Namco's Rave Racer for PowerVR cards -could've been on PC-FX

[supergrafxpcengine2]

In 1996,  Namco pledged support for the first-generation PowerVR PC 3D accelerator cards.    Through press releases from NEC and Videologic,   3 Namco arcade games were announced for PowerVR:    Rave Racer,  Air Combat 22 and Tekken

none of them ever came out.


here is Rave Racer on PowerVR, running at 30 FPS  (half the framerate of the arcade)






PowerVR Rave Racer was either an Alpha game, or just a demo.    It was shown off at various industry trade shows in 1996.   It was seen on television.  but it was probably never completed (AFAIK) and definitally never got released....

To me, this is sorta like the 'SuperGrafx Strider'  of unreleased 3D arcade games for the home.


the thing is, there were rumors of a PowerVR card upgrade for the PC-FX.

it makes perfect sense, because NEC manufactured the Videologic-designed PowerVR chips.  NEC and Videologic had this partnership with Namco where Namco would port some of its arcade games to PowerVR as I said.     If NEC had made a PowerVR upgrade for the PC-FX, it is very likely that Namco PowerVR PC games could run on a PowerVR-upgraded PC-FX.

this non-english webpage seems to imply the very same thing, a PowerVR upgrade for PC-FX.  
http://pcengine.free.fr/histo4.htm


Rave Racer - Arcade version





I also remember reading in Intelligent Gamer magazine of a rumor or possibility of a PowerVR upgrade card for the PC-FX.    

a PowerVR upgrade card for PC-FX makes a lot of sense, IMO.

 
It would have solved the PC-FX's issue, of lack of polygon capabilities, which were gutted from the PC-FX of 1994.  remember the original 32-bit NEC-Hudson Ironman system (aka Project Tetsujin) of 1992 apparently had 3D polygon graphics capability, even if limited.  

Now obviously the 3D polygon capable 32-bit Ironman ~ Tetsujin system could not have had nearly as much polygon 3D performance as PowerVR of 1996.

It also seems possible that a PC-style PowerVR card upgrade for PC-FX could have been a reality since the console was shaped much like a PC and had room (a slot) for a PC-style video card,  unlike say, any of the Turbo Duo, SuperGrafx or PC Engine consoles.


Regarding the game Rave Racer itself,  it was an awesome sequel to Ridge Racer and Ridge Racer 2.   Rave Racer never came out on any home platform.  it is not to be confused with the completely different
and unrelated Rage Racer for Playstation.  

in short,
*Rave Racer Arcade - fully made, for the System22 arcade board. released in arcades in 1995

*Rave Racer PC: for powervr 3d cards:  partly made in 1996, never released

*Rave Racer for PC-FX: only a possibility had Rave Racer for PC been completed and released, and if NEC went ahead with a 3D card upgrade for PC-FX.

[Keranu]

WOW! Thanks for the excellent info! I would have loved this see this baby come out for the PC-FX, it might have even brought up it's sales a bit more too. We might have saw some awesome 3D remakes of classic PCE games as well using the support of this card. It's just a shame items like this are never released and we'll never get to experience them.

[zborgerd]

This is pretty fascinating.  Having such an upgrade for the system would have provided a 3D graphics chipset that was well beyond the console competition.  It wasn't until years later that the next generation PowerVR hardware would come out, such as the Dreamcast's PowerVR Series 2DC, or the later STM-fabricated Kyro series.  And even the Dreamcast today has graphics hardware that was beyond the Playstation 2's capabilities.  I've always been a fan of the PowerVR hardware.  It's really a shame that they've not had their tech in a new PC product since the Kyro 2.  PowerVR technology, in the PC-FX, would have been very interesting.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpcengine.free.fr%2Fhisto4.htm&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

[Verythrax]

Sincerely, I doubt that an expansion for PC-FX was even possible - besides an HD add-on or memory expansion, I say.

The only expansion slots in PCFX are RAM expansion slot, memory card slot expansion and a SCSI slot.

I don' t see how was possible to put more processing through that interfaces. The PCFX must need an ISA or PCI (or even an serial) style slot, to receive an upgrade like that.

[Nutribrain]

I would rather say the FX has three slots used for certain things. But as the rear expansion slot can handle data transfer to SCSI devices via a dedicated controller, I think it could be possible to handle also larger scale expansions. BTW, I forgot what the expansion port at the bottom of the console is used for. I think it's not used. Probably this expansion port could has handled such a large scale expansion.
But on the other side, after NEC developed the FXGA with certain 3D capabilities and after they released the SCSI expansion years after they announced them for the PCE, if they had the chance to have a 3D upgrade for the FX I think they would have done it.

[Black Tiger]

Maybe if the PC card that played PC-FX games on computers had taken off, they might've updated future models to include 3D rendering power.

But you know how what ifs go...

[Kaminari]

There never was a PowerVR expansion projet for the FX.

The 3D GPU that equips the FXGA (and should have equiped the PC-FX 3D Adapter) is a HuC6273, a custom chip developed by Hudson and Kubota Comps. Its technical specs are roughly in the same league as the N64 -- about 100.000 polygons/s, 10.000.000 pixels/s, flat shading, Gouraud shading, texture mapping, 320x224 in 512 colours.

[Michael Helgeson]

Well,if you really care to mess with Power VR,play your Dreamcast,or get a Hercules Kyro 2 Power VR agp card.It does not have Hardware TnL,but does enviromental bump mapping.For Direct X 7 generation,its nice.not Voodoo 5500 nice,but nice none the less.

[supergrafxpcengine2]

There never was a PowerVR expansion projet for the FX.

The 3D GPU that equips the FXGA (and should have equiped the PC-FX 3D Adapter) is a HuC6273, a custom chip developed by Hudson and Kubota Comps. Its technical specs are roughly in the same league as the N64 -- about 100.000 polygons/s, 10.000.000 pixels/s, flat shading, Gouraud shading, texture mapping, 320x224 in 512 colours.

wow!  I did not know this at all!

I have only just recently learned of the FXGA, and I really know now anything about it.  I was reading something on it, on that Assembler website.

but I did not know it had an N64-class GPU.   not as powerful as the first generation PowerVR cards (PCX1, PCX2) but still somewhat capable -- and perhaps more capable than what the Tetsujin 3D rendering hardware was going to be, which was axed from the final PC-FX as we all know.

very very interesting, Kaminari. can you tell me more?  is FXGA used for games on the PC-FX, or am I misunderstanding the whole thing ?