Kyro II & freezeups?

[TuTymeZ]

A week ago I downloaded the demo aquarium .99L and have had nothing but problems getting it to run. Using either one or the three fish it runs for anywhere from 2 minutes to overnight, then freezes. I have to hardboot to get my computer going again. This happens running it as a screensaver and as an application. I have tried and followed every suggestion and setting listed in this forum and the scerenescaver web site but no success. My prophet 4500 is manufactured by Hercules and i have communicated in their forum for several days with no success before turning to this forum. As this is the greatest screen saver i have ever seen i am spending more time trying to solve this problem than i probably should, but I don't want to purchase it if it won't run and i really want it. I have my monitor set to screen size 800X600 and one thing i have noticed is that after freezing and the reboot, the desktop icons on the right side and the bottom have moved as they would if changing to 480X640. This happens everytime. I set my size to 480X640, but still experienced freeze ups. During the freeze up the sound continues and the graphics are excellent. I have absolutely no problems with other applications or games ( need for speed 5 for example) nor do i have any problems running video tests 3d Mark 2000 and village mark. Any help would be appreciated. As a matter of interest i noticed other people in this forum with the Kyro II asking about frame rates. I have consistent rates ranging from 58 to 62 FPS while it is running. Keeping it running is the problem. On the Hercules forum i had people respond with the Kyro II video card who are have had no problems running this screensaver. My system specs are:

PIII 550
256mb of PC100 SDRAM
MoBo - Gigabyte-BX2000
with Intel 440BX AGP chip set
40 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM Harddrive
4.3 GB Quantum Fireball 5400 RPM Hardrive
Creative Ensoniq Soundcard
3D Prophet 4500 64MB Kyro2 Display adapter
Viewsonic GS771 17" Monitor
Direct X 8.0
Windows 98SE
I have the latest drivers for my Kyro II

[Jim Sachs]

Many problems have been reported with the Kyro II card. It uses a non-standard way of drawing polygons which in theory should have increased performance, but in a Direct3D environment seems to slow things to a crawl. This card represents an extremely small market segment (I've never actually seen one). I've been trying for over 2 months to find one for testing, but have gotten very busy lately and haven't had time to follow it up.

“Many problems have been reported with the Kyro II card. It uses a non-standard way of drawing polygons which in theory should have increased performance, but in a Direct3D environment seems to slow things to a crawl.”

The Kyro holds a large % of the market selling in the millions. I recon it’s about 10 to 15% of the market. I don’t fully understand what you mean when you say “in theory should have increased performance, but in a Direct3D environment seems to slow things to a crawl.”

The only time the Kyro slows down to a crawl is when a program has been coded badly. A good example of a badly coded program is GP3 which is just a hacked old full 2D engine to include some 3D. So you get blits, locks
etc all over the place which is very slow on the kyro. As far as I can tell you program is coded well and does not use blits, locks.

Most of the time the Kyro speeds programs up because it only renders what you can see, unlike other card that render everything. If you need any tips on how to make you program friendly for Kyro users I can put you in touch with the guys who write the Kyro drivers. They will be pleased to tell you what type of coding works best with the Kyro. They might even send you a Kyro for testing.

[Jim Sachs]

There's no way I'm going to write a special version just for one type of non-standard card. The Aquarium is written in plain-vanilla Direct3D, and it is up to the card manufacturer to provide drivers which comply with Microsoft's DX requirements.

That’s understandable that you don’t wont to write two versions. What I was trying to say is, if you write strictly to the coding standards that Microsoft layout, then the Kyro will work with no problems. Its only people who do bad coding like GP3 that course problems on the Kyro.

You should take a quick look at www.pvrdev.com/ and check your code is not bad for the Kyro. If its only a few lines of code that need changing then surly its worth your time to open up the your program to millions more users? Then again if it requires lots of coding then I understand why you would not want to do it.

Since I have 3 computers here with a Kyro card in and all 3 run your program without a problem, I think it’s his system that is causing the problem and not your code or the Kyro.

“(I've never actually seen one). I've been trying for over 2 months to find one for testing”
Most Kyro cards don’t say Kyro on the box. Any card that says PowerVR, Vivid, prophet 4500 or lots of other names is a Kyro card. Then again you might live in a area that doesn’t sell one of the above cards.
If you wont one for testing you should really go to www.pvrdev.com/ were all the developer information is. They usually lend or give out Kyro cards to people who ask.


“During the freeze up the sound continues and the graphics are excellent..”
It could be you have power saving functions on. Some of the older Kyro 2 cards (the first batch to be made) don’t start up or shut down after the hard drive or monitor powers down. You can turn these options off or download the new Kyro Bios. Which is not as scary as it sounds as the new programs run in windows and only edits small parts of the Kyro Bios and can recover from bad flashes.

[feldon34]

PowerVR can't be that good. Look at Sega.

PowerVR has very little to do with how well Sega sell its machines.

This isn’t really the place to argue about how good or bad PowerVR is. If you want to continue we should chose another forum or do it by E-mail.

[TuTymeZ]

Just to bring anyone who is interested up to date. I installed the aquarium on an old P150 with an ATI Expert at Play video card based on the rage chip set and it has been running for a over a week. I then removed my 3D prophet II Kyro card from my main computer (PIII 550) and installed an old Voodoo 3 2000. The aquarium has been running with out a problem as a screen saver for 5 days. I believe it is fairly conclusive the Kryo chipset is the problem. Also to Pottsy, my power saving functions have always been disabled.

Try the new Kyro drivers that just came out today. Apart from updating the Kyro Bios I don’t know what else to say.

Generic drivers v9.031! www.powervr.com/downloads.asp

Hercules also have the new drivers on their site. The only difference is there drivers have the correct name for you card.

This screensaver is really amazing with my Kyro 2 (hercules 4500). I used the driver 7.114. I have 170fps (with fraps)with my 1GHz Intel Pentium 3.
But if I install the new drivers (the last two) i have "only" 100 fps and others prbl with other softwares.
Drivers 7.114 are rocks.
For those who have prbl with the screensaver , you must set in the parameter "renderer at last time"...(sorry i'm french speaking and i don't know the exact term in english) .
No freeze, no prbl with this amazing screensaver.
Once again Jim you did a marvellous soft.
I hope to see your butterflies soon but il love your fishs.

[TuTymeZ]

I'm pretty sure I have discovered the problem. The video card is over heating. I had suspicions, although not sure why. I under clocked the card from the default 175 Mhz to 173 Mhz and experianced no freeze ups for a whole day yesterday. As soon as i put it back to 175 it froze within 15 minutes. This morning i put it back to 175, removed the computer cover and it has been running almost all day without freezing. I have a case fan in the front of my case but apparently this is not enough. I really don't feel comfortable cutting holes in my case and installing another fan but it appears that is one choice or buying a new case with the extra cooling already installed is another. What really puzzles me is the aquarium is the only application i am having this problem with. Not even games or when i run video tests like 3d mark 2000 or village mark does this problem appear.

[rnof]

After experiencing numerous problems with the Kyro Video Card and the Aquarium screen saver, I uninstalled the Kyro drivers; rebooted; and let Windows (xp) automatically install the drivers. Everything works fine. Hope this helps.