pouët.net

keops, as hitchhikr said, for example i would need first to upgrade my 5yo agp mobo (and thus the cpu, and ram too), to host a modern card, which is way more than 70 euros. And considering that i'm using the laptop more (which in normal circumstances i could never afford, but i was lucky and had much more money for a half year period while living in the uk), it is totally out of question at the moment.

So please accept that there are wide economic gaps between different sceners (I guess i'm quite well off compared to some, and still very poor compared to western standards), and that for those on the low end, maybe there are more important things than videocards, and move on. Quietly, if possible.

blala: how about accepting that people develop and show their creativity on the hardware they have, and move on? Quietly, if possible.

I do accept it and totally understand it more than you can imagine since I also had difficulties to buy hardware when I was a student for quite some time.

Still, you have to admit that upgrading your 5 y/o mobo with a gpu, a proc and some ram is VERY far from meaning 1000 euros *every* year ;)

A few months ago my old 6600 burned and I bought an ATI card (2600) that cost me $100 back then and it did not require any MB change on my 3 y/o PC since it was already PCI-E. The up-to-date PC cost me $100 after 3 years of use in the end.

That's why I find the 1000 euros / year totally far fetched ;)

As a side note, I think the whole hardware upgrade madness thing has reached its peak 2 or 3 years ago and a lot of people don't want to upgrade their stable and perfectly working computer anymore.

That's why you still find an huge offer on ATA IDE harddrives (one of mine burnt last friday. I had to buy another and I was just very surprised to see that it's something really common in every capacity...), on RAM (I've been able to find PC3200 modules for my Asus A7N8X-X mobo lately and it was in a simple computer supermarket like those find in suburbs commercial centers) and more particulary on AGP graphic cards. There's still an offer on that.

My GFX card is an 1-year old AGP Gigabyte 7600GS 256 Mb moreover it is SILENT without fans. Perfect for an "audio workstation" like mine and just great for 99% of demos (and some games that I play).

Only 120€ back then ! In 4 years, I spent something like 300€ on my PC. (that GFX card, 1 internal HD, 1 external "WD Mybook" and a DVD-burner)

@scenehub: "I don't think that he actually is one to separate this way" -- thank goodness! Yes, anyone who met me at the partyplace knows I'm not like this. It was just a slang term I picked up two decades ago (and now that I know it's derogatory, I won't use it any more!)

@xerxes: Yep, that's me! I last saw you at Pyro's house, I think.

@everyone who wants the seminar talks: I'll be editing them over the next month and will give them to demoscene.tv to release. Unfortunately I really screwed up and missed Mentor's talk :-( so I hope he releases his slides since I really wanted to see his talk...

"Don't forget 99% of the PCs sold have onboard graphics."

s/PCs/laptops/g

There, fixed that for ya

@sdw: I was mostly in awe of the Andromeda+Orb production, I couldn't move my jaw muscles. Absolutely jaw-dropping. So that's why no applause from me until the end (although I did whoop a bit)

I just finished watching the (unbelievable) demo compo at demoscene.tv. I prefer watching the demos on a stream (full screen with the lights off, of course), rather than watching the demos directly, because I like to watch them with the audience reactions, the reverb of the room, and all that. It's a much more "organic" experience than just watching the dry demo.

I mean one of the most amazing things I can recall (when not being at a party) was watching debris live from breakpoint07 over the stream, over the sound of a hundred of people screaming their heads off in excitement, and people flooding IRC with messages. Since that experience, I always try to watch the stream when I can.

So, it was a bit disappointing that the demo stream had edited out most of the audience reaction, in favor of perfect sound directly from the demo (which is already available from capped.tv, and from the demo itself). I mean, I understand there are technical difficulties with recording such a loud room, like there were times in the 4k intro stream where there was a lot of clipping. But in any case the 4k stream was still great fun to watch. I think it might have been better to compromise, like always have at least 30% audience sound, at most 70% demo sound, and increase the audience sound when appropriate, instead of always having 100% demo sound or 100% audience sound.

Now, if in fact there wasn't that much audience reaction (and I wouldn't know if there was or not), I think that's a problem that can be solved in future NVScenes, if there are any. I mean, some of the scenes were amazing, but it was almost more amazing that there didn't seem to be any audience reaction. But there are techniques for making a group feel more comfortable and less self-conscious, and more used to vocalizing and making noise—I mean besides getting them drunk. Just like how a classroom is quiet at first, and gradually gets more loud, you can do the same for people attending your party. I think Jason Scott is a master at this, though I didn't realize it until I watched this stream just now. The silly stuff at Blockparty like showing Ultrascheisse and bantering before the demos were shown, was not just for fun, but also to set the right mood.

I know this stuff isn't necessary in European parties, and part of the reason is because of the structure of those parties. I don't know how NVScene was structured, but I'm guessing people came into the room and pretty much the first thing they did was watch the 4k intros. In European parties people are usually in the compo room for 1 or 2 days straight before the demos are shown, so by then everyone feels at home, and not at all awkward.

In any case, I'm still glad to have been able to watch the streams! The 4k stream was done perfectly, to me. And everyone did such an amazing job with their prods—I have to go look at a lot of them more closely :)

Holy crap I wrote a lot.

playing soccer costs more than 70 euros?

ok let's investigate. you need:
- a ball

.

Well, if you take soccer seriously and want to play at a competive level (even in the crappy local leagues) you will need shin pads, special soccer shoes etc.

I guess that was what I meant with the 1000euro/year comment. I like demos A LOT, so I have no problem spending 1000e/year to watch the latest and greatest at decent FPS.
The same with football, if you really like the sport you have no problem with dropping some dough on the right equipment.

Sdw: Liking something doesn't automatically mean having money for it. Sure, if you had the money you could (and probably would) do that, but not everyone does.

To illustrate with sports: my brother liked riding motocross a lot, but as he didn't get a sponsor he had to give up because he couldn't afford buying new tires "all the time", and as such the other riders had a huge advantage.

That said, at least to me, watching the video is only a valid option since I know the stuff has been generated realtime on "some machine". It doesn't matter if I have the actual machine or not, I still know it's done realtime. If I knew it was "just a video", I wouldn't be half as interested.

not if you have the money, which was my point. if you're less fortunate, you learn to manage with less. half of senegal also takes soccer very seriously, and they do perfectly fine without shin pads.

my point is, that it's just a bit too easy for western europeans and panamericans to say "come on, just put down some cash and don't whine about it". the point is valid, and it isn't the most expensive hobby out there, but don't forget that money has a whole different value in different places. "dropping some dough" thus means a whole different amount of dough for different people. and yeah, the beer is half the price in romania. wages are a tenth, and computers are exactly the same price as they are here in denmark.

imho, people then saying "buy the gear or shut up" are just a bit short sighted.

notice, though, that nobody complained about hardware being too expensive until people started taking things out of context. ps's point was that realtime is a weird requirement these days considering how we're all fine with watching the videos; the hardware point was just a supporting argument.

darn. that was a response to sdw's post

leijaa: I completely agree on the realtime aspect when watching videos. KNOWING that something runs realtime really adds to the experience.
It's similar to when I am watching demos for oldschool computers (those where I don't yet own the hardware!) in an emulator. Sure the code is executing on my Core2Duo, but knowing that it will run on a ZX Spectrum or something from the 1980s is what gives the "ooh and ahh" feeling.

skrebbel:
Yes, I can understand that there are people who like demos for which the cost of a new graphics card is substantial. However, my guess is that the majority of the demowatching audience is based in EU countries or NA, where the average income does allow most people to get the hardware.

If you don't want to be part of the PC upgrade race, there are active scenes on a lot of fixed platforms like GBA or C64. I have had my C64 for over 20 years, and it still runs the latest demos perfectly! ;)

PC scene has always been about the latest and greatest. I remember roughly the same discussions we are having now taking place after Triton released Crystal Dream 2. "486, that's crazy! People can't be expected yo have a 486 to get your demo to run smoothly". The only difference is that I think it is hell of a lot cheaper to buy a computer that runs the NVScene demos today than it was to buy a 486 back then.

Come on, the demos released every year which actually worth upgrading your hardware to see them running fullframe can be counted on one hand (or two, in lucky years).
It isn't anything new. Back in the days without streams I have always been visiting friends with fat machines (mostly hardcore gamers) in order to be able to be able to be able to run demos I didn't have enough horsepower for.
Back to PS's point, explaining the realtime fetish is becoming harder and harder in the demos department. It still makes lots of sense for intros (4k, 64k) and everything with generative content, but answering the "what's so cool about realtime" question when you are talking about nowadays demos... well, try it with your average joe nearby.

hehe, thrice ? was it so difficult to watch demos ? :D

Well, don't want to be a dog in the manger but a demo ain't a good demo if it keeps ignoring the demo community by using high hardware standards to be able to run.

It's the root goal of demos and it has always been like that otherwise it's pointless. It doesn't mean that demos should still run on Geforce3 or any other kind of elderly graphic card. It just means that folks who have been able to run the latest demos like Lifeforce or Debris on their hardware shouldn't suddenly face the total impossibility to run any of the NVScene top demos...

Even some recent games are more hardware friendly that some of your demos for the same reasons as explained by S(x..k?)rebbel above and Dixan to an extent.

Let's say NVScene prods were just an exception to the rule.

sounds unwittingly excessive ;) what I meant is "the average demo community hardware equipment" that I doubt is made of latest "high-end" equipment by a majority.

i love it when pc people fight platform wars amongst themselves :)

Welcome to the club. That is an issue I have for some time now with some live streams - Assembly.TV does also edit out the hall athmosphere. I also think the compos on the stream should be sound mixed like a live concert.

does "salinga" mean "i'm only here to nag" in german?

This discussion is rather stupid.

In the past, whenever I bought a new computer, the first thing I did was to watch all the demos that did not work on my old machine. I used to buy a new computer roughly every second year. But the number of demos that were really worth watching only on the new machines got fewer and fewer.

This time I waited a full four years until getting a new machine. And the only demos that really benefit from the new machine are stargazer and some plastic productions.

In my opinion the demoscene is far too conservative with the utilization of new hardware. Where is the old demoscene spirit of bringing the hardware to its knees?

And besides that, I don't understand the whining about having to spent money on computers. For most people their computer is the one thing in their possession they spent most time with, so every penny spent on it really pays off. You also don't wear the same clothes for two years, do you?

I do wear the same clothes for two years, partly.

You tend to do that, when you buy quality clothing.

...same set of...

I mean: No really? I change them daily.