Is PowerVR chip (used in Dreamcast) a good one?

[AmiDelf]

I wonder. I am not a hardware expert, but for me when I watch something, I watch it. I get the pics wich is on my screen, thinking how it is and how it should be.

For me, Dreamcast have the best ever picture quality of all consoles, even if its dated 1998. It dosent have this blurred 3D games or screen at all, wich GameCube have and also X-BOX.

When you connect a Dreamcast to VGA monitor, the screen is just amazing good! And I mean it.

Would this technology be nice for a future Amiga computer?

Regards,
Michal, www.amigaworld.org

[Crumb]

I'm not sure... but the chip used in dreamcast is of the same family of Kyro I or II?

Anyway a Matrox G550 probably will provide a quality as good if not better than DC and will allow you to use AGP, so you'll be able to upgrade or change your card easily.

[downix]

The Dreamcast used the PowerVR 2.  A PC version of the PowerVR3 was called the Kyro (and II).  PowerVR licenses their cores, including newer cores than the ones used in both the DC and Kyro.

But even with slight improvements, the cores of the Kyro could be made competitive with modern video cards.

[AmiDelf]

I know. But PowerVR got a powerfull 3D sollution as well. Matrox is stunning in 2D, but Parhelia or what its called. Dosent perform 3D as much as digital news papers claimed before the release.

Now PowerVR is here, and everyone (most of people) knows how good Dreamcast picture is. It beats out PS2, GameCube and X-BOX in picture quality. And at the same time, also powerfull at 3D.

Regards,
Michal, www.amigaworld.org

[whabang]

The image quality of the Kyro's rock! :-D
Period!

[redrumloa]

The PowerVR does tile based rendering, it only renders what the eye sees. The end result is it doesn't require the bandwidth other gfx chips do.

Basically IMO it would be a great chip to use on *present* Amigas, but drivers would be terribly hard to do.

[downix]

@redrumloa

I'd highly recommend you check out the PowerVR website then.  The PVR's drivers are open-source and documentation is easy to get.  There was a point I wanted to use the PVR in my Eddas design, but I can't afford the licensing costs.

[whabang]

Yep.
Another fact worth noting is that it's very hard to implement a T&L sollution that works with tile-based rendering.
I remember PowerVR developing some kind of external T&L unit for the Kyro II though. It was labelled KyroII SE.

[lempkee]

the Kyro series are quite good indeed but its limited in ways of coding + it costs a lot to get the liscense , and most of all as earlier replied by others , it only renders whats on the screen.

also the DC didnt die because of the hardware or the software, it died because of SEGA's lame way of marketing their products and maybe most of all they turned every developer down due to they wanted to kill it themself (almost like nintendo GC 1 year ago, but it has resurected!).

want to put this chip in an amiga? , do u know what the liscense cost? , who will develop a devkit for it? , i wish it would have been an easier chip to program

cheers

pps:not a bad suggestion indeed but can you afford it?

[downix]

@lempkee

I actually do know the cost of licensing, but can't state it due to NDA.

Hint,  you're talking 6-figures minimum, more likely 7 in the longer term.

I'm almost tempted to offer licensing my design to this poor guy.

[mjg59]

downix wrote:

>The PVR's drivers are open-source

No they're not. The Linux drivers have a partially open-source section to interface with the kernel, but the actual drivers are binaries.

[mjg59]

AmiDelf wrote:
I
When you connect a Dreamcast to VGA monitor, the screen is just amazing good! And I mean it.

Oddly enough, if you connect something to a monitor you'll get a better picture than if you connect it to a TV. The picture quality of any modern graphics card (leaving aside hardware effects like anti-aliasing, which is hardly the PowerVR's strong point) is primarily determined by the quality of the digital to analog conversion hardware rather than the graphics chip itself. Different cards with the same ATI chip will have different picture qualities. The PowerVR was a moderately decent chip with some innovative ideas, but in terms of performance it's worse than most other stuff on the market and the quality is no better.

[redrumloa]

downix wrote:
@redrumloa

I'd highly recommend you check out the PowerVR website then.  The PVR's drivers are open-source and documentation is easy to get.  There was a point I wanted to use the PVR in my Eddas design, but I can't afford the licensing costs.

Why aren't you logged into AIM? :hammer:

[downix]

@mjg59

I could have sworn they were, I'll download and look.

For anyone interested in developing for the PowerVR, click here.

[whabang]

16-bit quality rules. (Yes, I know that the chip uses internal 32-bit rendering)