PCX (cont’d)

After 3Dfx showed the world the importance of bilinear filtering, there was no way the PCX could sell. The PCX2 was essentially the bug-fixed PCX, offering minor performance tweaks and added bilinear filtering. True to VideoLogic's word, bilinear filtering on the PCX2 had no performance hit and the chip even found a design win with the Matrox m3D, a rare time when Matrox went outside their own engineering teams. It's too bad because the PCX2 could have been the original product.

The other issue that PowerVR owners will never forget is src*dst. This is a texture blending technique supported by the Voodoo, which allowed for "colored lighting" and cool explosion effects. Without this hardware, games like Quake2 did not have the same image quality that was possible from other cards. This wasn't a mistake so much as not making the correct prediction for the future of 3D graphics.

Why is this historically significant?

The PowerVR Series 2 was supposed to be a major leap in performance and quality, offering 2D/3D/MPEG acceleration in a single chip. It was to combine all of the deferred rendering benefits of the original PowerVR, but now include all of the texture blend effects necessary for 100% game compatibility. The PowerVR Series 2 found its way into the Sega Dreamcast producing graphics competitive to many PS2 and Gamecube games. Of course, the PowerVR Series 2 (Neon250) was also known as perhaps the most delayed PC hardware that eventually shipped. Most of the bugs were due to the 2D/VGA component of the graphics chip. After the mistake of rushing out the PCX1, VideoLogic may have gone a bit too far in trying to perfect the Neon 250, respinning the silicon many many times to fix little mistakes. In Spring '99 the third tape-out reportedly only had a severe bug with the hardware mouse cursor. In retrospect, things may have turned out better if they shipped the card with a software mouse cursor and appropriately discounted the chips. When Win2K came out, lots of cards couldn't do the hardware mouse shadow and no one really cared...

Closing Thoughts

NEC would ultimately drop out of the PowerVR partnership, leaving ST Graphics to work with VideoLogic to co-develop the PowerVR Series 3 (Kyro). VideoLogic (now Imagination Technologies) will probably never play a big role in high-performance desktop 3D graphics again (although they’re rumored to be working on a next-generation high-end part as we speak), but that's not to say they're unsuccessful. Their lightweight 3D, video, and display technology is now part of the ARM architecture and powers commercial displays.

In the end, it's a shame that the PowerVR couldn't stay in the gaming industry. The team at VideoLogic was one of the classiest with perfect British manners -- I still remember an incident when they didn't give any slack to one of the big websites of the time that broke the embargo, and posted content earlier than the agreed upon release date.