technically advanced demos
category: general [glöplog]
Back in the day when demos used to push the computer's capabilities right to the limits they always amazed me how they managed to create such audio and visual feats with the hardware they were working on.
Are there any nuskool demos around now that push pc hardware right to its limits?
I've seen some very good demos on here but most of them are made to look oldskool and therefore aren't pushing the pc to its limits. I'm not saying that inorder for a demo to be good it has to be technically advanced but it would be nice to see something that is utilising the pc potential to its full.
Maybe its impossible as there is such a mix of hardware out there and demos that were created for systems such as the amiga were written for a specific piece of hardware.
Are there any nuskool demos around now that push pc hardware right to its limits?
I've seen some very good demos on here but most of them are made to look oldskool and therefore aren't pushing the pc to its limits. I'm not saying that inorder for a demo to be good it has to be technically advanced but it would be nice to see something that is utilising the pc potential to its full.
Maybe its impossible as there is such a mix of hardware out there and demos that were created for systems such as the amiga were written for a specific piece of hardware.
3DMark
no-one dares to create them as people who can't watch it scream of non-solidarity and the right to watch every demo under whatever hardware and platform available.
true, true.
nelius: word!
There are many technically-oriented "coderprods" available, but don't except popularity among anti-code sites like this :P
There are many technically-oriented "coderprods" available, but don't except popularity among anti-code sites like this :P
sorta why I like the idea of flash demos as the program is the limitation so to speak and it is possible to code impressing effects
www.phong.com shows that trippy rotozooming motion blurring fractal type effects can be achieved
but flash is a huge waste of resources which causes even siimple blurry effects to run like sh*te even on a 1.3ghz machine!
I haven't looked into the demoscene for years and in a way I was expecting handfuls of demos to be coded for specific cards. You see the capabilities of certain cards on the nvidia and ati websites and I thought it would be the sceners that would be utilising that potential to the full.
but as Jcl said you would get people screaming that they can't see certain demos but you can't please everyone.
www.phong.com shows that trippy rotozooming motion blurring fractal type effects can be achieved
but flash is a huge waste of resources which causes even siimple blurry effects to run like sh*te even on a 1.3ghz machine!
I haven't looked into the demoscene for years and in a way I was expecting handfuls of demos to be coded for specific cards. You see the capabilities of certain cards on the nvidia and ati websites and I thought it would be the sceners that would be utilising that potential to the full.
but as Jcl said you would get people screaming that they can't see certain demos but you can't please everyone.
no-one dares to create them
That must be a typo. A "c" instead of a "d" seems to be more appropriate. Most sceners just don't have the latest hardware (f.e. because they are still students and can't effort it or think it's not worth it), so they code on and for the machines they have. The few that have advanced hardware will make use of it.
That must be a typo. A "c" instead of a "d" seems to be more appropriate. Most sceners just don't have the latest hardware (f.e. because they are still students and can't effort it or think it's not worth it), so they code on and for the machines they have. The few that have advanced hardware will make use of it.
In nowadays demoscene the secret lies in pleasing everyone through maintaining entertainment level on the widest spectrum of machines ;)
Tomaes:
The point beeing that the "few" sceners producing for high-end enviroments get bashed at a regular basis by those with inadequate hardware.
It's like forcing all military forces to use only ak-47's, as some armies don't have the budget to get the newest fragmachine.
The point beeing that the "few" sceners producing for high-end enviroments get bashed at a regular basis by those with inadequate hardware.
It's like forcing all military forces to use only ak-47's, as some armies don't have the budget to get the newest fragmachine.
nelius: Providing an additional divx version should solve that problem quite well. The only ones still screaming are those with obsolete hardware AND low bandwidth. :)
Well, not all people can/want to buy new 3d accelerators, so high end 3d demos will not work at all on their PCs. However, everyone has a CPU in their system, and no matter how crappy it is, it can still run state-of-the-art real-time raytracing demos. Even if they run at 3 SPF (seconds per frame).
Tomaes: And that only include Sweden :)
ie: true, it's easier to put more and more into smaller and smaller releases than to keep up with all the new technologies... not to mention that size restrictions don't require the latest hw at all... :)
what a comparaison.. war and scene
nelius: the fucking point is that almost all of them are rightfully bashed because the results obtained using those new-ass features were not halfway as impressive as they should've been. just using something doesn't cut it, allthough that fact doesn't really compute with most of those "platform pushing people" here.
I think good 4K'ers and 64K'ers carry forward the torch of pushing limits -- although not hardware limits.
It's kinda pointless pushing a PC's hardware because advancements happen almost daily. Besides, there are far too many different configurations to contend with.
It's kinda pointless pushing a PC's hardware because advancements happen almost daily. Besides, there are far too many different configurations to contend with.
plek: so let's all be happy with status qou and not even let people try the new stuff, as making starfields in 4k is more entertaining and certainly more impressive. The bashing is about the stuff beeing targeted to high-end computers, not looking ugly... that's a whole other ballgame.
I belive there are huge areas not only in size optimization still undiscovered, and trashing people that go in either extreme direction just because they go in an extreme direction is wrong. As for the products not matching certain standards.. You just don't get it right on the first coulpe of tries. But if you don't trie, you never will. And waiting to release a prod untill you master the new stuff would be a neverending story.
I belive there are huge areas not only in size optimization still undiscovered, and trashing people that go in either extreme direction just because they go in an extreme direction is wrong. As for the products not matching certain standards.. You just don't get it right on the first coulpe of tries. But if you don't trie, you never will. And waiting to release a prod untill you master the new stuff would be a neverending story.
nah, if more groups just pushed the compo machine, we'd see the type of demos hypnoshock is talking about.
more importantly, coding an effect that doesn't run on most ("old") pc hardware is easy, but certainly not technically impressive.
and most of the things that come out which require new hardware certainly don't push the limits, they do exactly what that hardware is supposed to do, the way it's meant to be done (yes, i'm talking 3dmark here). it's certainly and achievement to just halfways keep up with what's new in current hardware because the whole thing develops (=changes) far more faster than most people can produce sensible content, but it's got nothing to do with "pushing the limits".
no one will ever do pc demos that are anywhere near as close to "pushing the limits" as e.g. mid-90 a500 demos were - first, pc is such an extremely loosely defined platform that you can't even get that lowlevel without sacrificing compatibility with basically everything, and second, if you take the time necessary to really understand a current PCs hardware that well and detailed, the (hardware) parts you're using will already be out of production by the time you're ready to START working on your demo.
that doesn't mean that it's senseless to try, but only that you won't get anywhere near actual "pushing the limits" of actual, current hardware. when you get past that demand and "only" ask for technical excellence in a scale that is reasonably possible, you'll see plenty of that in current demos; look at all the realtime raytracing demos (though they're only pushing the cpu part ;) or some of the cute tricks that recently have been going around the scene :) (and no, using automatic mipmap generation and upsampling to "blur" is neither technically interesting NOR goodlooking ;)
and most of the things that come out which require new hardware certainly don't push the limits, they do exactly what that hardware is supposed to do, the way it's meant to be done (yes, i'm talking 3dmark here). it's certainly and achievement to just halfways keep up with what's new in current hardware because the whole thing develops (=changes) far more faster than most people can produce sensible content, but it's got nothing to do with "pushing the limits".
no one will ever do pc demos that are anywhere near as close to "pushing the limits" as e.g. mid-90 a500 demos were - first, pc is such an extremely loosely defined platform that you can't even get that lowlevel without sacrificing compatibility with basically everything, and second, if you take the time necessary to really understand a current PCs hardware that well and detailed, the (hardware) parts you're using will already be out of production by the time you're ready to START working on your demo.
that doesn't mean that it's senseless to try, but only that you won't get anywhere near actual "pushing the limits" of actual, current hardware. when you get past that demand and "only" ask for technical excellence in a scale that is reasonably possible, you'll see plenty of that in current demos; look at all the realtime raytracing demos (though they're only pushing the cpu part ;) or some of the cute tricks that recently have been going around the scene :) (and no, using automatic mipmap generation and upsampling to "blur" is neither technically interesting NOR goodlooking ;)
Very well said, Ryg.
there's two separate issues here i think.
"pushing the limits" is something that doesnt happen much these days, although perhaps today the focus is moving away from exploiting interesting hardware tricks to a more algorithmic challenge. its a shame that, for example, no current demo as far as i know implemented spherical harmonic lighting - not so much a hardware coding challenge but a good example of an algorithmic challenge. the scene is way behind other groups of people in terms of finding or using new graphical techniques and algorithms.
however, the other issue is something i find really annoying. the fact that in the scene, if you make a demo which requires even a geforce 3, which is a fucking 3 year old card, you'll get slated for it. even if you make reasonably good use of it. please, scene, join this century. far from being a question of demos pushing the hardware, they arent making use of current or even previous generation hardware. most demos are still stuck to being written for dx7-class cards.
look at it like this. few people make perfect or groundbreaking use of a piece of hardware the first time they code on it. it takes some practice. if scene coders are allowed to use the hardware, after a little while they will make something good on it. but if you dont own even a dx8-class card, dont get upset when a demo doesnt run or look its best (if the coder bothered to write fallbacks) - just accept you're behind the times, please.
oh, and also realise that graphics card drivers are usually shit, and the source of many problems.
finally, if you really want to go "push the hardware", get a ps2 and code on that, its the perfect platform for it.
thats my 2 pence over..
"pushing the limits" is something that doesnt happen much these days, although perhaps today the focus is moving away from exploiting interesting hardware tricks to a more algorithmic challenge. its a shame that, for example, no current demo as far as i know implemented spherical harmonic lighting - not so much a hardware coding challenge but a good example of an algorithmic challenge. the scene is way behind other groups of people in terms of finding or using new graphical techniques and algorithms.
however, the other issue is something i find really annoying. the fact that in the scene, if you make a demo which requires even a geforce 3, which is a fucking 3 year old card, you'll get slated for it. even if you make reasonably good use of it. please, scene, join this century. far from being a question of demos pushing the hardware, they arent making use of current or even previous generation hardware. most demos are still stuck to being written for dx7-class cards.
look at it like this. few people make perfect or groundbreaking use of a piece of hardware the first time they code on it. it takes some practice. if scene coders are allowed to use the hardware, after a little while they will make something good on it. but if you dont own even a dx8-class card, dont get upset when a demo doesnt run or look its best (if the coder bothered to write fallbacks) - just accept you're behind the times, please.
oh, and also realise that graphics card drivers are usually shit, and the source of many problems.
finally, if you really want to go "push the hardware", get a ps2 and code on that, its the perfect platform for it.
thats my 2 pence over..
No one will complain about you using a DX9 card or special OGL extensions if you put the demo in the wild compo rather than the demo compo...
I really love to discuss about this topic but i have no time ...
Instead i pick up few comment that were made about Our last demo.
Some pouet user truly suck. Guess who :)
-requires a geforce3, thus i didn't even download it.
-GF3 needed ?Die and get oldschool releases instead of burning CPU power.
Instead i pick up few comment that were made about Our last demo.
Some pouet user truly suck. Guess who :)
-requires a geforce3, thus i didn't even download it.
-GF3 needed ?Die and get oldschool releases instead of burning CPU power.
ts: why should we, when at least quite a few parties actually allow dx9-class cards to be used in the democompo? its the people downloading the demos later who are the problem.