Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: carls on August 10, 2003, 01:19:14 PM
-
I've probably said this before, but I feel it's time for another rant. I just downloaded "Protozoa" by "Koolers" and "Relais" by "Kolor" for my PC.
Relais wouldn't even run on my computer because I have a GF 4 MX 440 (so much for hardware abstraction, eh?). This is a card that without problems can run UT2003 in 640x480 and Quake 3 in 1024x768.
Protozoa started but I couldn't stand watching it because it was too slow, it felt like maybe 5 fps or something - and this was with an effect that runs smoothly in many Amiga AGA demos.
Are there any PC demo coders around here? Is it HARD to make demos flow on a PC or does the demo code just plain suck? I found both of them on scene.org's viewing tips page.
Let's just hope the A1 and Pegasos scene does not succumb to the path of code optimization lazyness.
-
carls wrote:
I've probably said this before, but I feel it's time for another rant. I just downloaded "Protozoa" by "Koolers" and "Relais" by "Kolor" for my PC.
Relais wouldn't even run on my computer because I have a GF 4 MX 440 (so much for hardware abstraction, eh?). This is a card that without problems can run UT2003 in 640x480 and Quake 3 in 1024x768.
Protozoa started but I couldn't stand watching it because it was too slow, it felt like maybe 5 fps or something - and this was with an effect that runs smoothly in many Amiga AGA demos.
Are there any PC demo coders around here? Is it HARD to make demos flow on a PC or does the demo code just plain suck? I found both of them on scene.org's viewing tips page.
Let's just hope the A1 and Pegasos scene does not succumb to the path of code optimization lazyness.
The incomparable Black Lotus has released some PC demos that'll make you weep with joy. They're truly works of art.
Frankly I've never had a problem running any PC demos, and my system is rather creaky. I'll have to check out those you mention.
BTW, a GF4 -anything - MX is really only as powerful as a GF2.
-
BTW, a GF4 -anything - MX is really only as powerful as a GF2.
I know it's a pretty "slow" card but like I said, if it can run Quake 3 and UT2003 in high resolutions I think it would be capable of reproducing what AGA can do with C2P 320x256 in 640x480...
Edit:
By the way, I've watched a few TBL PC demos such as Jizz, Astral Blur and Stash but they're several years old and IMHO pretty poorly designed. I'm currently downloading "contour".
I mostly watch 64k wintel intros from the big groups since they are most impressive nowadays, especially when most people are used to 120GB hard drives.
-
Try this one!
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=1221
http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php
And yes! It seems that only a few(prop. ex amigans) master the art of making demos on the PEECEE!
:-)
-
@ carls
Quick question - assuming you're running Windows on the machine with your GeForce 4 MX, what is DVD playback like on it, how high is the CPU usage on it?
I got a GF2 MX for my parents' machine, and the MX model doesn't appear to have the MPEG-2 decoding stuff on it, whereas the GF2 GTS I used to have did. CPU usage was very high (95 ~ 100%) on the machine using the MX card, and about 25% on a P3-866 machine with the GTS.
-
zolo wrote:
Try this one!
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=1221
http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php
And yes! It seems that only a few(prop. ex amigans) master the art of making demos on the PEECEE!
:-)
Ahhh, The Product... an incredible piece of art! :-o
/Martin
-
I feel your pain, carls. Recently I downloaded
quite a few mac demos, preparing to be blown
away...and considering the hardware difference
between my old '060/AGA, I was not very
impressed. Ear - bleeding 1980's sounding glam
rock music, choppy animations, crap effects...?
-
@zolo
Impressive demo. Cant believe they crammed that whole demo into that small of a file. Hope to see some more like that.
-
Anyone who wants to see some decent PC demos should check out Farb-Rausch IMHO.. They have some amazing 64k demos, along with really nice "fullsize" demos too.. They have an Amiga feel to them if you ask me :)
-
True.. probably the reason for being amigaish is that most (if not all) members are from the classic Haujobb demogroup who also is an outgrowth from the real classic group Sanity (who remembers interference?)
So i would say they are pretty much amigaish. :-D
-
Ok, well Farb-Rausch are good, but check this out, fresh from ASM'03!
url=http://www.scene.org/file.php?file=%2Fparties%2F2003%2Fassembly03%2Fdemo%2Flegomania_by_doomsday.zip&fileinfo]Legomania by Doomsday from Scene.org[/url]
-
Quick question - assuming you're running Windows on the machine with your GeForce 4 MX, what is DVD playback like on it, how high is the CPU usage on it?
DVD playback is very smooth. I don't have a real DVD player so I use my PC for it. The TV-out quality is excellent and the CPU usage while playing DVDs isn't noticable - but I've got an Athlon XP 2200+ so I don't think it should be :-) Don't know about any HW MPEG decoding on the GF4 MX440 though.
-
For an incredible 4k intro, check this (http://www.scene.org/file.php?file=%2Fparties%2F2002%2Fmekkasymposium02%2Fin4k%2Film.zip&fileinfo) out.
/Martin
-
@zolo
I like farbrausch a lot. I loved the poem to a horse intro and I'm downloading the product as we speak!
-
@AdMartin
That was a nice 4k indeed. About 15 years ago, people needed Real 3D and a few hours to render images not even half as nice :-)
-
@-D-
Hmm, Mac demos you say. It would be interesting to see something from the Mac scene, I don't think I've even heard of a Mac scener, let alone met one. Are there any DivX versions of those demos available?
-
I was impressed by Liquid... wen? by haujobb
Liquid... wen (http://www.monostep.org/demo/liquid.html) (nearly 9Mb)
This worked even when I had a Geforce2MX !
It didn't meet the DirectX requirements or requirements such as vertex shaders for some demos though, so I got a budget Geforce FX.
-
If you like effects rather than "lets' fly around ANOTHER textured 3D environment" try this too:
Variform by Kewlers (http://www.scene.org/file.php?file=/parties/2002/assembly02/demo/variform_by_kewlers.zip&fileinfo) (8.5 Mb)
GF2 or better, 32Mb or better.
-
GForce TI is better than MX
-
Are there any PC demos out there that do some nice psychedelic realtime fractals? I'm thinking along the lines of "Techno Tracks" by Trojans for AGA.
With all this CPU power available, I'd be nice to see some real math at work. I'm completely bored with transparent vector effects, even of the cell-shaded variety.
-
If you can get ahold of an older PC, you should take a look at the stuff made by Future Crew, particularly their stuff that won the Assembly conventions. Some absolutely amazing stuff, especially considering what it ran on.
They also created one of the best MOD-tracking programs ever developed for PC, and subsequently set the standard for which all other PC tracking programs were judged against for years. Most of their stuff needs to be run in DOS however, and doesn't do too well with anything post Win98SE.
-
carls wrote:
Relais wouldn't even run on my computer because I have a GF 4 MX 440 (so much for hardware abstraction, eh?). This is a card that without problems can run UT2003 in 640x480 and Quake 3 in 1024x768.
This is copied directly from the "Relais" readme file:
. why does it require a geforce 3?
the bump mapping requires vertex shaders, and those are only
supported in hardware on geforce 3 or later cards. also
we use 4 pass multitexturing, n*m textures, 8 stage
register combiners and other extensions only available on those
cards. it does not run on a geforce 4 mx or go because nvidia
screwed up the naming of those cards and they are
actually just gef 2 cards when looking at the specs.
Summary: Quake and the like don't use programmable shaders. "Relais" does.
Protozoa started but I couldn't stand watching it because it was too slow, it felt like maybe 5 fps or something - and this was with an effect that runs smoothly in many Amiga AGA demos.
"Protozoa's" code *is* slow, but even still, there are insane amounts of transluceny in every scene. In fact, the whold damn thing is see-through! This really takes a massive toll on any graphics card, especially an MX card. Games are primarily opaque, with a bit of translucent fire or smoke or similar.
There are demos that will run decent speed on your card, but anything from 2002 or beyond will chug like a fat kid climbing stairs.
Incidently, there were a tonne of cool demos released at Assembly 2003 this past weekend. Thanks to all sorts of nifty things like post-render effects, some even brought my Ti4200 to it's knees...
-
@orgamsatron
But that's my whole point...
If I want to impress my friends with my computer I could buy a GF FX and download one of nVidia's own demos designed particularly for that hardware.
If I want a demo group to impress me with their skills, they'll have to do better than "Your 64MB AGPx4 graphics card is too slow" ;-)
-
@-D-
Hmm, Mac demos you say. It would be interesting to see something from the Mac scene, I don't think I've even heard of a Mac scener, let alone met one. Are there any DivX versions of those demos available?
@carls
I can't seem to find anything on DivX...but from
what I've seen so far you're not missing out
on much (although the search will continue:)).
A good number appear to be "ported" from
Win/Linux sources.
-
i have celeron 500mhz geforge3 Ti200
and its so, ####in slow if i wanna watch demos..
(i mean new demos) its about 7-12 fps whit
sound and 9-16 whitout.
i also have amiga bppc233+voodoo4 4500 and scsi2,
and i have seen very cool demos, running better than
my pc demos.. and i think , the my celeron is much
faster... (in theory :crazy: )
-
@ carls
Can you monitor CPU usage while playing back a DVD please? :-)
-
@mikeymike
I always have the task manager CPU meter in my tray and it never shows any "green" when playing back DVDs.
Edit:
...which means that it never goes above 10% CPU usage AFAIK.
-
@ carls
Thanks. I was a little worried that when you said "nothing noticable" that "noticable" might be "machine grinding to a halt" :-)
Interesting. At least now the GF4MX can go on my recommended list of budget cards.
-
@mikeymike
At least now the GF4MX can go on my recommended list of budget cards.
If you don't want to watch demos, that is ;-)
-
carls wrote:
@orgamsatron
But that's my whole point...
If I want to impress my friends with my computer I could buy a GF FX and download one of nVidia's own demos designed particularly for that hardware.
If I want a demo group to impress me with their skills, they'll have to do better than "Your 64MB AGPx4 graphics card is too slow" ;-)
And like I said, stick to older demos. Simple. Today's newer demos need programmable shaders, which requires both the hardware and a fast CPU to run the realtime interpreter.
The other thing you might try is update drivers, turn off anisotropic (this gives a big framerate hit), turn of antialiasing, etc..
Try these for your card:
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2002/assembly02/demo/32_degrees_in_the_shade_by_yodel.zip
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2002/buenzli02/demo/orion-amour-party-release.zip
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2001/vip3/demo/x%2Brr%2Bf_couloir14.zip
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2002/assembly02/demo/clone_by_critical_mass.zip
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/demos/groups/haujobb/hjb_elef.zip
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2001/remedy01/demo/accel/flt_ettv_final.zip
http://www.idf.net/gods/demos/gds-ifut.zip
http://www.idf.net/gods/demos/gds-toys.zip
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/1999/theparty99/demo/accel/e_kasp21.zip
http://www.digital-murder.org/download/just_a_touch_of_funk_fixed.zip
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2001/theparty01/demo/medium.zip
ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/2000/takeover00/demo/vip2.zip
You also haven't said what your CPU might be. Don't forget, these things are running overtop Windows, which has a HUGE overhead. (Surely as an Amiga user you must know this...)
There's plenty of impressive stuff for your card, just search a little harder. Just don't expect to run Raw Confessions or anything similar.
-
If you would like to be able to make an very respectiable demo for the PC well moppi is good tool as demo maker.
http://moppi.inside.org/demopaja/ (http://moppi.inside.org/demopaja/)
-
by -D- on 2003/8/10 23:14:04
I feel your pain, carls. Recently I downloaded
quite a few mac demos, preparing to be blown
away...and considering the hardware difference
between my old '060/AGA, I was not very
impressed. Ear - bleeding 1980's sounding glam
rock music, choppy animations, crap effects...?
I wasn't very Impressed by any of the OS X demo's cos I couldn't get them to work... Where's the double click easy access gone since OS 9 demos? Not that they were worth seeing! :-o
-
I got a GF2 MX for my parents' machine, and the MX model doesn't appear to have the MPEG-2
my geoforce mx had mpeg2 decoder and that was only a cheap made card.
-
"GeForce" :-)
Hmm, it could be that the mobo in my parents' machine is just plain evil.
-
some very smart demos did not know the pc was so good for these. :-)
-
@orgamsatron
My CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ which I think should be enough for most demos.
I don't think you get my point, though. To me, demos are supposed to look awesome even on slower hardware - compare for example The Castle, Little Nell or Relic running on AGA and a 50MHz 060 and a demo that requires a 2.2GHz P4 and a GF4 Ti4200. Of course the PC demo should be fast! Where did optimization go?
-
@carls
I agree, demos should be optimised. The Product is a good example of that. It's tiny in size and worked fine when I had my old Celeron 266 + TNT2 M64 setup. I haven't seen any demo that, IMO, tops it.
/Martin
-
GeForce
Thanks for the corection i have always caled them geoforce not sure why though and i wont be again. :-)
-
/me is saddened
Everyone is mocking my FeForce 2 MX :( It's got 32Megabytes though! And 4X AGP!
Maybe I should buy something other than what my PC came with ...
-
carls wrote:
@orgamsatron
My CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 2200+ which I think should be enough for most demos.
I don't think you get my point, though. To me, demos are supposed to look awesome even on slower hardware - compare for example The Castle, Little Nell or Relic running on AGA and a 50MHz 060 and a demo that requires a 2.2GHz P4 and a GF4 Ti4200. Of course the PC demo should be fast! Where did optimization go?
Well, it really is a different planet now. In the '80s-'90s, hardware didn't scale - demoing was a show of skill. Today, hardware scales on a weekly basis, and it's... let's say, equally important... to show you can conceive of *anything* that puts it to use. The commodity software scene certainly isn't doing the job (because, let's face it, you can't make *money* off something that only runs on the cutting 0.1% of the PC scene!)...
That said, I haven't really looked, lately. I was amused to find something from MFX? (mfx_d2.tgz, forget if I found it on Scene.org?) for Linux that ran under SDL and FreeBSD's Linuxulation... that whet my appetite, and I went looking for other Linux demos that actually looked like "demos," but seems the few groups who've released have done a poor job of explaining what, exactly, their software requires (and thus is 'doing').
Obviously, to have a 'scene' as open as that some people knew (I was never really around for it), you can't be restricting to rare and expensive hardware... but I think there's room enough for both approaches to have their place.
-
@orgamsatron
Mmm. I really enjoyed the Yodel demo. It made me happy again! :-)
-
I don't think you get my point, though. To me, demos are supposed to look awesome even on slower hardware
How does one define "slower hardware" on a PC? A 486DX, or the budget GeForceFX cards? Both can be considered slow from certain perspectives.
Contrary to yourself, there are people in the PC demoscene who complain current productions don't use enough new features found on the Radeon 9000 or GeForceFX series. It really is a different scene from all other platforms, you're just going to have to accept that.
Try the GameBoy Advance scene, that might be more your style.
- compare for example The Castle, Little Nell or Relic running on AGA and a 50MHz 060 and a demo that requires a 2.2GHz P4 and a GF4 Ti4200.
But these are just relatively simple (by today's standards) 3D flybys running at far less than 60 fps in super low-resolution. Your graphics card can easily run demos similar to this at 1024x768 @ 60 fps.
Okay, I know this is a flawed comparison, but take Relic. It runs at about 160x120 @ 30 fps with an '060 @ 50 MHz. To run it at 1280x960 @ 30 fps, which contains exactly 64 times more pixel surface area, would essentially require 64 times more computing power. 50 MHz x 64 = 3.2 GHz.
Of course this is a pretty flawed comparison for obvious reasons, but it does show that PC demos aren't as slow as you seem to think.
Of course the PC demo should be fast! Where did optimization go?
Optimized like games? They now take several years to develop, a few dozen staff, and millions of dollars. What demogroup has those resources?
Making a good demo with modern hardware requires a much larger precentage of time devoted to design. Moppi Productions only produce one demo a year, and their code seems far from optimized. Yet the design, content, and style of their productions is quite startling. Stunning stuff.
-
If you want a decent 64Kb Demo, be sure to try "Heaven Seven": http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=5
After that no one will ever say that PC Demos suck ;)
@+,
Leo.
-
Ahh the memories... The days of watching Future Crew demos on my 386...