pouët.net

My option would be b). I'm fed up to seing divx versions of prods released BEFORE the actual prod is uploaded... And testing your prod, even 15 minutes before deadline, is just searching for a friend at the party with the gfx card you've to test :P And I'm able to see ati/nv-only prods as I own both cards, but it sucks having to go from one machine to another to watch prods :(

The problem is that neither of the two card manufactors really stand out and there's nothing like a 'scener's choice' for graphic adapters, so some poeple have ATI hardware, some have NVIDIA hardware but not everyone got both cards.

Because of that I'm prefereing option c: let people know which cards are supported but don't enforce full compatibility between ATI and NVIDIA. Not being compatible may be a drawback for the results though - everybody has to know for himself.

Well, I'm quite annoyed with *-only Demos as well. But as a coder I can see why ppl are doing it. I guess c) is OK.

i am for d) nVidia only demos

"law enforcement" sounds really too American :p

more seriously : don't prevent demomakers to push hardware to its max and limits, even specific hardware. That's kinda a scene spirit characteristic.

like anyone i like "mainstream" demos that run on a wide range, and Farbrausch has even proved that mainstream demos could be very state-of-the-art !

but demomakers should be free. Their main target is to make a mind-striking prod that run well on at least one of the party machines. And they often don't have the time to spend in QA before the party... it's still a hobby not a job. Afterwards they of course could release more widly compatible versions, that's always very appreciated :)

so imho blame ATi and nVidia, NOT demomakers.

in other words: please don't limit demomakers in their creativity.

I don't want to hear about the cost of compatibility tests 'cause :
1. an Ati Radeon 9200SE 64Mo costs ~45€
2. a GeForce 4 MX 440 costs ~41€
3. it'd surprising that you know nobody with a card of the other manufacturer or willing to swap his/her graphic card for few hours/days

"law inforcement" would be harsh but it's really annoying to not be able to watch a prod on an actual platform.

c) would probably be the best thing but it means more work for the party organizers who already work in a constant rush with the pressure of the party.

I'd be tempted to simply NOT state which graphic card will be put in the compo machine in the first time. Instead the coders should be told which version of pixel-shaders / direct-x / open-gl are fully supported by the card.

i'm up for option c), as many others i don't have any ATI hardware anywhere near me at the moment. btw: check that scene.org poll...it's the most helpfull statistic i've seen on this matter.

"don't prevent demomakers to push hardware to its max and limits, even specific hardware"

Muahaha, not that they do ANYTHING about pushing the limits.... opengl coders dont seem to realize that nv_vertex_array is not the only way to stream data to the card. In fact, i blame opengl's extension mechanism for the whole situation. It's just WAAAY too convenient to pick a vendor-specific extension, and not care about others, even if it were only slight modifications to make it more compatible.

"Not having access to other cards" is just a lame excuse for laziness. If you're on D3D, use SWVP, REFRAST, and debug output to check compatibility. (It's
amazing how many democoders fail to do this)

I think that if one card gives a coder a better way of doing things they should embrace that card, not shy away from certain effects which will require more work due to compo resrictions. If there's really an issue perhaps groups should submit their demo as video as well.

what if the same effect can be achieved via standardized features accessibles to everybody ( or if you prefer : a wider audience, including the coder himself ) ?

I'll play the devils advocate but videos already have their category, and it's called Wild.

The more I think about that, the more I think the party organizers should only give the version of pixel-shaders / direct-x / open-gl that are fully supported on the compo machine. That way, they wouldn't have to test the entries twice, and would stick to their role of party orgas by not promoting one vendor or another.

option a) business as usual.

multitexture brings no talent. we need more laptop friendly demos working with lowend cpu and 3d chips, using single texturing and <50M fillrate.

I prefer C.

You really must not choose forced compatibility (b). It just does not worth to drop a single demo for such an issue.

I think it's kind of pointless to expect a party version demo to be fully compatible with every possible configuration. By setting up too harsh limits on compatibility, you ban party coding, which an integral part of the demoscene ;)

If the authors really care, they will make a final version (using the bug reports about the party version). If not, you can always video grab a demo and watch it that way...

I think the problem is more complicated...
On the one hand, you have demos such as Relais by Kolor. It doesn't use the latest features, only gf3-stuff. However, because of the way it is coded (vendor-specific extensions), it will not run on most cards that support the features, because they are 'the wrong brand'.

On the other hand, you have demos that are technically not vendor-specific, but use features that only one vendor supports at this moment. I think the latest Cocoon demo is such an example. As soon as other vendors implement those features in their next card/drivers, the demo will work there aswell.

I think the first case makes it a wild demo, but the second case makes it a regular PC demo.
I see it like this: Imagine you have an Amiga 500. The first case would be like an Atari ST demo. It will never work on your Amiga, it's just not really an Amiga demo, even though it uses the same CPU.
The second case would be an Amiga 1200 demo. Eventually you will upgrade to an Amiga 1200 aswell, and then you can watch the demo too, so it would still be an Amiga demo.

So to me the problem is more complex than "does/does not run on card x". I would like to know why, because I would vote the first demo down for not being compatible, but not the second demo.
I would like to see the reason why it doesn't run on certain cards, if it is known... Eg "Doesn't run on nvidia, because of lack of floating point textures", or "Doesn't run on ATi because of use of NV_texture_shader" or something.

I guess I can add this: I think the first case is the coder's fault, the second case is the manufacturer's fault. That's the difference in my opinion. I will not blame coders for manufacturer's faults.

Hey, more people should vote for "3d acc sucks"!!! =)
Really,. I am not joking :]]]
It's the best way to be sure that your demo will be seen by lotsa PCs (at least in Windows with a popular lib). Heaven7, Live Evil and other software rendering stuff still ran in my friend's computer while he had a major problem with his intergrated gfx card. Boooohhhh!!! Boooooohhhh!!! 3D Cards are perkelle evil :}}}

satana!!

How about just flipping a coin right before the compo to choose which card you will use.

Or not telling which card you're going to use. It's like option b without the riots.

Anyway, Scali summed it up pretty much like I feel about it. Vendor-tied demos are worse.

I can't be bothered to read the whole thread so forgive me if i'm repeating others, but heres my thoughts:

1. A perhaps bigger problem than NV vs. ATI is old vs. new hardware

2. People can't always test their stuff on every piece of hardware

3. Feature sets differ slightly between vendors, and personally i wouldn't want to stop demos that need a particular feature of a particular card for some effect (so long as its done for a good reason ;)

So, howabout going down the questionaire route, asking what DX-class hardware is needed (7,8,9...), which vendor is needed/preferred and whether it should run on all hardware in that class or not, (something like "Yes", "No", "Unable to test it", "Needs particular hardware feature" should do).

Party organizers have the power to "educate" the scene. They used it once to end the GUS-only era by demaning SB support, and looking back I think that was a good thing to do, so I vote for law enforcement. If you don't like the rules, then simply don't compete at Breakpoint.

Most arguments for not supporting both cards can be summarized by "laziness". Nobody is stopping you from using the latest features, but include a compatibility mode for other cards as well. And testing your demo on only one machine is very stupid anyhow, so that's also a lame excuse.

I know that strict law enforcement might not mix with the "just finish the demo before the deadline" mentality, but that's a bad mentality anyhow. Especially at Breakpoint, the real party is outside, so anything which forces people to finish the demo before coming to the party is a good thing :-)

And btw Ryg, you don't have to test all demos, you only have to test the winning demos.

PCs are very complicated. They have lots of different hardware for different jobs, which are combined in LOTS of different ways and using *LOTS* of different configuration to make(?) them work. You never can run ALL demos on your PC, no matter what kind of PC you have. The coder, probably, has a different PC.

Trying to make a demo run in as many hardware as possible, is a good thing. But it's a lost fight, before it even begins.

Demoscene will always have it's 'favourite' piece of hardware. Back in 90s that piece were Gravis UltraSound. This period is nVidia GeForce. What will follow, is unknown, but in any case those who doesn't have "Scene's favourite piece of hardware" will not be able to see the majority of the new demos :-).

So i dissagree with ryg's "Law enforcement". I prefer a more free way: make it wherever you want. Just think that if you use NV_ extensions (which are not supported by ATI - some are), you'll lose ATI users from your audience.


Now ATIans will probably flame me, but that's ok. :-)

Honestly I don't really care if people decide to do GeForce3+ only stuff. I won't be able to watch it on my spiffy Radeon, but demos usually suck anyway. If a video-version is released I just watch that instead.

Simple, really.