## A Guide to the PC Demo Scene

### Provided as a service to the demo scene by the demogroup Hornet.
This page has been accessed by users times since it was created on September 3rd, 1994.

#### Featured in Wired Magazine, July Issue, 1995

#### Also listed in Tekno Magazine, nr. 1 - 1997

##### Last updated: 3/21/97 (Finally!)

Welcome to the first home page where people can learn about demos, the demoscene, and get a definition of terms. You can also get sound clips of demo music styles, pictures of cool demo effects, and more. (For starters, a Glossary of terms is available.)

## Updated!

I've finally had time to update this thing!! You'll find a greatly expanded list of Featured Demos, for example, and The Music of Amnesia is at the Miscellaneous page.

As always, if there's anything here that you feel I've left out or needs to be clarified, please email trixter@mcs.com to have your suggestion implemented as quickly as possible.

For best viewing, a graphical browser is recommended.

This section's contents: (Use the buttons above to switch sections)

- What is a Demo?
- Frequently Asked Questions about Demos
- How to get Demos
  - FTP sites
    - Well-known sites
    - Lesser-known sites (mostly mirrors)
  - Classic Demos
  - Featured Demos
  - Featured Intros
  - Featured 4K Intros
  - Featured Miscellaneous Demoscene Stuff
- Other demo-related pages

Note to demo-freaks: Here's a quick list of the cool hot-links in these pages that you might miss if you're not careful:

- Examples of real-time effects.
- Music and art examples.
- Pictures of your favorite demo people.
- A comprehensive list of other demo-related pages.
- The music of Amnesia.

# What is a Demo?

A demo is a program that displays a sound, music, and light show, usually in 3D. Demos are very fun to watch, because they seemingly do things that aren't possible on the machine they were programmed on.

Essentially, demos "show off". They do so in usually one, two, or all three of three methods:

- They show off the computer's hardware abilities (3D objects, multi-channel sound, etc.)
- They show off the creative abilities of the demo group (artists, musicians)
- They show off the programmer's abilities (fast 3D shaded polygons, complex motion, etc.)

Demos are an art form. They blend mathematics, programming skill, and creativity into something incredible to watch and listen to.

Grant Smith puts it another way:

    	Jonny looks around, confused, his train of thought disrupted. He
    collects himself, and stares at the teacher with a steady eye. "I want
    to code demos," he says, his words becoming stronger and more confidant
    as he speaks. "I want to write something that will change people's
    perception of reality. I want them to walk away from the computer dazed,
    unsure of their footing and eyesight. I want to write something that
    will reach out of the screen and grab them, making heartbeats and
    breathing slow to almost a halt. I want to write something that, when it
    is finished, they are reluctant to leave, knowing that nothing they
    experience that day will be quite as real, as insightful, as good. I
    want to write demos."

    	Silence. The class and the teacher stare at Jonny, stunned. It
    is the teachers turn to be confused. Jonny blushes, feeling that
    something more is required.  "Either that or I want to be a fireman."

    					- Grant Smith,
    						14:32,
    						11/21/93

# Frequently asked Questions

Houman and Trixter have prepared a FAQ on demos, in case you want quickie answers to your most common questions. An electronic version exists, as well as a hyper-text version.

# How to get Demos

## FTP sites

### Well-known sites

#### These anonymous FTP sites are the best places to get demos and demo-related information.

- ftp.hornet.org: Home base for the demogroup Hornet--an extremely diverse site offering music, graphics, magazines, programming info/source code, etc. A one-stop-shop--and highly recommended. If you have to visit only one site, make it this one (or, if you're not in North America, visit one of its mirrors, ftp.luth.se in Sweden, or ftp.uni-paderborn.de in Germany).
- Sam's list of demo FTP sites
- ftp.arosnet.se, a server set up and maintained by Zodiak / Cascada. You might have to use an actual FTP program to connect properly to this site.
- hagar.arts.kuleuven.ac.be

### Lesser-known sites

- ftp.axs.net
- ftp.funet.fi

# Lazy? Don't know what to get? Use Trixter's MobyList.

The following is my own personal list of "favorite" demos, and why I like them. If you haven't seen all of these, then don't call yourself an oldschooler. If you have, or think I'm missing a few good ones, then send me some email.

## Classic Demos

(If you find you don't have the utility needed to unpack an archive (ZIP is common, but ARJ and LZH aren't) then feel free to get them from Hornet's utility directory.)

Title | Group | Year | Sound cards: | Requires: | Reason:
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Unreal | Future Crew | 1992 | SB,GUS,LPT | 386 | A classic. Also, some parts of the demo adjust their effects to match the power of your CPU.
Panic | Future Crew | 1992 | SB | 386 | A classic. A good example of a trackmo.
Second Reality | Future Crew | 1993 | SB/GUS | 386 | A classic. Probably the best demo of all time; flows wonderfully. Newbies: Keep in mind this was written in 1993 and widely imitated.
Crystal Dreams | Triton | 1992 | SB,LPT,PCSPKR | 286 | A classic. Runs on a 286, even with 4-channel MOD mixing; has a great VBLINT starfield routine.
Triton | 1993 | SB,GUS,LPT,PCSPKR | 386 | A classic. Has a full-framerate "VR" scene. Easily the best Fractal Zoomer ever.
Amnesia | Renaissance | 1992 | SB/SBPro | 386 | Excellent effects on even a 386-16. And 13-channel digital+fm "CDFM" music on a normal Sound Blaster! If you can get this demo to work, the music is a technological treat.
Vectdemo | Ultraforce | 1991 | SB/LPT/PCSPKR | 286 | For 1991, an excellent fake of environment mapping, before we all knew what environment mapping was (we called it "metal shading"). This demo was really great to look at.
Inconexia | Iguana | 1993 | SB | 386 | The birth of the classic "fire" algorithm, plus a neat mirrored ball, and some physical stuff.
Chronologia | Cascada | 1991 | SB,LPT,PCSPKR | 286 | A classic. Has Yoghurt Man! Also had some innovative stuff for the time, like Mode X, a moving lightsource--and it all runs on a 286, including MOD mixing. Incredible for 1991.
Megademo | The Space Pigs | 1990 | LPT,PCSPKR | 286 | A classic. Was first official "demo" to have 4-channel mixed music (Future Crew's "Slideshow" was the first, but it wasn't a demo).

## Featured Demos

### This section holds demos that I feel deserve special appreciation for one reason or another; they are unique in one or several ways, and should be viewed at least once. You may retrieve any item on the following list simply by clicking or selecting its highlight.

Title | Group | Sound cards: | Requires: | Reason:
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Dope | Complex | GUS | 486 | This demo, while slightly mis-stating its effects (it states 7800 polys at one time when there's only about 1000; also, environment maps are used instead of light sources), is a jaw-dropper when it you first see it. The music is quite good.
Verses | EMF | SB,GUS | 386 | Overall, has nice design, as well as the warping face of Bill Gates. ASM'94 winner.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly | S!P | GUS | 386 | This demo not only uses the VGA hardware to run at the full framerate in most effects, but has excellent design as well. This demo is nearly the ultimate in copper effects
Legend | Impact Studios | GUS | 286 | This demo, while not having original effects, is so well optimized that it runs in the full framerate on a 286! The art and music are very good.
Show | Majic 12 | GUS | 386 | A surprising newcomer (at the time), Show performs most of its effects in the full framerate on a 386-40, borrowing many tricks the coder learned on the Amiga. The graphics are good, and the music is reminiscent of Amiga demos with good design.
The Real Thing | Capacala | GUS | 386 | The beginning of this demo is very fast and hard--you either love it or hate it. It's included in this roundup because it has a good middle part where they display a rotating cube that is rendered with all the common effects, from light-sourced shading, to transparant Gouraud shading.
Dimension | Realtech | SB,GUS | 386 | Great sound setup and demo options: You can run the demo in either high or low res, with or without aliasing. Texture-mapping is shaded and very fast.
No! | Nooon | SB,GUS | 386 | Very good coding; has great shaded texturemapped objects.
Opticron | Craw Productions | SB,GUS | 386 | Opticron has a very nice theme: Optical illusions. Several are brought to life in this NAID'95 first place winning demo.
Project XYZ | Orange | GUS | 386 | The first demo to incorporate truly fluid motion-blur.
X14 | Orange | GUS | 386 | The first demo to use a "true" 262,144 color mode, on standard VGA; this is still widely imitated. This demo, like X-Y-Z, has a very ambient style to it--and the frame rate is very smooth
Stars | Nooon | SB,GUS | 486 | The winner of ASM'95, a fantastic demo with several CPU-crunching effects and clever speed optimizations. Europeans love the graphically ambient style, Americans love the hard core effects; but all agree it's on everyone's top ten list.
Mighty | Xtacy | GUS | 486 | This is one of the best demos to come out in a long time, as this group hasn't forgotten what design is! Not one section is missing a transition; this is a must for any demo library.
DX Project | Realtech | SB,GUS | 486 | A trend-setter for the demo scene, this demo was the first to run in SuperVGA 640x480x256 throughout the entire demo.
Countdown | Realtech | SB,GUS | 486 | Once again, Realtech presents us with a demo that can run in higher resolutions; this one can go as high as 1280x1024, and has extra support for both S3 chipsets and VESA 2.0 extensions. This really shows off that new Pentium.
Project Angel | Impact Studios | GUS | 486 | Very fast vectors, an actual story/plot, and a virtual fighter "remix" more than a year before the VF game was actually developed for the PC. Slight problem with Diamond Stealth video cards; make sure you use the alternate configuration.
Reanimator | Rage | GUS | 486 (use "/o" switch) | Code, code, and more code. Achieves things that requires a pentium, but worth it. Ignore the end vector scene; it's a comedy of (rounding) errors.
XTAL | Complex | SB,GUS | 486 | Runs very fast, in a 50Hz video mode. Shows what you can do with about 3 well-optimized routines (it's mainly animations, but they're combined very well).
Karma | Halcyon | GUS | 486 | Now THIS is an example of demos = art.
State of Hate | Dubius | SB,GUS | 486 | Not too well programmed (this was an earlier demo of theirs), but supposedly lets you run it from 160x100 to 1024x768. Makes good use of shadows.
Cocoon | S!P | GUS | 486 | A mixture of code and animation; worth watching for the incredible pieces of art midway through and at the end, and also for some nice ideas (although not fully executed well).
Caero | Plant | SB,GUS | 486 | Did it deserve to win 1st place at The party 5? Debateable... But whether or not they intended it, it's got the best design of any demo of 1995--a theme of nature and evolution.
Reve | Pulse | GUS | 486 | Realtime anti-aliasing, funky textures, and a Cool Little Surfer Dude. Whack. Cool. 'Nuff said.
Confusion | Noice | GUS | 486 | Got 25th out of 30 at TP5, and deserved it, except for the really cool water part at the end. I expected a bit more from a great C64 group.
Money | Hyperopia | GUS | 486 | This yugoslavian team shows promise. This demo shows the beginnings of some very nice ideas and code.
Dream | Jamm | SB,GUS | 486 | Jamm's first demo after a series of intros, which showcases fast code and a non-common style.
Mind, Body, Soul | Omicron | GUS | 386 | An object show, but has some well-optimized routines. If you've got a 386-33 and want to see bump mapping, this is probably your chance.
Circuit | Analogue | GUS | 486 | The first 15-bit color (32768 colors) demos. While not very original, it's got fantastic hand-drawn art at the end--the people look so incredible that at first you think they're scanned images, but they're not.
6th Sense | Realtech | SB,GUS | 486 | The first 16-bit color (65536 colors) demo. Rather ordinary except for the excellent multi-color toruses in the middle that really show off the video mode. You can easily see thousands of colors in that section.
Paimen | Coma | GUS | 486 | Another demo that stresses the effect that demos can have on you. This is a perfect example of how some creative coding and video images can deliver a message.
Disgust | Camorra | SB,GUS | 386 | Great design and good code; some of the transitions are smoother than butter. A very promising group--definitely watch out for these guys.
Lasse Reinbong Final Version | Cubic Team | SB,GUS | 486 | Except for the extra samples, this was a 64K intro that won TP5. (The 64K version is in below, in the 64K intro section). Coders will love this one; this demo has parts that are well optimized. There's also a demo lover's joke at the end.
Stuff | Xtacy | GUS | 486 | While many of the effects are not new here, this demo is a coder's dream. And, as always, Xtacy proves again that the art of the transition is not dead. There are some neat surprises in this one.
Innuendo | Halcyon | GUS | 486 | Once again, Halcyon shows us why they're different. Maybe not your particular preference, but definitely a step towards an art form.
Planet Groove | Fudge | GUS | 486 | This demo is nicely coded; the greets section is especially well done. These guys really know how to have fun! The entire demo just feels squeaky clean--even the gratuitous nude shots in the middle are clean.
Inside | CNCD | SB,GUS | Pentium | Want to know what happens when Amiga sceners cross over to the PC? Watch this. Style city.
Ninja 2 | Scoopex and Melon Dezign | SB,GUS | 486 | Want to know what happens when Amiga sceners cross over to the PC? Watch this. Hilarious.
Fashion | Logic Design | GUS | 486 | The art by Danny is simply the best in any demo I've ever seen.
Contrast | Oxygene | SB,GUS | 486 | Nice virtual worlds, and a return to vectorballs (z-buffered, even). This demo is better than you think it is.
Indigo | Purple | GUS | 486 | Continuing the tradition of clean, consistent effects and feel. This demo is particularly tasty.
Magic View | Dubius | SB,GUS | 486 | Best metal shading (environment + bump mapping) and shadows I've ever seen--and this is a BBS advertisement! Some advertisement. :-)
Bomb | Impact Studios | SB,GUS | 486 | Fast and delicious Gouraud texture mapping with moving light sources. This is really good.
Super Television | Orange | SB,GUS | 486 | Although all it seems that Orange can do is imitate themselves again, only Orange does it so cleanly. There are some routines in this demo that I'm still figuring out.
Machines of Madness | Dubius | SB,GUS | 486 | These guys have really grown in the last two years. And it was only a matter of time before somebody did reflection, even though it's trivial to do. The glass bowl is truly impressive. Assembly '96 winner.
Megablast | Orange | SB,GUS | 486 | These guys have gotten so good that coding is almost not an issue with them anymore; they can concentrate on their style. But make no mistake--the code is incredible.
Compost | Orange | SB,GUS | 486 | Everybody can do what Orange does. Everybody. Then why do they always end up doing it first? Because they're too creative for us mortal democoders, that's why.
Solex | Oxygene | GUS | 486 | Oxygene's last demo ends with a nice use of wireframes.
Hypnotic | Exobit | GUS | Pentium | If you like 3D women and excellent fireworks, this demo is for you.
Den Onde Corporation | Purple | GUS | 486 | Their style is clean. Their code is good. The music is always nice. I'm a sucker for Purple demos.
Nutz | Hyperopia | GUS | Pentium | Filters and warping galore, and some very nice alpha blending for 256 colors. Requires a P166 or higher to truly enjoy it, however (due to the nature of the effects).
Despair | Iguana | SB,GUS | 486 | A nice return for some oldskool boys. The truecolor dithering at the end is particularly nice.
Flirt | Igloo | GUS | 486 | Cute graphics and fast code are always a winner. Watch for the bunny relfected in the stone.
Hard Rox | Skal | SB,GUS | Pentium | This demo is a groundbreaker: Not only are the effects very well coded (realtime dithering, simple particle systems, texture warping, and color bump mapping, to name a few), but it also runs under Linux! Relies on the FPU heavily, so use a Pentium.
Ich Kann Euch Sehen | Purge | GUS | Pentium | Haunting images with nice transitions, all at 640x480.
Explora | Oxygene | SB,GUS | 486 | Fast, pretty perspective-corrected 3D and a neat transition. Not much else, but really shows off a Pentium.
Dawn | TEI | GUS | 386 | An old demo by the guys who became DCB. A great old-school feel.

## 64K intros

### This section holds intros that I feel deserve special appreciation, either due to the staggering number of effects involved, or the overall design. Remember, these have a total size of 64K. You may retrieve any item on the following list simply by clicking or selecting its highlight.

Title | Group | Sound cards: | Requires: | Reason:
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Symbology | Admire | SB,GUS | 386 | This 64K intro has excellent design, as well as good coding. A bouncing plasma-cube on a 3d landscape; and one of the best tunnels in the scene.
Airframe | Prime | GUS | 386 | A neat voxel scene at the beginning, good music in the middle, and a nice vector city at the end.
Poison |  | GUS | 486 | This is the type of thing you'd see at a rave. Heck, this intro is a rave.
Sea Robot of Love | Orange | GUS | 486 | A fine example of the art form. There's some really good code here, and Orange delivers a mellow message that both salutes and mocks the art form.
No Comment |  | GUS | 486 | This is the only other production that I know of (other than Ambience and Luminati by Tran) that uses Tran's "21-bit color" mode. Requires a montior capable of 100Hz refresh rates.
Magic 64 | Keen Like Frogs | SB,GUS | 486 | A darn good simulation of the Bullfrog game Magic Carpet -- in 64K!
Intro | Cascada | GUS | 486 | Excellent camera movement and shadows--shadows are really underrated! Who cares if it's flat shaded?
Transgression 2 | MFX | GUS | Pentium | REAL-TIME RAY-TRACING. Enough said! If you have a Pentium, you have to see this to believe it.
Obez | Kloon | GUS | 486 | The text at the end made me laugh, and the music is pretty good for an intro, if quick. The vectors are really slow, however, so don't expect more than 12 fps.
Jade | Eclipse | GUS | 386 | Very good design for a 64K intro, and runs in the full framerate on a 386/40 (and a decent framerate on a 386-25 :)
Teddybear's Revenge | Eclipse | SB,GUS | 386,MathCo | This is funny to those familiar with the demoscene, and has cool hard-hitting music for such a small space.
Xcursion | Vista Software | SB | 486 | I have no idea how they packed all that code into 50K. The voxels are some of the nicest I've ever seen. And here's a cool trick that's underused: Need more colors than 256? Dither!
Interrupt Internet | Fyoozhen | GUS | 386 | Speech synthesis in an intro.
Essence | Funk | GUS | 486 | Descent in 64K.
GU-Star | Camorra | GUS | 486 | Excellent transparency in part I and multple colored lightsources in part ][. Good music.
Cartoon | Mist | GUS | 386 | The 1890's! What a cool theme.
Genia | Remal | GUS | 486 | Good design and good code! This is a mini demo, and a very good one. I don't know why they say they're from Advanced Gravis, though...
BBS Mindflux | Reality | SB | 386 | Good code, and great Adlib music.
Aboriginal Remix | Paragon | GUS | 486 | Another halcyon knockoff, but done better than average. Maybe it's because they "remixed" it (I can't stand the practice of "remixing" demos--it's lazy). Full framerate on a pentium.
Water | Spirit New Style | SB,GUS | 486 | Hi Hugo! But seriously, the 2D bump mapping at the end of this intro is pretty fast.
We Go | Complex | GUS | Pentium | Finally, a new effect (360+360 degrees) and true artistic vision.
Palikka | Moottori | GUS | 486 | uses standard 80x25 and 80x50 text mode with no palette changes and only the five shaded characters. Cool. :)
Blind | Eufrosyne | SB,GUS | 486 | Has a 3D object moving in and out of water that is just incredible. We all know how it's done, but it's never been done before this intro.
X-Mess | Sin | GUS | 386 | This is easily the funniest intro I've ever seen in my life. The demoscene needs more unique ideas like this!
X | Nocturnal | GUS | 486 | A delicious black texture.
The Astonishing Trive | Yodel | GUS | 486 | A demo with a unique outlook on life. Great snake. The realtime color embossing effect is quite nice.
Paper | Psychic Link | GUS | 486 | Quite possible the perfect intro. Not only does it have one of the most unique ideas I've ever seen, but it also has some of the fastest code I've ever seen. Simply friggin' incredible. True talent.
White Essence | Funk | GUS | 486 | The keyframing is nothing to write home about; however, they did manage to pack some really nice music and textures into this 64K intro.
What? | Cubic Team | GUS | 486 | Some of the best texture warping I've seen in a while.
Orbital | Kloon | GUS | 486 | I don't know why I like this, but I just do. Maybe it's the music, or the cute old-school joke at the beginning.
Deesbab | Orange | GUS | Pentium | Tons of 3D rotations and color clipping. And yet why do I feel these guys are holding back?
Adrift | Wild Light | GUS | 486 | It's nice to know that people haven't forgotten about style. Just like their ASM winner Drift, this one's a winner as well.
Back To The Roots | Vacuum | SB | 486 | A neat tribute to the C64, with a real SIDplayer!
Daze | Urinate | GUS | 486 | Is it me, or is the code in this intro faster than all hell? The music is quite nice, too.

## 4K intros

### This section holds intros that I feel deserve special appreciation, due to the staggering quality of number effects. Remember, these have a total size of 4K--yes, 4096 bytes. Most email messages are larger than that!. You may retrieve any item on the following list simply by clicking or selecting its highlight.

Title | Group | Sound cards: | Requires: | Reason:
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Fractal Dreams | Mental Design |  | 386 | FANTASTIC Fractals. Get this.
Animate | Schwartz |  | 386 | A ton of design as well as good code is in the 4k intro, the winner of ASM'95's 4k intro compo.
Soft | Valhalla | GUS | 386 | Good effects and GUS music in 3.5 K. Cool. :-)
Maximum Reality | Unique PC |  | 486 | Nice-looking 3D, background, and a bit of humor in 4K.
World 4K | Furball | SB,ADLIB | 386 | Adlib music and some fine 3D in 4K. Music is becoming a cool trend in 4K intros.
Mobilization | Jani Honkanen |  | 386 | Some effects we've seen before, but they're done quite well here.
Life | Urinate |  | 386 | 1024 bytes, and four different effects.
Methodology | Byteam |  | 386 | Short and funny.
MC Palca | Abaddon |  | 386 | Also short, and also funny, and only 1024 bytes.
Little Big Demo 2 | Sanction |  | 486 | Over 6 well-coded effects; definitely worth seeing. Read the info file as well--it's funny to coders. ;)
Desert | Enlightenment | GUS | 486 | A story and (simple) GUS music and sound effects in a 4K intro. Not bad.
Chrome 2 | Abaddon |  | Pentium | Realtime raytracing, this time in full 24-bit color--and yes, this is a 4K intro!
1000 Byte Intro | Frenzy |  | 386 | 3 effects in 1000 bytes. 1000-byte .nfo file as well. :-)

## Miscellaneous Demoscene stuff.

### This section holds miscellaneous demoscene stuff that you should see for some reason. :-)

Title | Group | Sound cards: | Requires: | Reason:
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Assembly'96 Intro | Sonic Clique | SB,GUS | 486 | Possibly the very best party invite ever created. The style is 110% professional.
Sun | Pulse | SB,GUS | 386 | Excellent artdisk; coded well (except for the MOUSE DRIVER! ;-) ;-) and the art is just incredible.
Wild | Pulse | SB,GUS | 386 | Another excellent artdisk; check this out after you check out Sun.
Sqrt(2) Reality | Future Screw | SB,GUS | 486 | A fairly funny parody of Second Reality.

# Other Demo-Related Pages

Other demo related WWW pages exist, as well as pictures of your favorite demo people.

And, of course, press those buttons at the top of the page to visit the different sections of this site.

Back to Hornet's home page.
Comments or Suggestions on these WWW pages? Email Trixter.
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