PC Demos

[carls]

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]

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.

[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?

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.

[carls]

@zolo
I like farbrausch a lot. I loved the poem to a horse intro and I'm downloading the product as we speak!

[carls]

@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 :-)

[carls]

@-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]

@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" ;-)

[carls]

@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]

@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]

@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]

@orgamsatron
Mmm. I really enjoyed the Yodel demo. It made me happy again! :-)