5 ms·

For me, it was Second Reality from FutureCrew. Highly recommend it. Great soundtrack, awesome scenes for the time.

29athrowaway 3y ago
The pre-GPU era and retro computer competitions like Amiga has many jewels. The GPU powered demos are impressive in a different way.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  RSI Megademo. Lovely.
dicroce 3y ago
Second Reality by Future Crew, Timeless by Tran, so many good ones from this era.
qingcharles 3y ago
Second Reality will always be peak demoscene for me.
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
That one seemed really widely distributed, iirc we got our copy off of a CD from a computer magazine at the time. Really cool, and it ran on most people's PCs. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the first time seeing 3D rendering on PC, after Wolfenstein anyway. Actually, Wolfenstein was 1992, Second Reality was 1993; Wolfenstein had just the 3d-looking environments, Second Reality had 3D models / polygons and the like.
- qbasic_forever 3y ago
  Not just the 3D but the other effects were pretty impressive too with second reality. It looked like an Amiga demo but ran on a plain old VGA graphics hardware which didn't have any of the dedicated graphics effects (sprites, zooming, color bars, etc.) that Amiga machines were capable of creating in hardware.
  - smokel 3y ago
    Prepare to be amazed and watch "Copper" by Surprise!Productions (1992) [1]. It has hardware zooming, vertical and horizontal copper bars, and even a horizontal wobble all on a regular VGA card (although not many cards or emulators support it)! One interesting VGA hardware effect in this context which I have not seen in any demo, is to change the character width from 8 to 9 pixels _during_ a horizontal scanline. The trick is to use RDTSC to estimate the pixel position, with which you can create a nice wobble effect in text mode. Obviously, this requires a Pentium or higher, and at the time this became possible, text mode was rather outdated. [1] https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=2048 https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=2048
DoneWithAllThat 3y ago
Worth mentioning that the members of Future Crew later founded Remedy, makers of Alan Wake, Max Payne, and Control.
- davrosthedalek 3y ago
  And I think they created Futuremark (company behind 3Dmark), and some other companies.
- filoleg 3y ago
  Wow, I had no idea, but am not entirely surprised. Anecdotally, my Pentium 3 machine (forgot what GPU it had, sadly) back in 2004 was struggling with most modern (for the time period) games that had even a hint of graphical fidelity. Max Payne 2, on the other hand, looked mindblowing and ran like butter.
  - bitwize 3y ago
    So many great game studios were founded by demosceners: Rockstar North, EA Dice, Starbreeze Studios to name a few.
Agingcoder 3y ago
Aaaah yes that was incredible. Along with panic, unreal , they were really heads and shoulders above the competition. And don’t forget scream tracker 3 ! ( which is actually how I discovered the demoscene)
sillywalk 3y ago
"I am not an atomic playboy." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._P._Blandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._P._Blandy

The pre-GPU era and retro computer competitions like Amiga has many jewels. The GPU powered demos are impressive in a different way.

anonzzzies 3y ago
RSI Megademo. Lovely.

dicroce 3y ago

Second Reality by Future Crew, Timeless by Tran, so many good ones from this era.

qingcharles 3y ago

Second Reality will always be peak demoscene for me.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago

That one seemed really widely distributed, iirc we got our copy off of a CD from a computer magazine at the time. Really cool, and it ran on most people's PCs. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the first time seeing 3D rendering on PC, after Wolfenstein anyway. Actually, Wolfenstein was 1992, Second Reality was 1993; Wolfenstein had just the 3d-looking environments, Second Reality had 3D models / polygons and the like.

qbasic_forever 3y ago
Not just the 3D but the other effects were pretty impressive too with second reality. It looked like an Amiga demo but ran on a plain old VGA graphics hardware which didn't have any of the dedicated graphics effects (sprites, zooming, color bars, etc.) that Amiga machines were capable of creating in hardware.
- smokel 3y ago
  Prepare to be amazed and watch "Copper" by Surprise!Productions (1992) [1]. It has hardware zooming, vertical and horizontal copper bars, and even a horizontal wobble all on a regular VGA card (although not many cards or emulators support it)! One interesting VGA hardware effect in this context which I have not seen in any demo, is to change the character width from 8 to 9 pixels _during_ a horizontal scanline. The trick is to use RDTSC to estimate the pixel position, with which you can create a nice wobble effect in text mode. Obviously, this requires a Pentium or higher, and at the time this became possible, text mode was rather outdated. [1] https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=2048 https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=2048

DoneWithAllThat 3y ago

Worth mentioning that the members of Future Crew later founded Remedy, makers of Alan Wake, Max Payne, and Control.

davrosthedalek 3y ago
And I think they created Futuremark (company behind 3Dmark), and some other companies.
filoleg 3y ago
Wow, I had no idea, but am not entirely surprised. Anecdotally, my Pentium 3 machine (forgot what GPU it had, sadly) back in 2004 was struggling with most modern (for the time period) games that had even a hint of graphical fidelity. Max Payne 2, on the other hand, looked mindblowing and ran like butter.
- bitwize 3y ago
  So many great game studios were founded by demosceners: Rockstar North, EA Dice, Starbreeze Studios to name a few.

Agingcoder 3y ago

Aaaah yes that was incredible. Along with panic, unreal , they were really heads and shoulders above the competition. And don’t forget scream tracker 3 ! ( which is actually how I discovered the demoscene)

sillywalk 3y ago

"I am not an atomic playboy." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._P._Blandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._P._Blandy