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Graphics Software Hardware

The Art of the Tech Demo 87

Posted by Hemos from the impressing-the-folks-around-you dept.
Alan writes "A lot of people underestimate the significance of a good technology demo. A good tech demo can be more important for a GPU product launch than even benchmarks. However, this means more than just pretty graphics or complex shaders. In my final article to the industry, I explain what the art of the tech demo is all about. "
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The Art of the Tech Demo More

The Art of the Tech Demo

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  • Why don't they just ask the demoscene? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:26AM (#9355698)
    We've been doing it for years..

    http://www.scene.org
    • Just in case the server crashes and burns (like they usually do),I have put up a mirror.
      The mirror of http://www.firingsquad.com/features/art_of_tech_de mo/ is at http://mirrorit.demonmoo.com/r_706/www.firingsquad .com/features/art_of_tech_demo/ [demonmoo.com]

    • Re:Why don't they just ask the demoscene? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by softwave ( 145750 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @09:01AM (#9355936)
      I am not trying to turn this post into a nostalgic troll, I'm actually trying to make a point here.. just sing along with me :)

      Back in the days, making a demo was about showing off "software"-skills. A demo was all about coding fancy effects on a broad range of hardware with no support for hardware acceleration whatsoever.
      Soft pop, technoish 4-, 8-channel music was tracked (trackered?) on a crappy soundcard (thank you Gravis for bringing us the GUS!!)
      Pixelated art was often a result of many hours of hard work, patience and eye for detail.

      A tech demo as referred to in the article is much more about showing off the capabilities of new hardware. The demoscene has brought to the fore some very talented artists, some of them making their way into the professional software business.

      But still, I think there is a big difference between a demo (as in, "demoscene") and a showoff presentation with some fancy effects. The ideology and philosophy is totally different (as is the expected result and audience).

      I'm not trying to be al elitist about the demoscene. I just think that it's a subculture and should be considered as such.
      • ...comes with Debian. Install the "bb" package.
      • id software has also been doing tech demos for years.

        The only difference is that other companies wind up making actual games with their licensed technology.

      • Back in the days, making a demo was about showing off "software"-skills. A demo was all about coding fancy effects on a broad range of hardware with no support for hardware acceleration whatsoever.

        Back in the days of demos the main demo scene revolved mostly around the Commodore Amiga. It was about showing off software skills, but they most definitely made use of hardware acceleration. The graphics processor in the Amiga ended up doing most of the graphics work in a demo with the 68000 working essentially in a management role. No broad range of hardware on the Amiga though - all the variants were very similar.

        Now the PC demo scene inevitably did not have any hardware acceleration as part of their demos, since back then there was none. Video cards in those days on PCs only showed video - even 2D acceleration facilities to speed up drawing windows weren't around... It's only recently with the introduction of more sophisticated GPUs on PCs that some of the kind of things that Amigas could do in hardware are technically possible to do in hardware on PCs. PC demos therefore had to be about software skills rather than what nifty things the hardware could do for you.

      • Ahh, but now (Score:3, Funny)

        by spoco2 ( 322835 )
        Back in the days, making a demo was about showing off "software"-skills. A demo was all about coding fancy effects on a broad range of hardware with no support for hardware acceleration whatsoever.
        Ahh, but now, unfortunately, it seems to have gone the way of "We aren't even going to try to run on your machine unless you have pixel shaders". Which is really annoying as every now and again (every few months), I remember about demos and go and hunt some down, download what are currently rated as the best and
    • Some tech demos has been already done by some ex-demo makers:
      - 3DMark series have been produced by some guys from Future Crew or Dust [pouet.net]
      - One of the latest nVidia demo 'Nalu' has been done by Hubert N'Guyen who is working at nVidia.
      He was from Impact Studios [pouet.net]
      - List go on ..

  • Back in the old days... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Agent Green ( 231202 ) * on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:28AM (#9355705)
    ...there actually used to be a demo scene which really turned out some amazing stuff. My favorite demo group of all was the Future Crew [fact-index.com], and Second Reality did some really pretty neat stuff on some pretty mediocre hardware. Though, the VLB card I ended up getting sped up significant portions of some of the more intensive portions of the demos (i.e. the concentric rings in Second Reality).

    I used to leave it running in a loop at work so we could sell more computers. :)

    • Re:Back in the old days... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The demo scene is still going strong, though the general public doesn't seem to care.

      http://pouet.net for some delicious scene-ry :)
    • In fact, hopefully, Slashdot will cover Assembly in August (assembly.org) as future crew now run that ;) Should be some amazing demos this year!

    • Re:Back in the old days... (Score:5, Informative)

      by White Shade ( 57215 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:40AM (#9355783)
      you speak of the scene [scene.org] as if it was past tense ... i think you'll find [ojuice.net] that you are wrong [pouet.net]!!

      the scene [assembly.org] is still going [untergrund.net] quite strong! [altparty.org] :D

      • Re:Back in the old days... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by flynn_nrg ( 266463 ) <mmendez@NoSpAM.gmail.com> on Monday June 07, 2004 @10:52AM (#9356847) Homepage Journal

        In a sense it is. I used to be an amiga scener back in the day, and recently wanted to see what the PC guys are up to these days. I can tell you, I'm pretty disappointed with most of what I've seen. I was very impressed by stuff like this [theproduct.de], which, ironically, was coded by an ex-Amiga guy (dierk "chaos" ohlerich).

        I don't mean to flame, but I've been much more impressed by what games companies are doing these days than by PC demos from the last two years. There was a time when the demoscene was ahead of game developers. I don't think this is still true.

        TBL [tbl.org] still makes demos for Amiga 1200 (060/AGA) that are quite impressive. Most PC stuff I've seen is mediocre.

      • The demo scene is still going, just see the massive turnout to events like Assembly in Finland.

        Just come to Scene Event in Denmark [se2k.dk] it's the ten'th time this year and we still get new, cool productions.

    • They still do.


      Just check out The Product [theproduct.de] which shows a complete demo contained in 64K!!!

      I think they [the demo-scene] just went more 'underground', then they used too.
    • That's funny. I remember walking through the campus bookstore at Virginia Tech back in 1996, and the computers for sale were showing just that: Second Reality. So I wonder how much Future Crew is responsible for outside of getting guys into programming graphics?

  • Animusic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:31AM (#9355726) Homepage
    One of the demos they go over in the article is the Animusic demo [ati.com] for ATI's Radeon 9700.

    That was one of the cooler demos I've seen. The graphics aren't that special but paired with the sound the scene comes alive.

  • A demo by any other name ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisumNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:32AM (#9355729) Homepage Journal
    ... In my industry, demo's (or, more appropriately, demo songs) have been a staple part of the released product for years. [virus.info]

    Okay, demo songs for synthesizers are not often the 'best' example of what the synth can do. But this is also a good thing, sometimes ... because musicians will often hear a 'demo song' and think to themselves "sounds great, but I could do better", and the moment someone is thinking that about a song on your product (in my business), you're closer to a sale.

    IF the demo is interesting enough 'sounding' to get their attention, but turns out to be pretty 'uninspired' as a song, then this leads the musician/customer to think 'okay, great capabilities, poor execution in the track, I'll take it and see what I can do better' ...

    Its been known for a long time that a demo need not be 'superlative', just "demonstrative of the technology you're trying to sell", and not much else. When was the last time you heard a "Hit Demo Song" coming from a synth? But, I'll bet you anything that the demo songs on most modern synth gear these days contain factory patches that you'll recognize as sounds in popular songs, and no matter how cheesy the track is, if it somehow shows you what is 'possible' with the hardware, even if its naff, then you're closer to a sale ...

  • Agreed. (Score:5, Funny)

    by SinaSa ( 709393 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:33AM (#9355738) Homepage
    Yup. I can attest to that. Being part of a GPU design team myself.

    If only we hadn't have used the goatse man as part of our tech presentation on the big night, we might still be around.
    • Obviously, you weren't presenting to the big pr0n industry.

    • Re:Agreed. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Dr. Cody ( 554864 )
      Yup. I can attest to that. Being part of a GPU design team myself.

      If only we hadn't have used the goatse man as part of our tech presentation on the big night, we might still be around.

      So that's what happened to BitBoys...

  • 1st thing to remember in a techdemo... (Score:5, Funny)

    by sh0dan ( 762382 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:42AM (#9355804) Homepage
    ...Boobs! - They seem to be rather obvious to show off high polycount and advanced shading techniques. Furthermore they are also a good place to show off your great dynamic-body-physics-engine(TM).

    ... insert more good reasons to show boobs in tech demos here...

  • Valuable Experience (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eltoyoboyo ( 750015 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:44AM (#9355819) Journal
    A very successful integrated solution salesman, with whom I once had the pleasure of working, had a very relevant quote for here:

    "Do a demo, lose a sale."

    The deeper explanation is that so many salespeople come to call with "gadgety" demos and slides. The really successful salesperson LISTENS to a customer's problems and tries to work out a solution in common.
    • Right.... but these are downloadable demos to sell cards to individuals and developers, not integrated solutions sold to large companies. You'd need millions of identical skilled salesmen to sell to each GPU customer.

      In the absence of Sludge Vohaul's phone number, developing a good demo is the best choice.

    • speaking as one of those guys trotted out into the field by sales guys to do demos, I couldn't agree more. I find that the less I've talked in a demo, the better things are. The best demo people are those who don't have something canned, but rather have a whole array of little chucks of stuff they can show. They then talk to the clients, listen to what the real needs are and then show the most relevant chunks from their tool box.
    • Well, yes, but here we're not talking custom solutions. I doubt that many people could even afford a custom designed GPU, by someone who's listened carefully to their problems. We're talking something which would cost billions in R&D alone.

      What we're talking about is commodity off-the-shelf graphics cards. (Or sound cards, or synthetisers, or whatever else.) You buy this one, or you buy that other one, or you don't buy anything at all.

      And if you expect someone to come and listen to your problems just
    • We're talking about something with aestetical output, not something easily quantifiable. You can't tell jack about a GPUs output from its specs. Even two boards with similar specs can have incredibly different output.

      It's like trying to figure out how good an artist Da Vinci was by looking at the chemical make-up of his paint, rather than looking at his art.

    • That's very insightful. Remember what Oracle did to become the biggest database company in the world? They did presentations, not demos. If you wanted to see the database working, you had to buy it. The salesman would not show you the actual database during his pitch.

      That led to the old joke, playing on Oracle's support for many computer platforms:

      Q: What platform does Oracle database run best on?
      A: A 35mm slide projector.

    • I've been selling software for over a year without using a notebook and any brochures - I'd just talk to the customer, later I'd email them a URL to see screenshots or try the product if they wanted to.
      Now that I've started using a notebook, I can do some things right on the spot while still with the customer, but I prefer to minimize time I spend on showing off fancy presentations because listening and talking without a pre-set pattern of slides seems to be more effective.

      For some services/products I beli
  • I agree , I have seen many impressive demos ( in various formats and guises) , but I thought it was just the fact that im older now , that that wow , almost wet myself it was so good feeling was not there anymore, looking back on some of the things I thought where great back in the day (1989) , granted they have lost there wow factor now , but nothing these days comes close, SGI used to be really good at the wow factor

  • In the end, many people go with the brand-name they prefer and that's where the tech demo comes in.

    Many people are also like me who just look to see who has the best Linux drivers. (nvidia, for those wondering)

    • No, people like that are in the absolute minority. That's why there aren't many drivers out for linux. Bigger share of the market = more drivers for your OS.

      I'm not having a go, but lets not ignore the real problem here :) The lack of drivers for linux isn't part of a smear campaign, or the latest round of MS-backed dirty tricks :-P

  • yeah it is truly amazing how much the tech demos have been progressing in the past few years, I just recently watched an NVidia demo that was just a few months old and compared to the new one for the 6800 series it looked awful, you could see a big difference, we're definitely progressing *remembers seeing an article about how some gpus have more transistors than a decent processor*

  • Naked pixies in gossamer lingerie . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by pariahdecss ( 534450 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:52AM (#9355877)
    Its the naked pixies that influence my GPU purchases. If I am going to drop $500.00 on the latest GPU it better have a naked pixie tech demo. Errr wait didn't NVIDIA try that . . .it didn't make me buy their leaf blower GPU. (remote power station not included - see store for details)

  • The real art of the demo (Score:5, Funny)

    by russotto ( 537200 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:53AM (#9355879) Journal
    Is how to rig it, of course. To misquote a phrase, any sufficiently advanced technology can be simulated by a rigged demo :-)

  • I don't know (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Erwos ( 553607 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:53AM (#9355880)
    I think the importance of tech demoes have diminished greatly in recent years, when cards have had more or less the same capabilities (not speed, maybe) anyways. I mean, a DX9 tech demo is theoretically able to run on any card that can "do" DX9.

    Also, when it comes to bragging rights, "prettier tech demo!" just doesn't work on most people. Intangibles like frame rate and features are what people can easily point to.

    That's not to say GPU tech demoes are worthless - but in comparison to other stuff, they've had their day in the sun. Fortunately, I predict a long life for them on consoles :).

    -Erwos

  • 4 things that make the world go round (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Bears, balls, tits and ass. All good tech demos speak to this reality.

  • Tech Demos - Dreamcast vs Playstation 2 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JaF893 ( 745419 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @08:57AM (#9355906) Journal
    The tech demo is how Sony PlayStation 2 was able to stifle the Sega Dreamcast despite platform parity early on.

    I think in this case the author is exaggerating the importance of tech demos. I wonder what % of Dreamcast or PlayStation 2 owners have actually seen either of the two tech demos? I think the simple fact that the PS2 was backwardly compatible was much more significant then some stupid tech demo

    • Re:Tech Demos - Dreamcast vs Playstation 2 (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wonder what % of Dreamcast or PlayStation 2 owners have actually seen either of the two tech demos?

      Probably very few. Now compare that to the number of gamedevelopers shown tech demos. I think(hope?) you'll see what they are hinting at. If not, look at the number of original, groundbreaking 3rd party games for the Dreamcast as compared to the PS2. Customers make or break a console, but customers can only buy games that developers create.

    • My guess is it was the sales figures... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Note that the DC predates the PS2 by almost a year.

      If you want to impress developers, forget tech demos, show them how many units they're going to sell.

      Any developer who went for the power of the 3DO learned quickly what the real most important stat was.

      The PS1 was the biggest thing in videogaming, it blew away the Saturn and all other comers. It was fresh off whupping the N64 when the DC came out, and my guess is developers felt the safe bet was on Sony's follow-on. They were right.

  • The Doublecross superbly done (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The article starts off nicely with:

    Most people here would agree that ATI's latest technology demo, 'The Doublecross' starring their new mascot Ruby (Download the video here) is superbly done.

    including a screenshot from said demo. I particularly like the way you can see the scenery behind the girl through her mouth.

    I suppose 'superbly' applies to either the realistic look on the girls face, when apparently the back of her head is missing, or that she must have a display in her mouth that displays what's
  • All my decent Video cards since the days of my 486 have been NVIDA, and even though ive never had a top or even high end card at the time i bought it, from the frount page of the artical the only ATI demo i can rember seeing or hearing about is Animusic.

    Perhpas the lack of seeing ATI demos in stores
    and videos of them flaoting the net played a part in my choice of video card.

    A bit like a shareware or demo,
    try before you buy.

  • Misplaced priorities (Score:3, Interesting)

    by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @10:27AM (#9356611)
    I don't know what the videocard industry is thinking sometimes. Maybe instead of sinking so many hours of coder time in creating these pretty bits of eye candy for each new product release, they should assign some more resources to the development and QA testing of the actual drivers.

    I dunno about you, but I think the last time I bought a video card that came with a rock-solidly stable video driver was the VGA card that came with my 386. For every card since, it seems like it's been a buggy, 90% functional driver at release, an update to 95% functionality and fewer bugs three or four months later, and then no further driver releases as the driver teams have all moved on to the next bleeding-edge chipset.

    • Re:Misplaced priorities (Score:4, Insightful)

      by doinky ( 633328 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @11:42AM (#9357334)
      As a former driver developer, I can tell you that 85% of "driver problems" are hardware problems that the driver failed to work around (sometimes because it was impossible to do so without compromising other goals of the product).

      I worked on the Savage 2000 driver for S3, for instance, i.e., the one that everybody thinks was broken because T&L didn't work. Of course, the hardware came back so incredibly shitty that it was actually _slower_ to use its pipeline than the one me and another guy wrote in software (originally as an exercise in load-balancing in high-number-of-lights conditions and to handle a couple of D3D7 features the chip didn't support).

      The driver writers at graphics chip companies know their stuff. They're good. Fundamentally, with immature hardware and the desire for speed at all costs, I think they're doing the best they can at this point.

    • the problem here isn't the videocard industry - it's capitalism. no industry can survive without sales, and effort spent on getting sales is more directly relevant to the company's survival than hunting down the last few bugs. as long as the showstopper bugs ("Bug No. 4523: customer PC combusts when card is inserted") are resolved, they will ship it.

  • "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a tech demo."

  • Joke Time (Score:3, Funny)

    by CaptainZapp ( 182233 ) * on Monday June 07, 2004 @12:37PM (#9357852) Homepage
    An Oracle salesman dies and goes to heaven where he is welcomed by St.Peter.

    St. Peter gives hime a lute shows him to a cloud and instructs him to sit on the cloud, play the lute and rejoice.

    So the Oracle salesman sits on the cloud, plays the lute and rejoices. Evening comes and St. Peter is coming to the salesmans cloud and asks him how he likes it in heaven.

    The guy goes: I'm honest with you, St.Peter. I think it's a pretty bland place."

    OK, says St. Peter, instructs the salesguy to follow him and takes him to the express elevator that leads straight to the gates of hell.

    St. Peter knocks and the door is opened by Lucifer himself. Behind Lucifer there's an unbelievable scene to be viewed:

    Miles and miles of white beach. A nice surf on the ocean. Muscle bound young men and tasty looking bikini clad girls play beach volleyball. Laughter fills the air. There are piles of food and multiple open bars (with an outstanding selection of single malt whiskies).

    After having taken in the view St. Peter leads the Oracle guy back to the express elevator which takes them straight up back to heaven.

    "Well", says St. Peter. "You have seen what hell is all about and you have to make your final decision now. Do you want to stay in heaven, sitting on a cloud, playing your lute and rejoice, or do you want to go back to hell? But, whatever you do: Your decision is final and can't be changed."

    "Alright", sais the sales guy. "I think I rather chose hell".

    "Fine", says St. Peter, guides him to the express elevator and down he goes; straight back to the gates of hell.

    He knocks and almost burns his knuckles from the hot door. Lucifer opens with a smile and a complete different scenery evolves behind Lucifer:

    There's fire and heat everywhere; torchured people with pained faces try to escape their miseries. The screams and yells of the tormented fill the air.

    The Oracle salesman is stunned and says: "But, but... this is incredible. I've been here only 15 minutes ago and this place was completely differen!"

    "Well", smiles Lucifer: "That was the demo..."

    Ok, it's old, but nevertheless illustrates the power of good demo...

  • From the article:
    Spend the time finding a good composer. Even if someone like Klaus Badelt, Hans Zimmer, Trevor Rabin, or Harry Gregson-Williams isn't available, a good soundtrack makes visuals look even better.
    Come on Alan, everybody knows Yes was better with Steve Howe.... ;)

    I apologize. I know full well, I should talk about the graphics demos. Ooo, a Steve Howe graphics demo...

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