SGLDrv explained

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leilei

ANIME ELF'S !!
Jan 20, 2008
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SGLDrv explained (Dummied out PowerVR SGL support)

"SO WHAT IS THIS FILE!", one may have asked in in the past 11 years while looking in their System/ folder.

It's the "PowerVR SGL for Windows" driver module that has been pretty much neglected since Unreal. A brief abridged history lesson - this British company Videologic made this efficient tile rendered chipset that rivaled the Voodoo Graphics in performance and cost. Matrox marketed this as the M3D in 1997. It was also popular with Compaq OEMs. Unreal had to support this in its initial release. It's the direct predecessor of what was used in the Dreamcast.

To get it to function, you'll need KernelEx 4.5.1. I don't know why it does, as it's definitely not NT stuff. If KernelEx existed earlier like 1999 this would have been less of an obscure solution by now.

you'll also need to uncomment the lines in its .int file

oh and most importantly, you'll need a working NEC PowerVR PCX2 video card on your Windows 98 or ME installation.


If you're curious how it looks and runs, here are some videos:

It's functional in 348 (teh DEMO!) and 400. Framerates are 60+ in 320x200 and around 28 in 640x480.
[M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWvzRyy-kFg[/M]
[M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KQcztTwLxk[/M] (my recordings)


[M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJYCFi2GPrw[/M] (elianda)


It's also functional in Game of the Year edition build 426 but the lighting appears to be screwed. Additionally, you need to hex edit the DLL itself to change letters around the appPow function name.
[M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXlBf1x41UQ[/M] (my recording)




Similarly, Desu Ex has a functional SGLDrv, but it crashes at the load menu
[M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpTsU5dlqd4[/M]


and no, PowerVR KYRO I and II can't use this driver. Neon250 might but seriously who has one of those? lol
 
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Leo(T.C.K.)

I did something m0tarded and now I have read only access! :(
May 14, 2006
4,794
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Wow, well it doesn't look much good to be honest, quite the opposite lol, but what can you expect from very early hardware 3D graphics i guess.
 

Raynor.Z

Ad Nocendum Potentes Sumus
Feb 1, 2006
1,491
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It's a nice topic from a historical viewpoint, but specific GPU and legacy OS requirement probably prevents us to try it out. Does SGLDrv support S3TC textures?
 

leilei

ANIME ELF'S !!
Jan 20, 2008
575
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Does SGLDrv support S3TC textures?

No, it doesn't even support detail textures either lol. This is a card in which there's only up to 4mb of ram for, supporting only a few texture formats, and not even able to use additive blending.
 

leilei

ANIME ELF'S !!
Jan 20, 2008
575
8
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I doubt there's anything "simple" about additives becoming alphas, if you check out the blood, the compensation wasn't simple.

Do you think this is a hoax?
 

kr0m

tw34ker
Aug 30, 2008
50
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I doubt there's anything "simple" about additives becoming alphas, if you check out the blood, the compensation wasn't simple.

Do you think this is a hoax?

nope :D
I wrote only that it looks
give me .dll files wants to try <--
ok nvm win98/win me no thanks :p
 
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