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Thread: The unreleased PC version of Rave Racer for first-gen PowerVR cards

  1. #1
    Peach (Level 3) parallaxscroll's Avatar
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    Default The unreleased PC version of Rave Racer for first-gen PowerVR cards

    Rave Racer was the arcade-only sequel to Ridge Racer & Ridge Racer 2.

    (arcade version)

    It was released in arcades in 1995 around the time Ridge Racer Revolution was released on PS1 in Japan.

    Rave Racer was a totally different game than
    (and not to be confused with) Rage Racer on PS1
    that came out in late 1996 in Japan and 1997 rest of the world.

    Although the Rave Racer tracks are playable in Ridge Racers for PSP, the original game was never released for home.

    There were rumors / reports about a Nintendo 64 version being in the works but that never materialized. Namco probably canceled plans for it after N64 failed to take Japan by storm. Ridge Racer 64 followed some years later.

    However there was a very real PC version of Rave Racer being developed for the original Videologic PowerVR graphic cards. It was announced in late 1995 or early 1996 along with Air Combat 22 and Tekken 1 or 2, as Namco's support for the PowerVR cards and its native API.

    In November 1995, Namco Ltd., the leading arcade game manufacturer, announced it will be porting games such as "Rave Racer," "Air Combat 22" and "Tekken" to PowerVR.
    PowerVR PC Rave Racer was shown in rolling video form, and perhaps playable versions at trade shows in 1996.


    Here's an article from Next Generation magazine, July 1996 on the prototype PC version for PowerVR cards which was never finished & released.





    I've heard of some playable demos as well as texture mapping work being on CD-ROM for PowerVR developers but never seen anything on that.

    The PC version of Rave Racer was certainly more impressive than the PlayStation version of Ridge Racer, RRR, and was higher resolution than Rage Racer and RR4.

    I think a PS1 version of Rave Racer would've been possible, judging by the extremely impressive work Namco did that resulted in Ridge Racer High Spec (60fps, exellent texture, shading, lighting, 640x480 res or close to it unlike any of the other RR games on PS1) which was included in RR4.

    Thankfully, back in 2002, an emulator was released called VivaNonno which emulates Namco's System 22 arcade hardware pretty well, and EXTREMELY fast, so Rave Racer became playable even on modest PCs, whereas, it's not really playable in MAME.
    Last edited by parallaxscroll; 08-10-2008 at 05:56 PM.

  2. #2
    Cherry (Level 1) LuxKiller65's Avatar
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    Default

    Amazing; thanks for the info. PowerVR cards are among my favourites, I still have all their graphical demos (who recalls the one inside the pyramid?). Would have been nice to have it released to the N64 : (

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    Peach (Level 3) parallaxscroll's Avatar
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    I recall seeing something of a pyramid demo. Either in magazine or on a website.


    I wish I could see the prototype of Namco's never-released, high-end PowerVR-based arcade board, System 33 . It used a MIPS CPU and 4 first-gen, non-consumer (not PC) PowerVR chips. They were something like, either 4 elements of first-gen PowerVR , such as lthe Image Synthesis Processors, or pre-PCX1 consumer varients. I can't remember but either way, System 33 was meant to push 2 million polygons, take on SEGA's MODEL 3 board, and Tekken 3 was supposed to be the first game for it.

    All of that was scrapped though. Tekken 3 ended up on the far, far less powerful System 12 board which itself was basicly 1.5x System 11 / PlayStation1.

    There were even rumors (just rumors) that Sony was going to use PowerVR Highlander (codename for the 2nd-gen PowerVR) in PlayStation2. It ended up that Sega used 2nd-gen PowerVR in Dural/Katana (Dreamcast).

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    Banana (Level 7) Zing's Avatar
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    Ah yes. PowerVR. The video chipset that was doomed from the start because it didn't run GLQuake very well.

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    Peach (Level 3) parallaxscroll's Avatar
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    I'm bumping this thread rather than making a new one on the subject.

    It deserves to have a chance to grow with more conversation.

    Rave Racer is one of my favorite games of all time, and I think it's a crying shame that no home version was ever released. Not counting the Rave Racer tracks that are in PSP Ridge Racers.

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    Apple (Level 5) Emuaust's Avatar
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    Maybe Namco should do a XBLA or PSN port.
    zomg I have a sig

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    Great Puma (Level 12)
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    Quote Originally Posted by parallaxscroll View Post
    I'm bumping this thread rather than making a new one on the subject.

    It deserves to have a chance to grow with more conversation.

    Rave Racer is one of my favorite games of all time, and I think it's a crying shame that no home version was ever released. Not counting the Rave Racer tracks that are in PSP Ridge Racers.
    I think the problem is that there really isn't much to say which is why your last post died. I assumed from the title that a prototype had been discovered and released. This wasn't the case and there really is no point in bumping a dead and worthless topic.

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