A scene ages old, still nothing quite like it! Small but amazingly talented groups (or individuals) pushing old hardware to the fringe: Share some of your favorites! Otherwise, check out http://www.pouet.net/ and http://pdroms.de !
Way too many to list them all, but here are a few: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1p1im_2uf4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmw0StKjYcg Probably forgetting quite a few, but these are my favorites by far.
I don't find PC Demos interesting plainly because you can anything to the hardware to achieve what you want. Conssole and classic computer Demos I really do love.
I used to be into the 64k-and-below prods, but recently the "wild" category has been the most impressive one for me. With things like a PS2 driving three displays at once (with different images of course), a whole console reverse engineered just for a demo, or an audio plug being its own instrument, what's not to love?
As Yakumo says, I don't find PC demos interesting since I know that PCs can do so much anyway. I do like ZX Spectrum and Atari ST demos, as I know what those machines supposedly are capable of, so when I see a demo doing something that I would have thought impossible, then I can appreciate it and be impressed. For the PC, though, this did amaze me - it's a 96kb (96 kilo-bytes) download that when you run it is a graphically impressive first person shooter. As a game, it doesn't have much to recommend it, but as a demonstration of how much you can pack into 98kb, it is *extremely* impressive. By the way, I just downloaded it again to try it, and it crashed to desktop on my Win 7 64 bit desktop. I had to set the compatibility mode to Windows XP SP3, and run it as the Administrator, and then it ran OK. (Go to 1:12 to see the game being played) and download it from http://web.archive.org/web/20110717024227/http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger
Here's some impressive console tech demos SA-1 3D demo [SNES] nu by elix - SNES Demo - The Gathering 2014 Smash It (elix 2014) - SNES Demo 1MB ROM Overdrive by Titan (Sega Mega Drive Demo)The audio on this is very impressive for a Mega Drive
While I can understand where you're coming from, the fact that these demos are running on a PC doesn't make them the least bit less impressive. For example, Second Reality was really showing off what a 486DX33 could do and Dope was pushing the Pentium 1 quite a bit as well. Then again, it's not always about how far you can push the hardware, a lot of the people in the demoscene lack the experience and/or talent to create demos that really push the hardware. So, instead, they focus on the visuals and the audio and while most of these don't really push the envelope, they are very memorable. I completely forgot to mention Into The Shadows, this was supposed to be released sometime during 1996/early 1997. This tech demo is all that ever came out of the whole project, but it was insanely impressive. This was supposed to run on a Pentium 1 :O.
What would a demo capable of maxing out a current-age Xeon/i7 be able to pull off if it were programmed the old fashioned way (x64 ASM with mercilessly efficient manual pipelining)? The results would probably be jaw-dropping but by the time that demo is ready, 5 younger generations of processors would have come and gone.
PC demos still generally aim for a specific platform and parties have a strict rule set on what they allow for competitions. (These days) Usually with older PCs it's dropped in to "oldschool" where you have a P1 level system (133MHz, GUS, ET4000 or similar) or some even push for lower end: 8088&CGA ~ 286/SB/VGA. Other PC competitions can range from 1k/4k/64k/so on.. intros to demos, intros only tend to follow a size limitation and demos which have none. These are generally ran on high-end hardware of it's time. There is still a somewhat active scene for non-3D accelerated stuff and you won't get just anything thrown in there. Gonna namedrop a few suggestions here, these do not even begin to cover some of the really awesome stuff that there is, Generally if you want to see awesome torture then check out Commodore 64 stuff as that system is the most explored I'd say. General high-tech stuff / Comaland > Music tech stuff / Vicious sid 2 > Storytelling by using only text-mode / 20 years is nothing > One of my favourites, plus the end part music kicks ass / The wild bunch > All of these run on a system that is <1MHz (PAL) and 64K of RAM Serious stuff with atari 2600, keep in mind that the more space you use, the more lookups you can have. Oh, and you have 128 BYTES of RAM total (including stack, hope that they never meet) That, and 2 channels of audio with a very limited note count that are actually somewhat in tune Trilobit / Wamma sort of started the demo trend with their stuff, mostly resorting to low storage amount and ear-worm tunes. 8K /Doctor > 4K /Core > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh6QPB6U7xc Later stuff includes: One of the first atari prods that felt like a traditional trackmo / Liquid candy > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM1CbBePcdk And one of the latest things, utilizing full 32K of ROM / Ascend > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcCJM7b9EMU Amstrad CPC has the obligatory batman demo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJosZfm560Q Blew a lot of people away when it came out. Amiga... where to begin You have the OCS / AGA / PPC split generally. Instead of naming all the stuff people had as floppies back in the day anyway, here are some more recent ones for OCS Pretty recent but a really nice remake of an old demo / Rink a dink redux > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cOjC-nhs_o Music bias / Major release > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-9K22jgp-8 Nice flow and design / Boogietown > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQe511Tfeio Then some AGA stuff (Think of VGA/386 like) A popular TBL demo, some really nice graphics /Starstruck > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBzdPtJumEE 4 Kilobytes! Really sweet tune and visuals with minimalism / Ikadalawampu > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK59C936xSI A punk demo with some very nice flow / Jesus christ motocross > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At6JxWg7Rk8 For PPC, there is less stuff to really show. Can't think of any at the moment. Atari ST/STe (Falcon prods are usually multiplatform ports): Really nice music, more about a message than flashy gfx / STe, Church of excellence > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA50pe1EjEE 96K ST prod with some nice code / Natrium > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai8ZVJAA5Z4 Atari 8bit (XL/XE), competitor to c64, faster CPU and more color but less impressive audio and some limitations. Watched this live at the party and fell in love, really nice flow and gfx / Cyberpunk > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twYEWbiiMgM A nice 40K prod with good music and a few effects / Silly things > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98dJzuWvJfQ (bad capture) Ambitious disco themed demo, did mimic a C64 demo a bit but still holds on it's own / Boogie nights > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmA6_wPXkK4 Some unsorted stuff for other systems: PC demo: ASD usually places heavy emphasis on storytelling and visuals / Monolith > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFR-cJ4OM6M PC demo: Fake 80s VHS, not always about being too serious / Computer Graphics Demonstration Tape > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcv3j1aennU MS-DOS: P1-level prod that I captured for Brapers / Relax ants > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AQpyrBhgIs N64, one of the few demos and actually a nice one / MGC 2011 > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoO0Cif72vY Anyway, those are just some If people want to know more or know more about local parties then I'll gladly help. I've been part of organizing pretty much every Finnish demo party for the past few years, along with visiting some abroad frequently.
Thanks for that post oasiz. I never knew the C64 and Amstrad were so capable. I always wanted to check out a demo party but they seem very few and far between outside of Europe.
That is true, there are some in america / japan and russia though! Japan has Tokyo demofest, russia has a bunch of ZX/Pentagon/variant parties (some really cool stuff get released on these!) and America has atparty / demosplash / nvscene There are some other ones as well. From what I have heard, american ones tend to be more serious "meetups", European ones are usually about chilling out, meeting old friends and boozing, along with enjoying the entries / etc.. I can always throw more suggestions if people are curious about something more specific
That's a classic. I used to love the Anthrox Demos back in the day on the SNES. Back then these were pretty cool. In fact there were many cool Demos made by the likes of Anthrox, Elitendo, Nesquick, Censor, Magical and others.
