The Display Properties page provides options for turning Direct3D acceleration on and off, and for tuning PowerVR behavior.

The features that you can switch on or off are mainly Direct3D features, giving you the flexibility to fine-tune your system on a per-application basis. Most applications will however run perfectly well with all Direct3D features switched on.


This is used to turn on and off the PowerVR Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). The HAL provides the interface between the PowerVR hardware, and the Direct3D software it is running. Turning off the PowerVR HAL temporarily stops PowerVR from accelerating Direct3D, allowing you to run Direct3D applications or games through software, or through another 3D accelerator.


This switches between maximizing PowerVR acceleration, which you would use for most modern systems, and ensuring that the card works with older 2D accelerators. If you want to take full advantage of PowerVR acceleration, select Optimized. If you notice problems with rendering, if textures are corrupted or missing, if the display is corrupted, or if your machine crashes, then try setting this to Standard.

If you are running an older 2D accelerator, please make sure that you have the latest drivers. For example, if you have a Matrox card, many of the problems you might have with PowerVR will be avoided by running version 3.63 of the drivers or later.


The Advanced page enables you to optimize PowerVR performance and quality for specific applications. It overrides the equivalent settings made by the application. Although most applications do not require any advanced settings, you can add, edit or remove your own settings.

You can reset an entry to its default PowerVR settings. If you want to remove an application’s settings completely, delete them.


Hint Settings enable you to optimize PowerVR performance and quality for specific applications. They override the equivalent settings made by the application. Although most applications do not require any advanced settings, you can add, edit or remove your own settings.

You can reset an entry to its default PowerVR settings. If you want to remove an application’s settings completely, delete them.


The PowerVR HAL is application-specific, so you can save different settings for different applications. You can Add, Edit, Delete and Reset application settings.


Render Overlap controls the way in which the hardware and software interact when rendering 3D. Without Render Overlap, the hardware and software render at different times. With Render Overlap selected, the hardware and software can render at the same time.

Turn Render Overlap off if your screen is updating slowly, with symptoms such as menus or dialog boxes not appearing, otherwise leave it on to improve performance.


Allow Quads enables PowerVR to process sets of triangles as single, four-sided objects.

Turn Allow Quads off if there are distorted objects on the screen, otherwise leave it on to improve performance.


Need 3D on 2D enables you to turn 2D/3D compositing on or off. 2D/3D compositing is used when a 3D object is moving on a complex 2D background.

You would turn 2D/3D compositing on if an application displayed a halo of solid color around objects, such as in the example below:


MIP mapping is used to improve image quality as an object moves into the distance, by using smaller and smaller resolutions of the same texture.

If textures are missing or corrupted, turn Automatic MIP Mapping off. You can turn it on for image quality enhancement, but this may reduce frame rates in some games.


Display Properties
The Display Properties page

The Display Properties page enables you to turn PowerVR Direct3D acceleration on and off, and to control specific aspects of PowerVR behavior in your system.

PowerVR accelerates Direct3D through the the PowerVR Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). The HAL provides the interface between the PowerVR hardware, and the Direct3D software it is running. Turning off the PowerVR HAL temporarily stops PowerVR from accelerating Direct3D, allowing you to run Direct3D applications or games through software, or through another 3D accelerator.

The features that you can switch on or off are mainly Direct3D features. Most applications will run perfectly well with all Direct3D features switched on; however, the control panel gives you the flexibility to fine-tune your system on a per-application basis.

Below are some of the situations in which you might want to use the PowerVR Control Panel. Refer to the Apocalypse readme for more information.

Problem:	When using a Matrox display card, my computer hangs when a Direct3D game goes into full screen.

Solution:	Update your Matrox display drivers to v3.63 or later.

Solution:	If using earlier drivers, set the 3D Accelerationto to Optimized.

Problem:	When deleting an entry from the Application Hints list, clicking the OK button has no effect.

Solution:	After confirming the deletion on the selected application hint, select another application hint from the list prior to clicking the OK button.

Problem:	Some textures within the game are corrupt

Solution:	Enable Automatic MIP Mapping for the game.

Problem:	All game menus are displayed correctly but when playing a game, it fails to display the screen correctly.

Solution:	Enable Render Overlap for the game.

Problem:	Mouse control in Direct3D applications is very jerky.

Solution:	Select Optimized under 3D Acceleration.


Enable PowerVR HAL

This is used to turn on and off the PowerVR Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). The HAL provides the interface between the PowerVR hardware, and the Direct3D software it is running. Turning off the PowerVR HAL temporarily stops PowerVR from accelerating Direct3D, allowing you to run Direct3D applications or games through software, or through another 3D accelerator.


3D Acceleration

This switches between maximizing PowerVR acceleration, which you would use for most modern systems, and ensuring that the card works with older 2D accelerators. If you want to take full advantage of PowerVR acceleration, select Optimized. If you notice problems with rendering, if textures are corrupted or missing, if the display is corrupted, or if your machine crashes, then try setting this to Standard.

If you are running an older 2D accelerator, please make sure that you have the latest drivers. For example, if you have a Matrox card, many of the problems you might have with PowerVR will be avoided by running version 3.63 of the drivers or later.


Advanced Settings

The Advanced page enables you to optimize PowerVR performance and quality for specific applications. It overrides the equivalent settings made by the application. Although most applications do not require any advanced settings, you can add, edit or remove your own settings.

You can reset an entry to its default PowerVR settings. If you want to remove an application’s settings completely, delete them.


Hint Settings

Hint Settings enable you to optimize PowerVR performance and quality for specific applications. They override the equivalent settings made by the application. Although most applications do not require any advanced settings, you can add, edit or remove your own settings.

You can reset an entry to its default PowerVR settings. If you want to remove an application’s settings completely, delete them.


Application Details

The PowerVR HAL is application-specific, so you can save different settings for different applications.

Adding an entry

To add an entry to the application list:

1.	Click Add. The Add Application dialog box is displayed.

2.	Type in the description of the game or application you want to add.

3.	Type in or browse to the file that this game or application runs.

4.	Click OK.

5.	Change the settings you want.

6.	Click OK.

Editing an entry

To edit an entry on the application list:

1.	Select the game or application you want to edit, and click Edit. The Edit Application Details dialog box is displayed.

2.	Edit the description of the game or application.

3.	Edit or browse to the program that the game or application runs, and click OK.

4.	Change the settings you want.

5.	Click OK.

Deleting an entry

Deleting an entry from the list removes its PowerVR Display Properties settings, so that the game or application’s own settings are used.

To delete an entry from the application list:

1.	Click Delete. A message is displayed asking whether you want to delete just the selected game or application, or all of them.

2.	Click Selected.

Deleting all of the entries

You can delete all of the entries on the list.

To delete all entries:

1.	Click Delete. A message is displayed asking whether you want to delete just the selected game or application, or all of them.

2.	Click All.

Resetting an entry

You can reset an entry to its default PowerVR settings. If you want to remove an application’s settings completely, delete them by following the steps given above.

To reset an entry on the list:

1.	Select the game or application you want to reset, and click Reset. A message is displayed asking whether you want to reset just the selected game or application, or all of them.

2.	Click Selected.

Resetting all of the entries

You can reset all of the entries on the list to their default PowerVR settings.

To reset all entries:

1.	Click Reset. A message is displayed asking whether you want to reset just the selected game or application, or all of them.

2.	Click All.


Render Overlap

Render Overlap controls the way in which the hardware and software interact when rendering 3D. Without Render Overlap, the hardware and software render at different times. With Render Overlap selected, the hardware and software can render at the same time.

Turn Render Overlap off if your screen is updating slowly, with symptoms such as menus or dialog boxes not appearing, otherwise leave it on to improve performance.


Allow Quads

Allow Quads enables PowerVR to process sets of triangles as single, four-sided objects.

Turn Allow Quads off if there are distorted objects on the screen, otherwise leave it on to improve performance.


Need 2D on 3D
Need 3D on 2D

Need 3D on 2D enables you to turn 2D/3D compositing on or off. 2D/3D compositing is used when a 3D object is moving on a complex 2D background.

You would turn 2D/3D compositing on if an application displayed a halo of solid color around objects, such as in the example below:


Automatic MIP Mapping

MIP mapping is used to improve image quality as an object moves into the distance, by using smaller and smaller resolutions of the same texture.

If textures are missing or corrupted, turn Automatic MIP Mapping off. You can turn it on for image quality enhancement, but this may reduce frame rates in some games.