Atari ST demos

[AvvA]

Hi amiga lovers

I only pass through this forum/topic by searching for an amiga demobase front-end (well, I come from the ST world and have the opposite though, I mean that I know ST scene and want to discover the amiga's one ^^), and as I've got the answers to previous questions, I'll tell you.

Screens - Perhaps because of the megademo concept that was quite popular in ST scene (cuddly, dark side of the spoon...), each demo in those megademo was called screens because they're independant programs that run in fullscreen, it seems that the name stays.

Menus - Demos refered as 'menus' are just what their name says : games' menu-disks.
The cracking crews often use a loading screen, or a multiple game-choice menu when relevant, and those menus were some littles demo-screens, this explain why they are included in demobases.

But, by extension and to explain better, a megademo contains multiples demos, each one is unique code that can run alone, i.e. cuddly demo propose to select individuals screens via a game-like interface (custodian's sprite), one door = one demo part = 1 screen. If you squeeze the custodian megademo selection interface (it's not possible, but imagine), you get a list of the differents part-demos (yeah, screens), this kind of list we usually call 'menus', this fact leads to call megademo interface : menu or demo-menu.

I hope it helps to understand the logic


place to start :
Also, don't know if you found it, but there is an excellent existing Atari ST DemoBase based on GameBase concept and made by Dave Haley :
DEMOBASE ST 2.83

Another older made by Brume : http://pacidemo.planet-d.net/

Or independant others : Equinox, Pompey Pirates, POV, ...

Have fun discovering the ST scene

[Teho]

Interesting information there AvvA, thanks for that.

The definition of "megademo" is similar in the amiga scene, though it usually means separate short parts shown in order with a loading part inbetween. I can't recall any with menus. There were several great ones, but the ones most remembered today is probably The Red Sector Megademo and Budbrain. Worth checking out.

[AvvA]

My pleasure

In ST demoscene all megademos weren't with game-like selection' menus, a lot were like you describe, without possibility to choose one or other demo, but displayed in order and separated by a loader.

When I first see Cuddly demo on ST I was amazed to see a game where doors leads to demos that somehow explode the games solded at this time, the guy told me it was inspired from an amiga megademo, I don't know if its true, but well... I assume that 'war' was constant at this time, and industrial espionnage in demo-scene was effective, atari inspiring amiga inspiring atari...etc, or vice-versa more likely


Anyway, thanks for your demos links, I tried to launch them but have issue with WinUAE... I have to search further to understand it then i'll be able to watch and listen to Amiga demos !

By the way, I know that's not a good way to ask, but is there any link to AMIGA DEMOBASE's front-end ?
I Found the topic here, but even with google i'm not able to put my hands on it...

[Harrison]

All the versions of gamebase and demobase use the same gamebase64 frontend. You can download it by going to http://www.gamebase64.com/downloads.php.

I tend to just run demos directly in WinUAE though as you can fairly easily work out what Amiga setup you need to use from most demo's entries in our CA demo database, and on other sites with their details about each demo. Sites like Bitfellas and Pouet.net are great for exploring the Amiga demo scene.

BTW, it is great to get a perspective from someone exploring Amiga demos for the first time, coming from the ST. Welcome to classicamiga!

If you need any help getting WinUAE to run (kickstart files and demo adfs) please let us know. We will be glad to help.

It will be interesting to know what you think of the best Amiga demos compared to the ones you have experienced on the ST.

For me, going back to the ST after so many years with the Amiga I've been quite disappointed with ST demos. The graphical capabilities fall far short of what they achieved over the years on even the Amiga A500, let alone the A1200. Some of the STE only demos have been more impressive, but still fall short of most of the best Amiga demos in my view. The biggest difference though is audio. Even with the better audio capabilities of the STE most demos still stick to chiptunes, whereas the Amiga demos were all using the 4 channel stereo capabilities with samples.

I'm saying ST demos are all bad though. Just that due to the more limited capabilities of the ST that after watching so many Amiga productions that the ST demos seem less technically impressive. I've still been enjoying many good demos on the ST.

One thing I've also noticed. Many of the really good Amiga demos have great stories or themes running though them as they play. I've not encountered this as much on the ST. If you can recommend any good ST demos that contain some good themes and stores that run through out their whole production that would be great.

[AvvA]

Thanks a lot for this GB64 info ! I could never find it as I was searching for a specific one...

About amiga demos, I can't see difference, it tastes the same if we exclude the good sound of Amiga .
At the sigh of the 2 firsts disks of the 2 demos (can't make the seconds one to start...), I remember some better screens from ST scene, visually speaking, not the sounds
I like them though, I'm not especially 'searching' for performance, more for ideas and tunes, and there are some good inside these 2 demos.
I also retrieve a pale copy, have a look at Kaos meeting Demo, after the amigas originals sources, it's quite poor, it's just to show you the obvious RIP

To find some good products, take a look at TCB - The Carebears (The Union, So Watt, Wattaheck, Cuddly demos...), An cool (M-Demo 4), TLB - The Lost Boys, Oxygene...
This are those I remember. I'll try to make a kind of short bestof megademo and some screens of performance alone too, but it will be subjective... and quite badder than actual PC performance

I don't remember a demo with a story...
I remember that it was like a friendly competitive dialogue that makes a story with time. Between TCB and TLB was some funny stuff. Competition to do better than others and push limits of the hardware, and dialogue because it was from a demo to another, from a screen to another...

At the good old time I knew someone with an amiga, and at the time I've found that scrollings were more flawless, that it was much more colored (16 vs 32 colors, normal), more sprites, better sounds...
All that said, I already knew why, amiga has better hardware ^^

I remember 1 demo on Amiga 500, called...
...searching... please wait... 2 hours later...
still nothing
Ok, I attach the module I reaped from the demo at the time (I know... I'm sick , I can tell that at 2mn28, exactly, 2 rubans goes from bottom to top, one orange, one green ! At the same time the strange electro-flute/guitar start to play (i told you, i'm sick !).
Ok, not so important, but I hope to find some other of this kind (music), and by the way see again this demo, I remember havin' a good feeling when watching... for sure the music helped, 20 years later I still like it

I'll get around this forum and those others you told me, and ask if I can't find, but already I noticed the music preview in here, marvelous, thanks a lot !

[Teho]

That module is from Hardwired, a collaboration between Crionics and Silents. It's a much liked production worth seeing. This is one of the demos with Jesper Kyd's early music, who's now much more famous for his soundtracks in the Hitman and Assassin's Creed games, among others. So perhaps not strange that you particularily remember the music from this demo.

You say you can't get the second disk of the demos to start? Many of the old demos didn't recognise secondary drives on the Amiga (Hardwired doesn't either) So when the change disk prompt came you had to take out the first disk and insert the second into the internal drive. It would often require a mouseclick or something to continue as well.

As for the quality, yeah the megademos are pretty old. After the trackmos took over (the continuously flowing demos) nobody made megademos anymore. So you'll definitely find the best quality demos among the trackmos. Here there are lots of great ones to choose from. A few quick mentions that I can recommend are Arte and Interference by Sanity, D.O.S. and Sequential by Andromeda and you probably allready know Desert Dream by Kefrens? There are lots more, and that's not even starting on the later AGA demos for the later Amiga models.

[Harrison]

AvvA, a list of the ST demos you think are the best to have a look at would be great if you could do one. As you can imagine, going back to the ST after so many years and trying to look through all of the ST demo scene in one go to try and find the best productions is pretty hard. Vety much like you are trying to do now with the Amiga.

And to add to Teho's information about continuing a demo with a second disc. If you are running the demos from emulation like WinUAE then you will need to swap the ADF files over. To do that in WinUAE press F12 on your keyboard to bring up the properties window, then change the ADF in the DF0: drive for the second disc, then click OK to continue the emulator and load the contents of the next disc.