pouët.net

gasman, what's happening to demozoo?

fyi:

afaik, no new platforms will be added until pouet v2 is finished. some form of subdivision is planned for that, so it'll likely/hopefully solve a lot of the issues raised in this thread.

further thoughts:

- msx was subdivided, resulting in some rather "wonderswan-ish" categories, which'll probably have to be merged back once/if pouet v2 appears.
- there are a couple of platforms "on hold" which have a decent amount of prods but far less similarities than the spectrum and it's clones (vector 06c, for example)
- msdos and windows both span far more hardware dissimilarities than spectrum, amiga, atari, etc, so if any splitting needs to be done, those 2 categories should come first imho

:-)

Ah yes, the fabled pouet v2 ... :)

The only difference between a 16K and 48K Speccy is the amount of memory (upgrading a 16K Speccy is literally a case of inserting RAM chips into empty sockets) - the points about slow RAM and ULA snow are just direct consequences of that.

I take nosfe's point, but it's really a question of where to draw the line, and to me the 16K and 48K were just different factory configurations of the same computer, just like the choice between a 16Gb or 32Gb iPhone today. The 16K has no individual character, or cultural legacy of its own (OK, someone wrote a song about it, I'll give you that :-) ) - even in the commercial software days it was abandoned very early on. I admit that this is a very subjective point of view, but I think you have to be subjective, otherwise *everything* is a unique platform...


petethewolf: Not very much. :-( It's still a nagging thought at the back of my mind, and I'm sorry to anyone who's been let down by my failure to deliver on my promises - but to be brutally honest it's not high enough on my list of "things that contribute to my overall happiness", and therefore it's not getting done. I hope that one day it will be (or that someone else comes up with something as good as I want it to be).

Diver:
pk.ru forum engine doesn't accept me so -
there was no GFX conversions at all, on IVP 2009. Probably because there was no possibility of conversion at all. The only accepted format was that one designed by Gasman, only from his editor.
As for me, the technical condition were in this way that actually there was no point to convert anything as it was much easier to make own pictures. This is painfuly simple.
End of the offtop.

gasman, well i really don't know speccy hardware that well that i would know how much difference there is. :)

but, on any platform i would love to have some kind of subcategory/tag system where specific hardware requirements could be added. for example different versions kickstarts on amiga, or chipsets or what not.
because if i have a specific machine i'd like to be able to search for demos that run exactly on that.

doesn't really matter if the machine is 16k speccy, an a600 amiga or a msdos machine with adlib sounds.

if pouet v2 is really gonna happen some day, i hope it'll deliver my hopes. :)

I anyone wants to know my opinion... I wouldn't split the platform, because the Spectrums are compatible in general. This is very different situation from i.e. C64, C+/4 and VIC-20. These Commodores are completely incompatible with each other. In our case, the Spectrum platforma has (at least partly) backward compatibility. You are able to run a 16K demo on a Spectrum 128K machine. Well, OK. If you really want to split something, let's make 3 categories:

1) Spectrum 48K (including 16K demos)
2) Spectrum 128K (all for 128K, +2A/B/+3, Pentagons and other clones having 128K of RAM and being "compatible" with firm 128K - with no enhancements)
3) Spectrum Enhanced (those idiotic monsters with plenty of RAM, many MHz and gfx abilities - I don't like them, many people think these machines are no longer Spectrums, so do I. Spectrum is unique in its simplicity and minimalism. That's the Spectrum. Minimalistic, cheap, but powerful (and nice).

My opinion for all platforms is that there should be a clear, separate category for all demos that manages to run on original hardware. Sometimes that clashes with requirements for the demo (which should, but is not always, spelled out in the .nfo).

OFC you need the correct media to hold the demo files (ie. "harddisk" if larger than floppy), and you need to meet the memory requirements of the demo. But sometimes coders get third-party add-ons and makes demos to match their performance, which can make it hell for people that aren't among the 237 people in the world to own them... we would like to find demos that use no "special stuff".

My example is for Amiga, but it relates to AdLib, Spectrum with Yamaha chip add-on, etc.

The category "Amiga AGA" is not very useful. I have an AGA Amiga with 10MB ram and 68030+FPU. But I can't filter out all those demos that require memory sizes not supported by the original Commodore hardware.

"Maxed out original hardware" maybe? :P And then you could have subcategories matching comporules (for Spectrum, such as 48K or 16K, for Amiga, such as OCS or 64K). But there should be a Grand Canyon divide up to the non-Original hardware such as special graphics cards or CPU cards.

Just my opinion. But if you refute it, I'll build a CPU board for my ZX-81 with a VGA output on it and call it a ZX-81 demo!!! :)

There is a separation between Amstrad CPC and Amstrad Plus, while the Plus can run most CPC demos just fine.
There is a separation between STe and STf while the STe can run most STf demos just fine.

So I guess it should be the same for Spectrum ?

However, there is no KC Compact category, while this one is probably quite bad at compatibility with the real CPC. Oh, but there is no demo for it either :)

Some guys set Pentagon demos aside, so let it be 48K/128K/Pentagon/Enhanced. The division should me made this way: if the prod runs on 48K (tap/tzx/wav), it's 48K. If the prod runs on 128K (tap/tzx/wav), it's 128K. If the prod is trd/scl/fdi/td0 only, it's Pentagon by default, BUT if it does not work well on Pentagon (wrong multicolors, lack of covox effects, missing parts), it's Enhanced. Any other case (CD, SD-card, two computers required etc), it's Enhanced.

second that!

i would be more than happy even with basic 48k/128k/pentagon separation, but if we manage to get "enhanced" category also, that would be awesome.

Alone_Coder, there is 1100 ZX Spectrum prods already uploaded. Who will check the file format? Is it TAP or TRD.. And what to do if download link is broken? Also, pentagon-timed demos can be TAPed without any fix. File format is not a platform.

My opinion:
1) To manually set "48k" for small amount of demos which doesn't really need 128k or more
2) To manually set "Enhanced" to even more small amount of demos which needs a hardware more than 128k (extra memory, pentagon 1024, atm 2, etc.)
3) If anyone want to subdivide "Pentagon demos" - please provide the list of demos, which can't be run properly (crashes) at original ZX Spectrum 128.

all others must remain "128k" by default.

@diver, whatever as long as we get a fair separation, because pentagon and zx48k is far from being the same category.

regarding the dividing/correcting process, there will be a lot of entries in "fix me beautiful" that Tomoya will need to process. :)))))))

and yes, everything is a process, and as sooner will start, less entries will have to fix.

note from the admin: i'm open for all suggestions, but there should be a consensus on what needs to be done.

i guess it's quite discussable idea, but it is way more important to separate utter idiots from normal people. if you know what i mean.

seriously, diver proposed the most optimal option to subdivide
1) 48k
2) 128k
3) Enhanced

@diver, you see the process right. It's not one moment change, it's like adding youtube links.

@sq, you prefer to see "PSG Wins", "Rage", "Stellar Contour" and border demos from DiHalt in plain 128K category? I don't.

I do. It's not realistic to create a new platform category for every single configuration of computer that happens to be the "optimal" one for some demo. For the Spectrum - sure, it's just one extra category for 'Pentagon'. But we've got to be consistent across all platforms here, and if we applied the same logic everywhere, we would need separate categories for NVidia versus ATi (some demos have graphical glitches on one brand of GPU, which is basically the same thing as broken multicolour on the Spectrum right?), every single version of Windows (some demos don't work on Windows 8), Chrome/Firefox/IE, 286/386/486...

(For the record: I also think that separate categories for MSDOS and MSDOS/GUS was a dumb idea, but it's a bit too late to change that now.)

So if that's not what "platform" means on Pouet, what does it mean? I think it should refer to a general *class* of machines... a feature set that you choose to use when you set out to make a demo. When a coder chooses to make a 128K demo rather than a 48K one, they're doing it because 128K RAM and two videorams is a better feature set for what they want to achieve - so that can be considered a separate platform. When a coder makes a Pentagon-only demo, they're not doing it because 224 cycles per scanline is a better choice than 228... they do it because that's how their own machine works, and fixing compatibility bugs for other people's machines is boring. If they owned an original Sinclair 128 instead, they would write exactly the same demo (well, mostly...) and it would look crap on a Pentagon. The feature set is basically the same, so it's not a separate platform.

@Alone_Coder i do too. Because it's all about technical component, not visuals.

another vote for:
1. 48k
2. 128k
3. enhanced

why? well, for example, alone coder's "the board", while being true technical masterpiece, can't be categorised as a normal zx spectrum demo.

Note, Pentagon demos often feature loaders with music that can't be TAPed.

i vote for:
1. 48k
2. 128k
3. enhanced

1. Spectrum 48K (including 16K demos, Original ZX Spectrums )
2. Spectrum 128K (for 128K, +2A/B/+3, Original ZX Spectrums)
3) Spectrum Enhanced ( All other custom Spectums , or clones including Pentagon).

Absolutely agree with Gasman. There is no sense to separate Pentagon demos bacuse there is no clear boundary on any criteria mentioned by Alone Coder:
1) Pentagon multicolor timings. What about Scorpion timings? And other clones?
2) TRD-multiloader. Yes, Betadisk interface was widely spreaded in Russia, but it is not tied to Pentagon clone only. And what about other disk interfaces? DISCiPLE/+D? Is it Pentagon too? Of course not.
Btw, what about making a 48k demo with Pentagon-timed multicolors. What category it will be? Enhanced? No Way!

My opinion: Pentagon separation is required in new databases which will be done in future: pouet v2 with tag system, demozoo, or any others. But not here. We need only first step - to establish only two new categories "48k" and "Enhanced", and it seems to be indisputable.