[bysmitty]

Here is my list in no particular order.



De Profundis by Kolor, 2001



Kasparov by Elitegroup, 1999



fr-025: the.popular.demo by Farbrausch, 2003



fr-022: ein.schlag by Farbrausch, 2002



Toys by Gods, 1999



fr-038: theta by Farbrausch, 2004



Final Audition by Plastic, 2005



Dream Equation by Floppy, 2002



Aether by MFX, 2005


Anyone else with favorites?

...bysmitty

[bysmitty]

Wow, so far this thread has crashed and burned. It's a niche hobby I guess.

...bysmitty

[Spiwak]

No, it's just you.





But seriously, I tried downloading one and I have no idea what it is.

[bysmitty]

Hmmm... how to describe... Well Wikipedia has it as

The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes itself on producing demos, non-interactive audio-visual presentations, which are run real-time on a computer. The main aim of a demo is to show off better programming, artistic and musical skills over other demogroups.

I more look at it as the most perfect marriage of technology and art possible. All the music and visuals are created from scratch by the team behind it. There is no limits on what can be created too so it is all up to the team's imagination and artistic ability. Generally, all of the visual and music are generated in real time by your computer based on the team's programming, not some frame-by-frame pre-rendered movie. Also, some teams put limits on file sizes you so may get done watching an amazing demo and realize that the source file is 64kb (think "word document" size). I think the best way to get an understanding for the art form is just to watch a handful. Something like the above linked Kasparov is a good example example that still gives me goose bumps after all these years.

...bysmitty

[Spiwak]

Ooh, sounds cool! I'm all for experimental art. I have a decent collection of experimental film and animation.

I'll actually look at some of these, thanks bysmitty.

EDIT: That is, if I can figure out how to work it.

[Gordon Bennett]

My own list is far too long to keep track of, let alone try to list comprehensively.

Offhand I am particularly fond of:

C64:
Trap by Benn and Ratt
Think Twice series by the Judges
a few of the Chicken Song demos from Compunet.
Sid and Vic's firstg demo
Circlesque by Stoat and Tim
Think Twice series by Oxyron, particularly 5, 8, and 12 of course
World of Code by Byterapers
The Last Reactor by React
Triage 3 by Smash Designs
Digital World by Samar
Mathematica by (can't remember at the moment)
Biba 2 by Arise
Spectral by Cosine (Zx spectrum demo tribute)
Alvesta Sirap '88 by Mahoney and Kaktus
actually, anythingby Mahoney and Kaktus
and any of the silly fakedemos by Dinasours
1,000,000 lightyears from earth by Fairlight
Swinth (of course)

Amiga (ocs/ecs)

Enigma by Phenomena (I think)
that megamultiscroller one from Spreadpoint
Ray of Hope 2 by Majic 12
Phantasmagoria by Anarchy
40kb Tracktro by Arise & Drinks
A Feeble Time by (can't remember)
Cebit 90 by RSI
Wayfarer by Spaceballs
Desert Dream by Kefrens
State of the Art by Spaceballs
DOS by Andromeda
KGB Megademo by KGB
Budbrain Megademo 1+2 by Budbrain
bollintro by (can't remember)
Wormhole by Complex
World of Commodore '92 by Silents (i think)
Madness by Anarchy


I am certain that there are many more I am forgetting, and I haven't even started on Amiga AGA, Atari ST, Spectrum, or PC demos, but I am helping take care of children at the moment and can't afford to put too much time into the list. If there is interest I can add more later.

[Spiwak]

OK, so I watched most of the one bysmitty posted. I can say that the ones I liked the most were by Farbrausch, especially fr-025: The Popular Demo. Funky, and it didn't look as rough-around-the-edges as the other ones.

[stepurhan]

I think the original crash and burn may have been becuase no-one knew what you were talking about.

Can you modify the title to be that wikipedia entry?

I shall give these a look. Always willing to try something new.

[Huz]

These look really nice, but my computer would spontaneously combust if I tried to run them on it. I think the last real 'demos' I ran were the benchmark tests from 3D Mark 2001, which blew me away at the time. I imagine they look rather tame now!

Amiga demos were something else though. Not only were they art, they employed sneaky programming tricks to get the most out of the system, manipulating the hardware directly in a way that I presume cannot be done now. Some of the resulting visuals were absolutely astounding for the time, but I don't remember any particular favourites.

It's good to hear that it's a 'scene' that's still alive and well - I haven't really seen or heard anything about it since moving to the PC.

[Spiwak]

Final Audition and Kasparov didn't work on my computer. Final Audition played but at practically negative framerates, so I guess that's my video card's fault even though the diagnostics looked OK. Kasparov just never played, I got some error message or something. Of the other ones, Farbrausch is still my favorite demogroup.

[bysmitty]

You have to really trim back the graphic options on Final Audition. It can bring any computer to its knees. Try using a lower resolution like 800x600 or 640x480, setting antialiasing and anisotropy down to 2x or none, and shadow depth to 256x256. It will lack a bit of definition and gloss but at least it will run.

For Kasparov, just try a different computer. It is an old demo so just about anything above a Pentium 2 with a NVIDIA Riva TNT card should run it fine. I remember vividly that if you try running it on a Voodoo 3 or before, a big message will pop up before the demo starts stating "YOUR VIDEO CARD SUCKS" and that the demo wouldn't run with all the graphic features. My self esteem has never been the same since.

Both Final Audition and Kasparov are in my top 3 fav demos besides fr25.

If anyone is interested in finding out more, I recommend MonoStep's, now out of date, demo site.

...bysmitty

[Spiwak]

Well putting everythnig at their lowest levels possible I got Final Audition to run at probably no more than 8 fps and for some reason no music played although I hadn't selected that option. But nevertheless I could tell the design was simply beautiful, and so organic and lush. Shame I can't fully appreciate it on my computer.

As for Kasparov, it should run if it's a fairly old demo. My PC has 512 Mb RAM and a 128 Mb Nvidia Ge-force FX5500....which I thought would be able to take something from 1999 no problem. What I'm getting when I try to open it is "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application."

[Jayel]

there were a few 256 byte intros I was fond of, but I can't remember...
It's amazing how much code you can squeeze into these things.

[Gordon Bennett]

A good way to see a lot of quality demos that run easily on PCs from the past few years is to get and burn the two epidemic compilation discs from ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/compilations/

It's quicker than going through a long recommendation list. Of course, if you're really interested, then at the very least it is essential to see a good number of C64 and Amiga demos. I've heard it said that the true essence of the demoscene is on the Commodore 64, and I have to agree. The challenge to create something new, interesting, and impressive with the exact same hardware that has been used for the last 25 years is like no other, and the fact that it still continues is nothing short of astonishing.

Take a look at http://www.c64.ch/ for a comprehensive and constantly updated resource, or http://www.demodungeon.com/ for a detailed look at many hand-picked demos along with many screenshots.

[portabello]

A few good places to find quality demos:
demoo
scene.org awards

A few of my personal favorite demos and intros:
moral hard candy
nean der taler
just a touch of funk
starstruck
chimera