FR - complete of bullshit? :)
category: general [glöplog]
DX9 allows you to do many more things, which in time, will be exploited too, just like 'recursive blur tricks' You know what, if you did a 64 layer blur the 'standard' ways, of course it would vaccuum GPU power, so don't. You wouldn't have much power left for many more effects. Damn, you could use GDI+ to do do all your graphics fullscreen if you wanted to...
Use the hardware to do something more impressive. If you do have slow code, no-ones gonna really respect your prod. Once again, it'll be about the people who push the hardware avaailble who start to discover the new effects, ideas, etc. Its about giving you the freedom (as a designer) to do what you want, without having to 'truncate' your ideas, just becuase the current hardware doesn't allow it.
Demomaking *is* about pushing the current state of the art, imo, alongside good art and design. In time, people will discover that the new functionality provided will allow them to do all sorts of new and exciting effects and uses, discovered by us, the demoscene. Be an interesting thread to look back on in a few years.
Use the hardware to do something more impressive. If you do have slow code, no-ones gonna really respect your prod. Once again, it'll be about the people who push the hardware avaailble who start to discover the new effects, ideas, etc. Its about giving you the freedom (as a designer) to do what you want, without having to 'truncate' your ideas, just becuase the current hardware doesn't allow it.
Demomaking *is* about pushing the current state of the art, imo, alongside good art and design. In time, people will discover that the new functionality provided will allow them to do all sorts of new and exciting effects and uses, discovered by us, the demoscene. Be an interesting thread to look back on in a few years.
Personally, I am all go for innovative productions on top notch hardware. As stated several times above, the demo scene is, always has, and hopefully always will be about trying to break the limits of the current line of hardware. If there is a better piece of hardware out there, I really don't see why we should be satisfied with anything less than that. If there is one thing that has pushed the scene forward during all these years it has to be our need to squeeze just a little bit more out of our computers, people even built small adapters for the parallel port just to be able to play sound that didn't sound like the boring PC speaker. Did everybody have an adapter like that? No. Did it stop the creators of it? No! Same thing with Gravis Ultrasound, a highly appreciable sound card during the old days and far from everybody had one of those but that didn't stop the creators of the demos either.
It's perfectly fine with me if someone want to limit himself (herself, whatever..) to a certain piece of hardware, but why should everybody use the same limits as the ones he favor? I encourage people to use whatever hardware they like to make demos with, and this can be anything from the top of the line PC/Macintosh hardware, Amiga 030/060/68K, C-64/C-128 (with SuperCPU maybe) to odd consoles like the Korean handheld GamePark 32 or even a typewriter. Not everybody has all these systems but that is fine really, there's always one way or another that these productions can be enjoyed anyway. Watch the demo during the compo at the party place, visit a friend with this certain piece of hardware, download an mpeg/divx of the production, buy the hardware yourself or don't watch the production at all, anything will do as long as you don't complain.
I don't have all systems ever made, no one does. So to limit people to a platform that everybody has is absurd really, the demo scene doesn't work like that, at least not in my eyes.
Just for the record, the Radeon 9500/9700 (PRO) series seems like a damn fine piece of hardware and i have my intentions to buy me an own copy of this card in the near future, a lot of my friends already have this card or has plans on buying one themselves so hopefully there will be a whole bunch of neat productions that is fully taking advantage of this piece of hardware real soon, maybe even at Breakpoint/Assembly if the organizers are to allow that...
// Tobias 'A_Lee_N' Lind
It's perfectly fine with me if someone want to limit himself (herself, whatever..) to a certain piece of hardware, but why should everybody use the same limits as the ones he favor? I encourage people to use whatever hardware they like to make demos with, and this can be anything from the top of the line PC/Macintosh hardware, Amiga 030/060/68K, C-64/C-128 (with SuperCPU maybe) to odd consoles like the Korean handheld GamePark 32 or even a typewriter. Not everybody has all these systems but that is fine really, there's always one way or another that these productions can be enjoyed anyway. Watch the demo during the compo at the party place, visit a friend with this certain piece of hardware, download an mpeg/divx of the production, buy the hardware yourself or don't watch the production at all, anything will do as long as you don't complain.
I don't have all systems ever made, no one does. So to limit people to a platform that everybody has is absurd really, the demo scene doesn't work like that, at least not in my eyes.
Just for the record, the Radeon 9500/9700 (PRO) series seems like a damn fine piece of hardware and i have my intentions to buy me an own copy of this card in the near future, a lot of my friends already have this card or has plans on buying one themselves so hopefully there will be a whole bunch of neat productions that is fully taking advantage of this piece of hardware real soon, maybe even at Breakpoint/Assembly if the organizers are to allow that...
// Tobias 'A_Lee_N' Lind
If there is a better piece of hardware out there, I really don't see why we should be satisfied with anything less than that.
because of the audience!
My mother only has a p2 400 with tnt2, lets everyone restrict ourselves to that!
mind you: Radeon 9500 isnt more expensive than a GF4.
mind you: Radeon 9500 isnt more expensive than a GF4.
raveroza: Wow, you really managed to miss my point comletely despite my detailed explanation, that's impressive!
As i said above, there is a number of ways that enables a production to reach out to the general audience even if they don't have the intended hardware, so i really don't see this as a problem. You have to accept the fact that there will always be people that is making productions to a piece of hardware that you do not own, whether it's a new piece of hardware or an old one.
// Tobias 'A_Lee_N' Lind
As i said above, there is a number of ways that enables a production to reach out to the general audience even if they don't have the intended hardware, so i really don't see this as a problem. You have to accept the fact that there will always be people that is making productions to a piece of hardware that you do not own, whether it's a new piece of hardware or an old one.
// Tobias 'A_Lee_N' Lind
there are ofcourse countless sides of all this (and lets face it, divx'ed demos look crappy, + filesize + lacks general demo-feeling)
one side is, that you can already realize almost everything you want, maybe you'll need more work here and there to make it look fine.. there are always ways to do things noone thought possible (look at older systems like c64, speccy, amiga)... and think of the audience, DEMOS TO THE PEOPLE!
when we change to the other side, we see that it might be terrible work, not really worth the effort if there is a way to do things simple/quick way. might kill a lot of inspiration and even projects
however, if we talk oldskool and about pushing hardware limits - it doesnt necessary mean use of newest hardware available, in fact its the other way round, the longer you stick to one h/w the better you know/push it..
depends on what you're doing, sometimes you'll need these new radions sometimes not - and also what coder is really up to - creating a demo or demonstration
a_lee_n ::::> yes i know, cause i posted it on the fly before reading your post to the end :)
thats why i wrote all this crap above afterwards
imho, divx is not solution, not for the scene
I think it would be fun if the demoscene could try to be more original than 3dmark, atleast effect wise.
If you're such a hot coder you should be able to make a demo that scales from crappy TNT2 cards all the way up to a DX9 class card, with more or better looking effects on the high end card. Properly coding scalability of visuals is non-trivial and would earn respect from me as a coder.
Restricting yourself -- either to low end cards or high end cards only -- does not earn any respect from me by itself. Its still possible to write a crappy demo that requires a DX9 class card and its still possible to write an impressive demo that uses software rendering. The skill isn't in the hardware requirements, its in the coding.
Restricting yourself -- either to low end cards or high end cards only -- does not earn any respect from me by itself. Its still possible to write a crappy demo that requires a DX9 class card and its still possible to write an impressive demo that uses software rendering. The skill isn't in the hardware requirements, its in the coding.
agree, but then, why should a frontend demoparty has a card that limits the effects you wrote?
PLEASE!!!!
and why democompos don't allow live performance ?
ok, those new effects will make coders feel happier and probably demos look better. but that won't make the demos more interesting.
i'm not against using new hardware. but just be patient people. if the only point of your demo is showing those new effects, then your demo sucks.
it takes a little while to find out and do something interesting with those new cards.
ok, those new effects will make coders feel happier and probably demos look better. but that won't make the demos more interesting.
i'm not against using new hardware. but just be patient people. if the only point of your demo is showing those new effects, then your demo sucks.
it takes a little while to find out and do something interesting with those new cards.
It is right as many of you say. - Demo's is all about pushing the limits. And ati 9500/9700 is cards that are availible. So why not use them for demos.
Writing demos that use more or less effects according to your hardware is possible but I doubt doable. Thinking about how often groups send in their demo in the last minutes before deadline.
The days when everyone could watch all demos released at a party on their homecomputer, are probably over. (sadly)
So I think organizers has to work on to get the best possible videos of the demos at the party and release them along with the binary. I know that is boring, realtime should be realtime.
One possible route would be to release demos opensource. So the scene may take the code and make the demos compatbile with older hardware afterwards. This is the point that I like the most. I really think the demoscene should be more open. This would also make the scene evolve with new designs, new effects etc. Since you wouldnt not be able to reuse the same effect, over and over again.
Also a big part is for parties to make clear rules about the compos. Maybe it should be so that pc-demo the demo HAS to run on the compo-machine. And if you want to use your own machine with your beefed up PiongYang NinjaForce 10k graphics you have to compete in wild. And maybe that would make wild something more then only movies. The compo-machine should be a machine that people could have at home. Right now it maybe could be something along the lines of a 1,5G Machine, 512M ram, Geforce3 or something along thoose lines. Running windows and linux with similar API's installed.
Bottomline - the parties need to have celar rules what demo should be running and make that info availible some time prior to the party for the groups to converge to code for the right hardware/software combinations. This will make it the most fair to.
Writing demos that use more or less effects according to your hardware is possible but I doubt doable. Thinking about how often groups send in their demo in the last minutes before deadline.
The days when everyone could watch all demos released at a party on their homecomputer, are probably over. (sadly)
So I think organizers has to work on to get the best possible videos of the demos at the party and release them along with the binary. I know that is boring, realtime should be realtime.
One possible route would be to release demos opensource. So the scene may take the code and make the demos compatbile with older hardware afterwards. This is the point that I like the most. I really think the demoscene should be more open. This would also make the scene evolve with new designs, new effects etc. Since you wouldnt not be able to reuse the same effect, over and over again.
Also a big part is for parties to make clear rules about the compos. Maybe it should be so that pc-demo the demo HAS to run on the compo-machine. And if you want to use your own machine with your beefed up PiongYang NinjaForce 10k graphics you have to compete in wild. And maybe that would make wild something more then only movies. The compo-machine should be a machine that people could have at home. Right now it maybe could be something along the lines of a 1,5G Machine, 512M ram, Geforce3 or something along thoose lines. Running windows and linux with similar API's installed.
Bottomline - the parties need to have celar rules what demo should be running and make that info availible some time prior to the party for the groups to converge to code for the right hardware/software combinations. This will make it the most fair to.
"ok, those new effects will make coders feel happier and probably demos look better. but that won't make the demos more interesting."
euhm, right, spot on! or something, i think youve said yours, (l.a.m.*.*)
"If you're such a hot coder you should be able to make a demo that scales from crappy TNT2 cards all the way up to a DX9 class card"
euhm, right, why not support dos and mode13 aswell? seriously, the changes in the cards are enormously, and if one should spend all the time writing booring fallback code for stuff that will look like shit on the fallbacked hardware anyways, i wouldnt call it hot, i would call it for something that you put your crappiest programmers to do, just to get a nice feuture list so you can sell a game, noone however wants to run a demo in 2 fps , or without the effects, since the demo would be kindof empty without the effects. legalize, i already knew you where stupid, but this stupid? gosch.
i mean, its quite obvious people make fallback for stuff that CAN fallback, but when you start to lack stuff, or having to run multipass , then i think it fucks up the demo usually anyways.
ok, to clearify myself, what i said above was more or less, everyone that doesnt have the same oppinion like me sucks.
euhm, right, spot on! or something, i think youve said yours, (l.a.m.*.*)
"If you're such a hot coder you should be able to make a demo that scales from crappy TNT2 cards all the way up to a DX9 class card"
euhm, right, why not support dos and mode13 aswell? seriously, the changes in the cards are enormously, and if one should spend all the time writing booring fallback code for stuff that will look like shit on the fallbacked hardware anyways, i wouldnt call it hot, i would call it for something that you put your crappiest programmers to do, just to get a nice feuture list so you can sell a game, noone however wants to run a demo in 2 fps , or without the effects, since the demo would be kindof empty without the effects. legalize, i already knew you where stupid, but this stupid? gosch.
i mean, its quite obvious people make fallback for stuff that CAN fallback, but when you start to lack stuff, or having to run multipass , then i think it fucks up the demo usually anyways.
ok, to clearify myself, what i said above was more or less, everyone that doesnt have the same oppinion like me sucks.
ok, to clearify myself, what i said above was more or less, everyone that doesnt have the same oppinion like me sucks.
well... we share opinions in this, but only in this...
well... we share opinions in this, but only in this...
amiga 68k vs powerpc. dos vs windows. non-accelerated vs accelerated. and now this. life is a loop. .hund.
Well, haven't read the complete thread here...but the first few posts only...
My opinion to that would just be:
Use the hw/cards that is _common_ today...and not "mega-highend-and-way-too-expensive-and-latest" graphic cards/hw...
Demosceners want that that their release can be viewed on many computers and systems around...NOT only at a party and its compo-machine!
What would be the sense of that then?
Demos wouldn't get spread widely but would sit on the scene.org ftp and just very FEW people/sceners would be able to re-watch it after the event...as they would have to wait till they upgrade their own system to the 'latest' top-hardware!!
So demos/scene-prods should always be able to run on general and widely used systems depending on what's currently 'normal' as of developement...
And dx9 cards surely are NOT yet 'normal' definitely! ;-)
Bye,
Weasel
My opinion to that would just be:
Use the hw/cards that is _common_ today...and not "mega-highend-and-way-too-expensive-and-latest" graphic cards/hw...
Demosceners want that that their release can be viewed on many computers and systems around...NOT only at a party and its compo-machine!
What would be the sense of that then?
Demos wouldn't get spread widely but would sit on the scene.org ftp and just very FEW people/sceners would be able to re-watch it after the event...as they would have to wait till they upgrade their own system to the 'latest' top-hardware!!
So demos/scene-prods should always be able to run on general and widely used systems depending on what's currently 'normal' as of developement...
And dx9 cards surely are NOT yet 'normal' definitely! ;-)
Bye,
Weasel
gf4ti is I think on the upper range of currently common hardware. most of the demo scene coders have nvidia cards, and atleast with opengl extensions i can't expect the majority to write code they cannot test on their machines (i.e. use ati extensions). radeon9700/gf fx would be too overspecced right now, radeon8500 is not an option for the above reasons, and that's all there is to it.
i'm certainly not going to argue about the subject or let anyone talk me into changing the compopc hardware for such a bullshit argument.
i'm certainly not going to argue about the subject or let anyone talk me into changing the compopc hardware for such a bullshit argument.
i dont think gf4 is that common either.. i guess that a demo that uses gf4 extension to the limit will only work on gf4 and better nvidia hardware, and will never work on any other vendors card.. but a demo using opengl 1.4 + arb extensions ( and only other extensions if it find them) will work on any new gfxCard (dx9 class). So i blame both the rules and the hardware..
but i guess i can make the rules if i make a party :) meanwhile i will make demos as i want them to be, and will probably compete against raytraced demos ( thats fair )
but i guess i can make the rules if i make a party :) meanwhile i will make demos as i want them to be, and will probably compete against raytraced demos ( thats fair )
a demo that uses "gf4 extensions" will run on any gf3- and gf4-compatible graphics card. (no new stuff in gf4 that i know of, it's just a faster gf3, just like gf2 is a faster gf1).
Well excuse me, Mr. ryg... but I can't really agree on the statement of "We use nVidia because most sceners use nVidia"...
There's plenty of sceners that are NOT using nVidia, and there will only be more in the near future (who's gonna buy a shitty GF4 when they can get an R9500 for the same price? Or an overpriced FX when you can buy 2 R9700Pros for the same price?).
I don't think it's good to limit demos to one particular vendor (remember Glide anyone? Nobody can run that stuff anymore. Or GUS-only demos... Do we want this to happen again? Have we learnt nothing?).
I think the rules should state that demos must run at least on the two or three most popular vendors (nVidia, ATi, and perhaps Matrox?).
With OpenGL that's not such a big deal, since you can use ARB-extensions, and ATi also implements a number of NV-extensions.
And with Direct3D, the problem does not even exist.
I certainly don't want people to be encouraged to write nVidia-only demos. I won't be able to watch them, and in a while, nobody will be able to watch them anymore, perhaps.
And what is a better way to test compatibility than to use ATi cards?
As for DX9-cards not yet being 'normal'... True, but GF3s were used in compo's when they weren't 'normal' yet either. And they were a lot more expensive then, than an R9500 is now. DX9 is very accessible, and very affordable. I don't see a problem there. I'm quite sure that a lot of active sceners will have upgraded to DX9-hardware before the end of the year. Wouldn't it be nice if they had something cool to watch?
Somehow I get the feeling that everything is fine, as long as it's nVidia. Are we nVidiot-fanboys or are we progressive, technically skilled sceners?
My 2 cents, and some minor change.
There's plenty of sceners that are NOT using nVidia, and there will only be more in the near future (who's gonna buy a shitty GF4 when they can get an R9500 for the same price? Or an overpriced FX when you can buy 2 R9700Pros for the same price?).
I don't think it's good to limit demos to one particular vendor (remember Glide anyone? Nobody can run that stuff anymore. Or GUS-only demos... Do we want this to happen again? Have we learnt nothing?).
I think the rules should state that demos must run at least on the two or three most popular vendors (nVidia, ATi, and perhaps Matrox?).
With OpenGL that's not such a big deal, since you can use ARB-extensions, and ATi also implements a number of NV-extensions.
And with Direct3D, the problem does not even exist.
I certainly don't want people to be encouraged to write nVidia-only demos. I won't be able to watch them, and in a while, nobody will be able to watch them anymore, perhaps.
And what is a better way to test compatibility than to use ATi cards?
As for DX9-cards not yet being 'normal'... True, but GF3s were used in compo's when they weren't 'normal' yet either. And they were a lot more expensive then, than an R9500 is now. DX9 is very accessible, and very affordable. I don't see a problem there. I'm quite sure that a lot of active sceners will have upgraded to DX9-hardware before the end of the year. Wouldn't it be nice if they had something cool to watch?
Somehow I get the feeling that everything is fine, as long as it's nVidia. Are we nVidiot-fanboys or are we progressive, technically skilled sceners?
My 2 cents, and some minor change.
Please choose your audio hardware:
1) gus
2) nosound
1) gus
2) nosound
Oh, and GF4 is not a faster GF3.
GF3 supports ps1.1 and GF4 supports ps1.3.
Did you know that R8500 is older than GF4 and supports ps1.4, which is way more powerful?
Did you know that GF4 is really old, outdated hardware by now?
GF3 supports ps1.1 and GF4 supports ps1.3.
Did you know that R8500 is older than GF4 and supports ps1.4, which is way more powerful?
Did you know that GF4 is really old, outdated hardware by now?
Scali: If you don't see a problem with your code running on radeons or geforce-cards, what's the problem? It'll run on the compo-pc, won't it? What does other people's code have to do with it?
sagacity: What if my code runs on Radeon and GeForce cards... but NOT the GF4, because it's incredibly outdated?
(ps1.4 has been with us for well over a year, and ps2.0/vs2.0 for about half a year... That's a long time in the computer-world... How long do we have to wait to use new features? Can I use MMX-instructions yet? geez).
I know I won't have a problem with my code... but that's not the point. I know other people will have a problem with their code on the compomachine... And I know that many people won't have a system similar to the compo-machine, but also want to be able to watch the demos (if your hardware is outdated, well that's your fault... but if you have the latest hardware, and demos don't work because the latest hardware isn't 'the right brand', that sucks. You have to buy 2 cards? An nVidia to watch demos, and an ATi to code cool new stuff on? That's crap).
Anyway, my points were these:
1) GF4 is dated, there have already been demos that have used better hardware, why set the limit back to what it was more than a year ago?
2) nVidia-only demos should be banned. I don't care if the compo machine uses an nVidia-card or an ATi-card (preferrably a DX9-part though), but the ENTRIES should not care either!
Do we want demos that ONLY run on the compo PC? I surely don't. And I surely don't want to have to buy nVidia just because that's the only way I can still watch demos on my own PC. I want to be free to choose my hardware, and be able to watch demos aswell (say MadWizards, where is that Radeon patch for Planet Loop? And Fairlight, when are you going to get off your arses and fix Daydreamer to work on Radeons?).
(ps1.4 has been with us for well over a year, and ps2.0/vs2.0 for about half a year... That's a long time in the computer-world... How long do we have to wait to use new features? Can I use MMX-instructions yet? geez).
I know I won't have a problem with my code... but that's not the point. I know other people will have a problem with their code on the compomachine... And I know that many people won't have a system similar to the compo-machine, but also want to be able to watch the demos (if your hardware is outdated, well that's your fault... but if you have the latest hardware, and demos don't work because the latest hardware isn't 'the right brand', that sucks. You have to buy 2 cards? An nVidia to watch demos, and an ATi to code cool new stuff on? That's crap).
Anyway, my points were these:
1) GF4 is dated, there have already been demos that have used better hardware, why set the limit back to what it was more than a year ago?
2) nVidia-only demos should be banned. I don't care if the compo machine uses an nVidia-card or an ATi-card (preferrably a DX9-part though), but the ENTRIES should not care either!
Do we want demos that ONLY run on the compo PC? I surely don't. And I surely don't want to have to buy nVidia just because that's the only way I can still watch demos on my own PC. I want to be free to choose my hardware, and be able to watch demos aswell (say MadWizards, where is that Radeon patch for Planet Loop? And Fairlight, when are you going to get off your arses and fix Daydreamer to work on Radeons?).