

@ruxandy 3 роки тому

@@PixelPipes Not a problem, I still enjoyed the video. :-) Keep it up!

@Halon1234 3 роки тому

There was also an MX 100 available for the Asian market with 32-bit access to memory. It was the definition of awful, sometimes losing to a TNT2 Vanta, and the U.S. market balked at it.

@Raptor3388 3 роки тому

Yeah a bit like the vanilla GeForce3 compared to the later Ti200 and Ti500, even if we're in a different category.

@mix3k818 3 роки тому

Imagine if there were more than 2 consumer grade GPU companies today

@ItsRawdraft2 3 роки тому

Well, Matrox exists

@blakegriplingph 3 роки тому

@@ItsRawdraft2 Albeit as a niche firm specialising in enterprise solutions like those multi-monitor setups for stores, offices and whatnot. Not to mention that they now just use off-the-shelf AMD GPUs instead of an in-house processor.

@koodeus6170 3 роки тому

AMD, Nvidia, and Intel

@MrKillswitch88 3 роки тому

S3 still exists though not for the normal consumer market.

@mix3k818 3 роки тому

@@koodeus6170 Intel is not in the market yet and by then we'll be sitting between RDNA 2 vs Ampere and RDNA 3 vs [whatever is Nvidia naming it next]

@Soonjai 3 роки тому

As someone who had the misfortune of having a GeForce 2 MX 200 in his first PC I love the verbal bashing of that card in this video. I am however shocked to learn that I probably would have enjoyed that System much more if I had invested in upgrading to a Kyro Card.

@AmrikSadhra 3 роки тому

Glad to see some ImgTec content! Forever proud to work at PowerVR.

@crystalfunky 3 роки тому

Strange, when I bought the card back then, I always had a feeling that the company had a great work ethic.

@zxcvb_bvcxz 3 роки тому

What about the Poulsobo though?

@krazyolie 3 роки тому

@@crystalfunky Was fine when I worked there - suspect it still is.

@qwertykeyboard5901 Рік тому

For the love of god and all that is holy PLEASE get someone to increase 2D acceleration performance.

@RaimarLunardi 3 роки тому

T&L was only an issue for me when GTASA was launched for PC on 2005, lol Until then I used a TNT2, was enough for games at 640x480 on my 15" CRT :D good times.

@nelizmastr 3 роки тому

@Lassi Kinnunen sounds like RTX, lol.

@ruxandy 3 роки тому

Actually, T&L helps even in Quake 2 (well, only the "T", not the "L"). However, framerate is already so high that you don't really notice it.

@ErikZarth 3 роки тому

I remember those days. I was upgrading almost every 6 months. Going from a TNT2 to a TI4200 was quite a jump though.

@si4632 2 роки тому

voodoo 3 over tnt2 anyday lol

@MazdaChris 3 роки тому

I remember upgrading from a PIII 667 with a VooDoo 3, to an Athlon 1400 with the Kyro 4500 AGP and the difference for me was absolutely mind blowing. Suddenly I could play just about anything I wanted in silky smooth framerates a 1024x768. I've had a ton of gaming systems over the years, but this one was probably the one I loved the most.

@PixelPipes 3 роки тому

Ha that's awesome

@nooboard 4 місяці тому

I got my first wow moment with my Matrox Mystique 220 (playing Descruction Derby 2 and Mech Warrior 2 bundled with that card) and the second wow with my Voodoo 1. Next was a Riva 128, TNT2 Vanta and no wow there. Then I got the Kyro 2 and that was my last wow moment in PC gaming history. The following cards where only faster than the cards I had before. If I remember them correctly it where Radeon 9600 Pro and Nvidia 3 TI 200. Then Nvidia 5900XT and 7800GT. But I don't even remember them in detail.

@steve2dot0 3 роки тому

Great stuff - brought back memories of sitting in the lab, hour after hour doing hardware bring up on these little beasts and the variants that never made it to production. While the team behind PowerVR was tiny by comparison it was made up of an exceptional group of engineers.

@PixelPipes 3 роки тому

It would have been great to see you guys stick it out for future iterations, but at least what we got was still pretty awesome. :)

@laumpolumpio 7 місяців тому

PowerVR not only developed the Dreamcast GPU, they also developed the Naomi 2 gpu which added an extra T&L geometry coprocessor feature which at the time, trumped the PS2 emotion engine and it was up to par to the Xbox Geforce 2.5-based gpu even surpassing it in some areas.

@piecaruso97 3 роки тому

Thank you for still making those excellent videos

@desertfish74 3 роки тому

PowerVr was also in Sega’s Dreamcast and Naomi arcade systems. It was glorious at the time.

@ErikZarth 3 роки тому

Love the channel. Was always curious about PowerVR cards.

@VdWck 3 роки тому

Great video! Love this time period. Even though the soundtrack used sounds much older than the time these cards were released haha

@Ithirahad 2 роки тому

IDK, I seem to remember that kind of funky expository music thrown into informational videodocuments up through 2007 or so...

@ashleyjwilliamshand 3 роки тому

Top notch Content, Quality and Production Value. Scripting something like this must be daunting...and you make it look effortless. Great job as always.

@bojanrakonjac6267 3 роки тому

A really great and professionally prepared video, it was worth waiting for next video, the quality is really top notch. I wish your view count increases exponentially to the quality you’re giving to the viewers 😊

@FullyBuffered 3 роки тому

Fantastic work man! I am in awe of your production quality 💪🏻 Also an interesting story - I knew very little about these cards beforehand.

@SainLanParty Рік тому

A very interesting series, they cannot be missing from any collector's shelf!

@ulfspringer8639 3 роки тому

Nathan, excellent review and video. Had a Kyro II back in the day and can fully confirm your findings. Being a student back then - for me it was the appeal to buy a budget card that in a lot of games and scenario's gave the much more expensive cards from ATI and Nvidia a run for it's money. Excellent time. Miss being a student... Keep up the good work and I am sure success (more subscribers & view) will come. Fingers crossed.

@lazibayer 2 роки тому

Lucky enough to snatch a Kyro2 back in the days.

@DanielCardei 3 роки тому

Excellent video! That beat sync its perfect :D

@achaycock 3 роки тому

This was a very interesting video. I have recently re-acquired both the Kyro and Kyro II, having had the former card briefly back in 2000 - 2001. With the newest drivers, I found the card to be wonderful with a fantastic image quality. I did rediscover why I originally sent the card back and exchanged for a Geforce 2 MX. Earlier drivers, such as those available when I bought the card, were awful. Many games experienced serious artifacting issues. It is possible that there were drivers available then that may have solved this, but I did not have access to the internet at that time. In reality, that is what killed Kyro for most people that I knew. They gained a poor reputation that would not have been inflicted upon them had the cards shipped with better drivers.

@totty2524 3 роки тому

Man, I'm glad I found this excellent channel!

@RetroGPUsandBuilds 3 роки тому

Great video Nathan, love the editing and music 😊 but most of all verry good info on these cards 👍

@aaldrich1982 3 роки тому

Love your videos, thanks for this.

@marek4265 Рік тому

Great video. I had the Kyro II at that time in my pc and as I remember it was great. I still remember the surface textures in half-life looked better than on any other graphic cards my friends had at that time. This brings back memories. :)

@samuelclark149 3 роки тому

The promise of this tech blew my mind at the time. It’s unfortunate it never quite delivered. Wish I could get my hands on one again.

@TSOMprojects 3 роки тому

Keep up the good work and these quality videos!

@darrkstarg 7 місяців тому

I picked up the kyro 2 when it came out. It was a great card for it's time.

@F2bnp 3 роки тому

Thanks so much for the shoutout to that video on the PCX2. Me and Vlaskcz used to collaborate on these, I helped out where I could with tech history, translation and voice overs. Really glad to see that people enjoy these videos as much as they did, a lot of effort was put into them by both parties :).

@PixelPipes 3 роки тому

The effort shows! I still go back and watch them repeatedly!

@joeyvdm1 3 роки тому

Awesome! Thanks for the video Nathan, really enjoyed it! Still have a Kyro 2 here as well, and it was a very interesting architecture. It is a shame that we never got to see the next GPUs they has planed, I would have absolutely picked one up just to see what the little company would have achieved. Anyways, thanks again for the upload Nathan, another tremendous episode as per usual, and it is most appreciated.

@TimTaylor99 3 роки тому

As I remember a lot of people were like, ok they did it right with the Kyro I and gave a nice improvement with Kyro II, nice job! Kyro III will be mine, I mean it's 50% cheaper than it's challengers! Power VR: ....

@ccleorina 3 роки тому

Ahhh i remember buying Hercules Prophet 4500... good old days playing Sam2 and Diablo 2... Great vid btw... good job...

@djdoo 3 роки тому

Very nice presentation and review of those very underrated cards! I used to have a 3D Prophet 4500 back in the day and it had a very nice feature a TV-out port and was really fun! The card came bundled with PowerDVD 3.0 and it was the first time we watched DVD video as a family when I hooked the PC on the living room TV via composite signal! The image quality was so good compared to analog TV broadcasts and VHS that I will never forget it... The tv-out could give you Composite and S-Video signals where most of the competition gave only Composite if any. As far as gaming performance concerned I used the card only with Win 2000 and Win XP OSes and I was really impressed, never had glitches and weird things, especially performance was a lot better with the final drivers 2 version that had that EnTnL feature at the settings. too bad they didn't release drivers for Vista and Linux never opensourced their blob. The card is in use even today in an offline Win XP PC for office use with an Athlon 64 cpu on it.

@registrazioniduemillaotton6030 3 роки тому

Excellent Video! Thanks!

@pascalmariany 3 роки тому

Awesome and in dept video! Thanks! Nice you also included the Voodoo 5! 👏🏼

@8wal_zu19 3 роки тому

Oh heck yes, more old tech tests and stuff, please.

@smughlesmcphucer6667 Рік тому

Great video, thank you 👍

@mesterak 3 роки тому

Very educational thank you!

@Erebus-PCFX 3 роки тому

You should test the SiS 6236 and the SiS 315. The SiS 315 especially is often an underrated gem for retro gaming.

@classic_jam 3 роки тому

I've been waiting for this

@BladeRunner21577 10 місяців тому

I had an AGP version of the 4000 at the time, it was an upgrade from a Rage XL that came bundled with a motherboard I bought. Great cards for the money they were.

@aquaristiksteffen7712 3 роки тому

Super Vid - exept 4 the volume jumps :D

@Pillokun 3 роки тому

Ah, my wasted youth is coming back to me, almost make my eyes tear up.. Love this content, and the music fits so well as well. Thumbs up.

@sgtjarhead99 6 місяців тому

Love the Kyro. I bought the 32mb Hercules Prophet back in the early 2000s for an old PIII600 that I set up for my son. It was fine for his age appropriate games, but I tested a few other (modern for the time) games like Serious Sam and Unreal Tournament on it. Ran awesome for what I paid for it (below $60). Used it in that old box until it finally started developing graphical issues. A real shame it never got anywhere. Thought there were a lot of potential.

@hardwarechronicles9178 3 роки тому

it was also in the Sega dreamcast wich had made a custom PowerVR chip for the console

@carbonsx3 3 роки тому

2:34 😉

@TheBig451 3 роки тому

Yeah he literally says that in the video.

@hardwarechronicles9178 3 роки тому

@@carbonsx3 i see that now but i typed the comment even before i saw the part when he mentioned it :) but thnx for letting me know

@Chasnah 3 роки тому

3dfx was originally designing a chip for the Dreamcast until they broke NDA and SEGA terminated their contract. An absolute shame. *CORRECTION* The deal fell apart not because of 3dfx breaking any contracts, but because yet again Sega of Japan fucked over Sega of America by vetoing the PowerPC 603 / 3dfx GPU Blackbelt design and instead using their own Hitachi SH-4 / PowerVR based system.

@Malheirods Рік тому

@@Chasnah And they were right. It was much better than the BlackBelt project. Both more capable and cheaper.

@nicolaskong2461 Рік тому

Thank you so much for the video. God, I miss those days, tinkering PCs, swapping parts over weekends just to push for that 5 extra fps... GeForce 2 DDR, the hated card everyone wanted but no one can afford, at least that was the case for me.. once again, thank you.

@sunnohh 3 роки тому

Your content is fantastic

@stellated 3 роки тому

It's cool that tile based rendering which was once a performance optimization now lives on as a power optimization in many phones and tablets.

@vrenthusiast71 3 роки тому

It is nice to see videos being made on this classic old hardware. I actually happen to have a PowerVR PCX2 based Matrox m3D in my collection along with a VooDoo 1 Diamond Monster 3D. It would be nice to see a head to head of those two cards. Have it show how the PCX2 trails behind with slower CPUs yet scales up to closely match the VooDoo 1 when enough CPU power is thrown at it. I also have other notable classic cards like the VooDoo 2, VooDoo Banshee, Rendition v2100, ATI Rage Pro Turbo, S3 Savage 4 and various Nvidia cards. I also had some Cirrus Logic D3D compatible card, a Rendition v1000, and even a S3 Savage 2000 back when they were new. Sadly I didn't hold on to those last 3 cards knowing I would be a collector when I got older. Ohh Nostalgia... Anyway... Keep up the good work on the videos!

@PixelPipes 3 роки тому

A comparison of those cards would be nice but a PCX2 is hard to come by (affordably).

@segaRPGfan 3 роки тому

I came across a Kyro II in an old PC I bought and had to do some research as I had never heard of it. I also just had to give it a go out of curiosity. I'm incredibly impressed with its performance! Running in a 440bx mobo with a P3 1ghz it shines. It often outperforms a Geforce 4 4200 ti in the same system! I think its efficiency helps overcome the bottlenecks in my system whereas the GF4 isn't able to reach its full potential.

@BillAE91 3 роки тому

I got a Kyro II some years ago to use on my Windows 98 PC out of curiosity. Very interesting card with good compatibility. I don't recall any problems with the games I played. It also supports Environmental Bump Mapping which is visible in some games. My geforce 2 Mx back in the day did not.

@stevec00ps 3 роки тому

Reading those specs of the Kyro sounds like you're reading the specs of the Matrox G400 with the 32 bit colour and EMBM :) I finally recently got a Matrox M3D to add to the collection too!

@praystation 3 роки тому

i love power vr. i was shocked it wasnt able to compete and finally lost out. power vr is so efficient that it only renders what you could see.

@theenhancer 3 роки тому

How dare you seduce me with synthwave, I am weak.

@Thohean 3 роки тому

I never knew about this card, but started my adventures in PC hardware with the Radeon 9200 as my first aftermarket card purchase, with having nVidia stuff in the prebuilt PCs up to that point. The audio quality shift from your on camera presence to the voice over section is rather distracting. Personally, for my audio playback setup, I prefer the "on camera" audio, as it's less boomy. I love these tech history videos about companies/products I never knew about. Thank you for making them.

@franzflasch8181 Рік тому

I owned a Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 back then because I could not effort a better card, still I was absolutely satisfied with its performance.

@CPUGalaxy 3 роки тому

Great video! very interesting. Love to watch your very professional made content. 👍🏻

@PixelPipes 3 роки тому

Thank you for the kind words!

@WarrenChurulich Рік тому

One or my old favorite cards too!

@hooby3D 3 роки тому

Very interesting! Would love to see similar coverage of S3 based cards

@gamecomparisons 3 роки тому

I enjoyed this video, thank you. Kyro and m3D were the only 3D accellerators I could afford back in the days when I started building my own PCs. I'll never understand the mentality of needing 100+FPS as long as 30 or 60FPS are consistent, especially if the card costs as much as my entire system build.

@poison7512 Рік тому

Get a high refresh rate monitor and try it. That's what youre missing.

@2beJT 3 роки тому

Power VR had me dazzled in Dreamcast!

@angushades2jz 3 роки тому

Great video

@DevilbyMoonlight Рік тому

I remember these well back in the day, and I also remember the intel i740 and the apocalypse 5D

@Vermilicious 9 місяців тому

New to me. Neat to know.

@Da40kOrks Рік тому

I remember selling a few of these when I worked at a local shop in 2000-2002. They were always the cheapest thing on the shelf and never had anyone complain about the performance.

@turrican4d599 Рік тому

I had the PCX2 additional to my Voodoo2 cars out of curiousity. I loved the included demos, especially the real time shadows in Extreme Racing. Same goes for TNT1 and TNT2Ultra. I just wanted them to check out for myself. Needless to say, that the TNT2Ultra was awesome in Q3Arena demo compared to my Voodoo3 2000@3500

@MrJasonodonnell Рік тому

I worked in AV at the time and I brought A Prophet 4000XT because of the Image Quality, I vaguely remember Blues and Blacks standing out.

@ruckus7554 Рік тому

The PowerVR lives on in the Apple and Android phones. It is also used in multiple smart TV brands.

@FritzOFN 3 роки тому

Fun how they made it great in mobile market, a place that suites the tile based rendering perfect...I did read some time back that they are considering getting back to the PC market again...Can't wait for more competition on the graphics market again.

@Ithirahad 2 роки тому

I'd love to see some decent budget offerings again. It seems ever since the 750Ti, "budget" gaming GPUs have been inexorably creeping (faster than inflation) into the lower enthusiast range.

@ClassicTrialsChannel Рік тому

I had a powervr card in 97 ish. i like the fact that even though it was an addon card it used switching and not the patch lead like the 3dfx

@BadManiac 3 роки тому

Love my Kyros! I have the Powercolor Evil Kyro 32MB AGP card and the gorgeous blue Hercules 3DProphet 4500XT 64MB Kyro II. Shame they get very little use since there's always better options when building a retro PC these days. I tried the Kyro II in my 2001 build but my Radeon 8500 simply runs rings around it.

@retractingblinds 2 роки тому

Tremendous video. There's a lot history to The Kyro cards, tile based rendering is something PowerVR continued to do well down the line on their mobile chips, and may have given Nvidia a sneaky idea or two - despite Nvidia's dismissal for their Maxwell chips. Incredible how such an old idea ended up being so decisive in a future technology competition.

@rekleif Рік тому

The first graphics card I loved was a Hercules ATi card. Great 2d with a voodoo card doing 3d. Have used ATi/AMD ever since. Tried Nvidia with the 7800 but it started to artifact in under a year....

@jorgvespermann5364 Рік тому

Back in the Day I was quite happy with my Kyro-II. It was a pretty good Card back in the Day and I never had Problems with the Card with Windows XP my Games worked pretty well

@OneCosmic749 3 роки тому

I had the Radeon 7500 in my PC back in 2001/2002 with a Celeron Tualatin 1.2GHz OC to 1.5GHz daily on air and 1.68GHz on peltier. I had a PowerVR GPU in my Samsung Galaxy S - the 1st gen :) It was kind of a small lower perf GPU but PowerVR was also very popular in earlier Apple iPads/iPhones/iPods, the later ones had much beefier GPUs than my S.

@bleeb1347 Рік тому

I remember when reviews came out, the Kyro II got better frame rates than the Geforce 2 Ultra in a few titles like Serious Sam and Max Payne. I had both cards at the same time, and I worked at a mom and pop computer shop at the time to earn money by building and troubleshooting computers..

@tHeWasTeDYouTh 3 роки тому

I am still depressed today because the Kyro III never came out....damn you ST Micro!!! It is a huge loss to all of us gamers like the death of 3dfx. we almost got the Spectre 3000 card which was literally as powerful as a Geforce 4 but it was coming out in early 2001 and would have destroyed the geforce 3(this is done because you had two spectre cards side by side like the geforce 5 5500)

@theobserver4214 3 роки тому

The GeForce 3 had full DirectX8 support, so unless the Spectre 3000 was also able to support it, it would have fallen to the same trap the VooDoo 5500 did.

@ghanz84 3 роки тому

You meant the Voodoo 5500...

@ATomRileyA 11 місяців тому

I had a Kyro II and it worked pretty well but remember it was a bit lacking after a while, but wish they were still around making desktop GPU's as we could do with more competition. Still have the card packed away.

@jayyanz 2 роки тому

In Australia, you could purchase an 64mb Apollo branded Kyro II AGP for $175 AUD (or less). This was the same price point as the GeForce MX 400s at the time. The Hercules branded card was prices closer to the GeForce 2 GTS/Tis, making it a bad option (and I probably why it didnt sell well). But the significantly cheaper Apollo model made it a great choice vs a GeForce 2 MX. The internal 32bit rendering was also a great feature back then, as many earlier cards (and even the GF2 MX line) struggled with 32 bit. You could set all your game settings to 32bit and knowing you wouldn't lose any performance. It also had a noticeable uplift in image quality for 16bit titles that didn't support 32bit rendering.

@reignmans 2 роки тому

just checked and holy moly i still have the 3d prophet 4500

@anomaly95 3 роки тому

Interesting that PowerVR eventually went the same direction as ARM. They currently just license their graphics cores to whomever wants to use them.

@TIPP_X Рік тому

I had a hercules kyro2 card back in the days

@cyphaborg6598 3 роки тому

Even back in the 90's I can't remember seeing this brand, The voodoo boxes were pretty dominant over here.

@2007tantrum 3 роки тому

Nvidia feared about PowerVR.... didn’t want another competitor after taking out 3Dfx... interesting project Nathan)) well done

@wuuduu609 Рік тому

still remember my Kyro II Prophet 4500

@desktopstu4145 8 місяців тому

I still have a PowerVR Kyro2 PCI 32mb card. Its sat in a Pentium 3 rig that gets fired up from time, running windows 2000.

@PixelPipes 8 місяців тому

Wow! Kyro 2s on PCI are extremely rare!

@blastfromthepast3073 3 роки тому

Kyro killed the whole competition in GTA III ! Kyro I and II was the best bang for buck... so nobody cares about Nvidia back in the days. For Retro Gaming its better to use a AGP 3.3V Mainboard. Kyro is coded for AGP 1.5V but could die really soon. Good Work Nathan!

@Accostrophe 3 роки тому

hey pixelpipes, just wanted to say i love your videos! I wanted to ask if you plan on doing a card review/battle of the radeon 4870 vs the nvidia equivalent. The 4870 was my second flagship card and i wanted to know what you thought of it.

@nooboard 4 місяці тому

20:10 I might not be the first who mentioned it but PowerVR was integrated into Intel SoCs which where also available on ITX Desktop Mainboards for example on the ASRock AD2550-ITX. 😀

@anasevi9456 3 роки тому

brilliant, thank yuo so much because Kyro doesn't get the love it deserved. The wall was too tall for newbs even then... XGI, and a mildly resurgent S3graphics would prove this again in the following years. Will be extremely interesting to see how Intel's entry fares; given they've got mountains of dosh to chuck that PowerVR didn't at their entry.

@hamisch Рік тому

lol, I had a Hercules 3D Prophet 4000XT back then. It was my first Graphics Card upgrade ever.

@reki353 3 роки тому

I'm glad a kept my 3D prophet 4000xt

@lflyr6287 3 роки тому

PixelPipes : I still own both Hercules 3D Prophet 4000 Kyro 1 32MB SDR AGP4x and and Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 Kyro 2 64MB SDR AGP4x....both still work and I have a plan of building an AGP rig....the only thing that those PowerVR chips didn't have built in on a hardware level was T&L aka Transformation & Lightning engine and that made them quicly slower than Voodoo, ATI and Geforce cards. But that "rendering only what's visible on the screen" aka tile based rendering made it unique for quite a while.

@roger.monitor 3 роки тому

What really stand out is the Voodoo5 !

@alexanderwhite8320 Рік тому

Lack of Hardware T&L is what caused me to upgrade from RIVA TNT2 M64 to GeForce2 MX400. I wanted to play Battlefield 1942 that required this feature. It was in early 2003 if I remember correctly. So T&L was important. Also the TNT2 had a hardware or driver flaw that randomly caused lockup when Diablo2 cinematics played.

@fabianferrelli6438 2 роки тому

Still got this card ;) ... the 4000xt kyro prophet

@mortrek Рік тому

I had an original kyro. I was a believer. It was by Powercolor though, and they underclocked the card from the reference design since they used inferior parts. If you used the reference drivers, the card would get about as far as booting before locking up. You had to either use the Powercolor drivers, or set up the reference drivers to underclock on boot. Still, the technology was great. I used it for a good couple years.

@wishusknight3009 3 роки тому

I remember the KyroII being pitted more to the GTS and not the GF2Ti and it showing good performance in D3D titles but not so good in Open GL. It was not able to beat the GTS in most benchmarks but was always close, and even winning in some. Given it was half the price it really threw everyone for a loop upon launch.

@brucethen 3 роки тому

I had a powerVR card, the first one they released, the Apocalypse 1

@GTFour 2 роки тому

I had the PCI card as my eMachines 400mhz Celeron lacked an a GP slot. Was better than nothing, but as shown, lacked a lot.

@claudiodaloia3458 3 роки тому

Hello, in 2001 I was a kyro II user. Your performance in quake 3 are really slow. the kyro and kyro ii were very strong with that game. One simple trick to improve the kyro performance it's to use bilinear filtering istead of trilinear one. Love to see kyro again. good video!!!

@PixelPipes 3 роки тому

Yep trilinear was on and kills performance on Kyro cards

@winj3r 3 роки тому

At the time I knew little about PC Hardware and bought a Geforce 2 MX 200 DDR. It was a bit less bad than the DDR version. I wish I knew at the time about how good the Kyro II were.