RetroCompaqGuy | 3D Acceleration Comparison Ep8: Resident Evil - PowerVR/Direct3D & Playstation @vetzRetro | Uploaded September 2012 | Updated October 2024, 31 minutes ago.
Resident Evil from Capcom. Initially released on the Playstation in 1996 and for Windows a year later in 1997. The PC release had two versions, one for Direct3D and one exclusive OEM version for the PowerVR card. According to NEC's John Smith, NEC Electronics of Japan paid for the original PowerVR conversion, and refused to give Virgin the rights to distribute it without receiving financial compensation in return. Virgin refused, and the retail version shipped without PowerVR support.
All in all there are not very much difference between the two versions. Both have a good framerate, but in a game like this with pre-rendered backgrounds it is hard to see the advantage of running the game in 800x600 compared to 640x480.
One advantage the PowerVR version has over the Direct3D is that it is less susceptible to speedup issues on faster computers, which you can see in the side by side comparison with the Playstation version.
Captured on hardware:
Asus P3B-F v1.03 (Intel 440BX chipset)
Intel P3 700mhz w/ Slot 1 adapter (10.5x66mhz)
1024MB SDRAM CL2
Techworks Aureal Vortex2 SuperQuad
Windows 98SE
With these cards:
Matrox M3D (PCX2) 4MB (PowerSGL)
Diamond Stealth II S220 Rendition Verite v2100 4MB (Direct3D)
Resident Evil from Capcom. Initially released on the Playstation in 1996 and for Windows a year later in 1997. The PC release had two versions, one for Direct3D and one exclusive OEM version for the PowerVR card. According to NEC's John Smith, NEC Electronics of Japan paid for the original PowerVR conversion, and refused to give Virgin the rights to distribute it without receiving financial compensation in return. Virgin refused, and the retail version shipped without PowerVR support.
All in all there are not very much difference between the two versions. Both have a good framerate, but in a game like this with pre-rendered backgrounds it is hard to see the advantage of running the game in 800x600 compared to 640x480.
One advantage the PowerVR version has over the Direct3D is that it is less susceptible to speedup issues on faster computers, which you can see in the side by side comparison with the Playstation version.
Captured on hardware:
Asus P3B-F v1.03 (Intel 440BX chipset)
Intel P3 700mhz w/ Slot 1 adapter (10.5x66mhz)
1024MB SDRAM CL2
Techworks Aureal Vortex2 SuperQuad
Windows 98SE
With these cards:
Matrox M3D (PCX2) 4MB (PowerSGL)
Diamond Stealth II S220 Rendition Verite v2100 4MB (Direct3D)
