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Maybe this is a mixup (to much Silents: The Silents, Silents DK, Silents PC ...)

Another classic DOS demo and the soundtrack by Jesper Kyd is still in my ears. But this is also one of the most difficult to run demos. The last time that I could run it completly was probably with my old Pentium-200. Now it's not running at all :(

Can't get it to run either but I never forgot this demo....the music rules!

As for me. I have never ever ever succeeded in running this demo! Not in my current Pentium's of course, but also not in my old 386, 486's I have home. I have AMD 386 DX40, Intel 486DX/66, Isa Trident 1MB and also some Local Bus card, Sound blaster 1.0 (not the Pro, but the first model) and what the hell?! I also know to switch to EMS, XMS, with too much conventional memory, etc.. but nothing worked. Waiting in a black screen...

What are the suggested configurations? EMS or XMS or no memory managers at all? The only thing I have never tried in my DOS times is a memory programm called QEMM. I have just heard from a friend it was very good and famous and perhaps I should try that instead for better memory management and perhaps I will be able to run this demo too...

Someone having any screenshots from this demo please? We should consider doing DivX of old PC demos that cannot run anymore (Some of them cannot run also in old configurations, ugh! I guess only in the coder's machine can they be watched ;P)

I would definitelly want to watch this demo. There are also others that I missed even now I have some old configurations..

this ruled... i succeeded only one time in running this demo...
the coder has rewritten the whole system (u don't need to launch a memory manager).
Just launch the system with an empty config.sys and autoexec.bat.
But it seems the tsl system has some problems with the file system and the demo must be stored in a linear way on disk...

Linear way??? What does this means?! How can I try this???????

I did manage to get this to run, once. And it rocked (I really loved the Voxel). Too bad the compatibility sucks so much.

optimus: defragmenting the hd, maybe? (I have no idea what spengler means either, but I'm assuming)

No memory managers needed by this demo, indeed. But the chance is also better with older MSDOS version (at least no DOS 7.x, before switching to DOS 7.1 I was at least able to watch about 50% of this baby).

Still haven't managed to run it. Wondering if it is a configuration/OS (I use DOS6.22) or hardware matter..

Configuration: Tried without any memory managers of course, with SB or without it, with some lines which say FILES=xx, etc.. or without them. With some random things in the BIOS or not. With a 486DX33 and with a 486DX2/66. With the Local Bus or with my old ISA gfx card (Btw,. with this one, it rebooted after the black screen). Nothing! Perhaps I should get some other motherboards and try (Am thinking to find the fastest 486/133 and a PCI motherboard in the near future, found a store) Still, still, can't run it!!! I was so mad at it one day that I tried to debug it with the DOS command debug!!! Really, really, really can't run it. I wish someone would make an DivX video of it at least, if not I will try to do after I succeed running it. Do you know if it's a hardware problem? Does it want DX or SX is enough? At which Mhz? What memory does it needs???

A pain in the ass. As Facts of Life is too. I think I have ranned this one a long time ago in a Cyrix 486, though I was to small to remember what I did to achieve running it..

haha optimus, facts of life runs in my win98 dosbox without any tricks :)
never ever managed to run this one though...

"what about organizing a compo at parties 'runs optic nerve on this pc? '
;)" -- access, on how difficult it is to run Optic Nerve

(source: http://www.oldskool.org/demos/misc/demoquot.txt)

P.S. I have finally ran Facts of Life though. Low khz sound frequency and it's possible to overpass the point that crashed..

i got it running it today, but it always crash in the gouraud shading part.. fukcfukcfukcfukcfukcfukc :)

i thought i would mention, with utter amazement, that this demo actually runs in dosbox without a hitch (just disable xms/ems/dpmi first). jeesh, it took 10 years and an emulator for me to finally see the whole thing. :P

Same goes for me, IMHO the people behind dosbox deserve a scene.org award this year for special achievements :-) This is not the only "troublesome" demo which I can now run (again).

Very well technically. If Dosbox is still so slow here (I now see it is because sound jitters even when it seems to go fast enough) and this demo can still run at a descent speed, it's great. What kind of computer is 12000 cycles..

But,. haven't you got in few of the runs a gouraud Taurus instead of a mask? I don't know when this happens..

A really excellent demo! Love the voxel part... Too bad they didn't do any more demos...

Wow! What a nostalgia trip running this on Dosbox. I was there at ASM93 watching this and re-viewing it surely brought back memories.

Too bad that the rematch at The Party '93 between FC and TSL never happened. Would have been fun to see more stuff from TSL - they sure knew their shit back then.

yes.

never manage to run this one but the music ruled!

that demo had so much impact to me, even if I only remember seeing this once.. and that was great luck!

Aaaa! I got it running. The trick: using the latest DosBOX, 0.73. I was neither able to run this with the earlier version of the DosBOX, nor the real HW.

Now the comments I've been eager to give over 16 years: well, it's ok :-).

If You try the same with years and years after trying, note that all memory options in dosbox.conf (xms, ems, umb) should be changed as "false" and do NOT patch the demo with opticpat.exe. Phew!

Rocked.

Nice.

Nice voxel !

Not bad, but not good either... The music is especially annoying

Quite good music for its time. Voxels and the monochrimatic plasma are nice too.

Well, here we are again; It does _not_ run in DOSBox anymore (or the DAUM build breaks stuff) AND both videos are down. :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW1K9owKNUc

I got it running in DOSBox SVN-Daum (build July 25 2013).

Download a fresh copy of optic.exe, and do not run opticpat.exe.

core/cpu/cycles = auto/auto/max
memsize > 4 (mb)
xms, ems, and umb = all false like said above
machine=svga_et4000, because vgaonly or svga_s3 show a bunch of garbage on the title/credit screens
The default sound settings (sb16 at 220/7/1) should work.

My build is slightly more recent (Nov 17 2013), but yes, it works. I changed the audio exclusively to SB Pro 1 though, otherwise I get a black screen again. VERY fickle demo, this. :)

With some troubles and tries I funally run it!. And it, of course, rocks.
Configuration is Pentium 200 MMX (at 250 MHz), 16 MB EDO, Cirrus Logic GD5401, 1 GB Western Digital HDD (with 100 mb FAT16 partition), Sound Blaster 32 (CT3600).
How you can run it on real hardware? Just forget about DOS 7.1+ and ANY memory managers (HIMEM\EMM386\QEMM) and place optic.exe in linear cluster order on your HDD (defragmentation may help you, but i'm not sure).

Breakthrough.

cool voxels

Great tune, smooth voxel landscape, but the rest really doesn't live up to its competitor. ;)

Nice tune by Jesper Kyd and good effects, voxel looks great.

very advanced for a 93er prod ! I really like the voxel landscape ..

I had both Amiga and PC at that time, and the voxel was impressive at that time. I remember the game Comanche from 1992 which used voxels and that really made the PC stand out from the Amiga. And hell, i remember i had to configure the autoexec.bat and config.sys files to run games/demos :)

Amazing 93" voxel.

nice voxel and zoomer, but the rest is a mixed experience IMHO.

Wow, the voxel is excellent. Otherwise a pretty mediocre demo.

Well I wasn't able to run under current classic version of DosBox (NO SVN!) and it didn't work after all. But music is good.

I just found the Taurus secret gouraud object.

It only appears if date happens to be on Tuesday, you can set date on DOS to find it or just run the demo on a Tuesday :)

I deleted that link.
https://youtu.be/nD6OTXKJNFo?t=135

dat voxel

Looks way more modern than second reality. But really shorter

Very nice!