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3D acceleration kills the demoscene

category: offtopic [glöplog]
I was sitting in the park, and suddendly I smelled the stench of this thread from there. So I had to come over to my computer to join the crapfest and, oh boy, is it fun!.

Whomever that thinks that writing software accelerated computer graphics is ANY easier than software rendering is devoid of brain. Using the accelerator sometimes is AS challenging if not MORE (buggy drivers or silly limitations anyone?) than writing a software renderer. While using HW accel sometimes the problems you face are so fucked up and twisted that you wished you've done it in SW in the first place.

So you man, either you are trolling 'cos you were bored, or you've NEVER written a HW accel effect, or you are being paid to keep the people away from their compilers.
added on the 2002-03-13 01:20:02 by sin sin
case closed.
added on the 2002-03-13 02:27:03 by superplek superplek
- famous last words
added on the 2002-03-13 06:18:48 by reed reed
... been reading "demoscene is dying" articles for eight years.. argh :P
added on the 2002-03-13 09:08:28 by chavez chavez
SIN, you're right.
hw accel can give you problems you never knew before while writing fx that were the easiest task in sw but now don't want to work in hw.
added on the 2002-03-13 09:59:36 by styx^hcr styx^hcr
most "driver bugs" people tend to discover (that includes me) are in fact correct behavior of the drivers and wrong code on your side.
still, finding out what you're doing wrong can be a HELL of a task

and in case you encounter a real driver bug, well, now then the fun REALLY starts...
(still searching for a workaround to get fr013 run on matrox cards)
added on the 2002-03-13 12:37:23 by ryg ryg
i HATE (and i've always hated) when people who, because they don't like the discussion or they don't know what to say or whatever, say "Case closed", "End of discussion", "Until here", "We finished", etc... i think that they just don't have the right to say that!

Discussion(s) will continue until nobody wants to tell something... for those who doesn't like it, just don't see it. It's so simple and more democratic..
added on the 2002-03-13 13:00:16 by BadSector BadSector
ryg, I didn't say those problems were driver bugs, it's just that you often have to think around several corners when using hw accel. and yes, debugging hw code is usually something like...hardcore.
btw, making demos/intros run on matrox card is always a real pain in the ass. it took ages to make our last vesa-demo run on the matrox of our modeller =))
added on the 2002-03-13 13:03:20 by styx^hcr styx^hcr
Ok,. we should stop bitching each other! Let me code my DOOSSS :)
added on the 2002-03-13 13:05:33 by Optimus Optimus

To tell you the truth, I am a bit tired with the PC :(
It may be the machine I first learned the demos (But because it was impossible to see the first demos first from my CPC at 1998) I have many memories from there, but I can't be that fan of it and neither have fun with it..

Just fights and again fights, fights about diferrent OSes, fucking incompatibilities, slow code, upgrades and again upgrades, me beeing a lazy bitch to get in new things, disliking C, bored with PC beeing a monster, till I learn it I will be in paleolithic time.. learning the hard truth that I should follow the standard,. beeing afraid to accept but still not getting the spirit of the demoscene as I learned it back then. Ok,. I don't like PC that much for a demoscene (But I want go away, I have ideas (Perhaps mostly DOS, if not Win,. ok I don't care silly me ;P )) but I feel so nice and peace in smaller alternative scenes where the machine has died, like my CPC, or C64 or anything that keeps the hardware in a limit (There is still lot of stuff to burn, regardless the limits, even in C64 I beleive, just imagine in the other not that exploited hardware!) and is simple, not bloated like the PC. I also seem to prefer sometimes anything with few commands and easy syntax like assembly, cause I am a lazy bitch to get used in complex compilers like C/CPP language, but ok, everything is having pro's and bad, in asm you have to thing a lot and create everything, but I am bored, C has too much and no motivation :( The old scenes have full of assembly stuff! The PC not that much, ok only in tiny intros. (64kb intros could be made with compilers I heard) PC just makes me sad, CPC happy :)

Ok,. you may have catched my drift. I don't like PC. And if I want to follow PC now, it's even worse, cause I have to follow the standards, and PC is bloated and complicated (And no way to code modern things in win with asm..) and I am a bit sad reading all this thread and stuff.. I hope alternative scenes will give me something back in return.. (I have to work on CPC, my brother told me he will send me AtariSt, I have already my Amiga (I could try to start learning 68000, yum!) my brother is lazy to find me a C64 :(, Speccy is similar to Z80 and I could code easily,. will try something in emul,. I wanted to code GBA,. ugh ok I wont do these all now u know ;) But it drags me! Ok,. I may code tiny asm intros and crappy C prods on PC too, but no motivation (And see how our Atsou suxx :P) Ok,.. just a delirium or something... I wanted to get all the things out! ;(
added on the 2002-03-13 13:34:47 by Optimus Optimus
These rants are absolutely platform-independent, believe me. They always apply to what's currently most popular.

C64, Amiga and Atari scenes are pretty small by now, so people rather write demos than having useless fights. OTOH, the pc scene is full of idiots who never really did a demo but still think they know everything better. Which is mainly due to the fact that everyone has access to PCs by now.
added on the 2002-03-14 02:00:32 by ryg ryg
styx: Hum?

Actually, both Matrox VESA and Matrox Drivers were/are quite cool (except you had to FOLLOW the specs, i.e. *use the pitch value*), but G400 drivers don't correctly support D3DTSS_TCI_CAMERASPACEREFLECTIONVECTOR it seems; I always get a crash as soon as I enable it, no matter the parameters...
added on the 2002-03-14 09:40:41 by ryg ryg
it's quite an important subject, this, but we're talking about nothing. everybody knows the facts. can't we just stop this rant?

oh and mr bad sector, your rants make no sense.
so shut up. the whole 'dos is faster than windows' theory you'r proposing is fake and incorrect. i'm not going to explain why, alltho i could, but the sane posters on this thread know *exactly* why. go educate yourself. same goes for people who start threads like these.

now get lost.
fuckfaces.

plek/damage.
added on the 2002-03-14 09:42:19 by superplek superplek
hm thats strange ryg =)
added on the 2002-03-14 09:43:41 by superplek superplek
Okay guys, I confess. I killed the demoscene.
I did it first about 10 years ago, and then again about 7 years ago, and then about 2 years ago too. And I've killed it this winter too.
For your information I have to add that i'll try to kill it again in about every 2 years from now.
Now that you all know this, you could go home, and code something, for me to kill...
The ones not doing something creative please go home and sleep, do not disturb my victims.

Thank you,
FooLman/UnitedForce
the killer of the scene since '90.
(and tired of stupid rants...)
added on the 2002-03-14 11:56:19 by FooLman FooLman
superplek: i love you too! Please let me have my own opinion about some things (if this isn't rejected by the demoscene community...). And i didn't say that DOS is faster than Windows *ALWAYS*, but just in some cases.

And i didn't propose ANY theory about 'dos faster than windows'! I'm wondering: Did you read the full message before post this reply? or just you saw somewhere the phrase "dos is usually faster" without reading the text after it and decided to say these?


And generally (that doesn't apply to your reply only, but i'm saying it to prevent future flames) i didn't say anywhere that DOS is better. As i've already said in the post abone: "Which is better? DOS or Windows? SW or HW? None. Every kind has it's good and it's bad things. The best is before you decide where your demo will run, to think how it will be and what it will need and after that decide where it will run in how (SW/HW). I don't think that is a good tactic to think that only DOS or Windows or SW or HW demos are good."


And don't say to me to shut up! You have to shut up, until you learn to read correctly.

A message to i_know_everything-guys: don't flame someone who posts something that at your opinion is bad. Just try to make him with real proofs (not of the kind "you can see by yourself", etc) to change mind about something. And is always good to listen other's opinion and judge it with open mind.
added on the 2002-03-14 13:57:40 by BadSector BadSector
And the rant machine continues =)

At least use proper english BadSector.

added on the 2002-03-14 15:33:42 by Shifter Shifter
It's not the longest thread yet. So, c'on... still some posts to go. =)
added on the 2002-03-14 17:04:26 by tomaes tomaes
ok we've seen it.
i repeat once more
SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH :)

go work at a local beach counter or something :)
added on the 2002-03-14 21:00:11 by superplek superplek
Well, first of all, Demos for dos is no different from Windows-demos. As long as you can get a framebuffer and a soundbuffer, you can fill it with everything you want.

Second, ryg, 2d metaballs has al lot to do with 3d metaballs. Yes I am talking about the energyfield-stuff. The triangulation is another thing. 2d Metaballs dosent need to be triangulated, but it dosn't mean that those two are two completely different things.

Macaw: yes, most 2d effects can be immitated in 3d, but that is almost as silly as writing blittereffects from amiga on the pc. Besides I have never seen really good looking radialblur in hardware that dosent kill the fillrate. Maybe you can enlighten me here?

My oppinion about hardware vs software is that it really dosen't matter what you use, as long as it is what suits you best. I personally enjoy coding software-rendering more than I enjoy hardware-rendering.
added on the 2002-03-14 21:39:52 by kusma kusma
superplek: okay... after reading your post to "DX...blah" stuff, your post here and your other posts i've finally understood your situation... you just don't know any other phrase than "SHUT YOUR MOUTH" (even if here applies more the "SHUT YOUR KEYBOARD" - my computer isn't yet able to understand voice commands :P).

I'll be the nice guy and i'll don't say anything more about this... but please try to do the same. ok?
added on the 2002-03-14 23:54:55 by BadSector BadSector
deal!

kusma: the whole idea of radial blur is that it's an effect to be applied directly on the framebuffer. which.. well it IS possible in hardware. if you don't pick such a high resolution, nowadays it's perfectly possible to lock the backbuffer and apply some tricks on it (it hasnt been this way for years.. but finally nVidia got to optimize it's drivers for certain purposes). ofcourse then there's still the bottleneck that you dont really know what pixelformat to expect so you'll have to write a few radial blur routines for different formats (which ofcourse is a boring bitch to do).

then there's the render2texture and overdraw trick which works pretty well on recent hardware. on the other hand there are a lot of things possible with the hardware which absolutely cant be done at a decent framerate using software rendering at this point of time. so it's just a different focus.

and yes i've done software rendering for years, and had a good time.

but well.. pushing polies around is just fancier ;)

greetings,
p_dmg.
added on the 2002-03-15 09:59:55 by superplek superplek
SHUT YOUR MOUTH
added on the 2002-03-15 10:46:39 by reed reed
affirmative,
officer.

added on the 2002-03-15 11:12:15 by superplek superplek
did i tell you damage has a new website?

http://www.copstation.com
added on the 2002-03-15 11:12:40 by superplek superplek

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