|1-PC Demo Scene



                           By Kei of Carnage


 I  own  a  PC as well as my Amiga.  I originally got it to help with my
university  course  work  but  because  a  few  other members in Carnage
switched to PC I decided to develop a PC division of the group.
 First  off  though  I  decided to investigate the PC "demo" scene if it
existed.  After all, a lot of Amiga groups quit to join this PC scene so
it should be worth checking out.
 When  you  first  get  a  PC  however,  you are occupied with operating
systems,  utilities  etc  and you spend most of your time in Windows (no
substitute  for Workbench believe me!).  You may come across PC software
traders  but  they  are  far from friendly.  Maybe you should stick with
your Amiga?
 I  decided  to press on and to my delight I found several references to
the PC demo scene on the internet.  From here I located some information
web  sites  and  a few ftp archives.  I spent a couple of hours a day at
university  downloading  these  demo scene "warez" with the intention of
reviewing them for The Word if they were any good.

|1-Demos



 I had read an article some years ago with reference to the Amiga vs the
PC.  It mentioned that it's harder to do certain coding routines on a PC
because  of  the  Amiga's custom hardware (such as the blitter).  The PC
uses  pages  instead  of screens like The Amiga and it uses a variety of
soundcards  which  are not always compatible with each other, wheras the
Amiga's sound is taken care of already by the custom chip set.  The only
worries  an  amiga scener has is memory and chipset (no-AGA/AGA), unlike
the  PC  user  who  has  to  check  his XMS/EMS, base mem, soundcard and
memory.

 I  did not know all of this yet so I took home my disks full of PC demo
scene warez and dumped them on my HD.
 The  PC  scene  runs  from  DOS.   It is full of slagging's off against
Windows  so  don't  even bother loading Win95 to view a demo!  Make sure
your machine can boot to DOS if you want to watch demos.
 The first demo I ran on my 486 was a 64k intro.  I was stunned!  It was
better  than  any  Amiga  64k intro I had seen!  This could be due to my
monitor  and the fact that my PC runs at 80MHz wheras my Amiga only runs
at  28Mhz.   The demo featured smooth scrolling backgrounds and spinning
3D objects.
 The  larger  the  demo  the  more quality you get.  Especially demos by
Complex.   These tend to be 1 - 4MBs and of an amazing quality!  Dope is
my  favourite  as you travel through a weird but wonderful 3D world at a
fast frame rate!

 Like  many  PC owners, I have a SoundBlaster Pro compatible sound card.
However,  the  standard  within  the  PC  demo scene is the GUS, "Gravis
Ultrasound  Soundcard".  This is due to the onboard RAM it has so it can
sample  faster  into  it's own memory without bothering the CPU hence no
loss  of overall speed.  Some demos support SoundBlaster though but most
don't.   Usually  a  demo  will  be listed as either GUS or SB compat or
GUS/SB  meaning  both.   You may come across the following upon typing a
demo name at the DOS prompt:

1 - Gravis Ultrasound
2 - Sound Blaster
3 - No Sound

 The  PC  demo  scene tends to favour 12-18 channel music modules in the
format  .XM  (fastTracker) or .S3M (ScreamTracker).  However there are a
lot  of  acknowledgements throughout the PC scene to the Amiga scene and
this is because of the ceation of the MOD module format which they stole
from us.  Upon unarcing your demo's ZIP file you may notice one of these
three module formats.

 The  ascii  art  in  the PC demo scene is known as "ANSI ART".  This is
because  the  PC has a different character set than the amiga and it can
produce  lines  and  squares  amongst other characters.  It can also use
colour  without  all  those ESC[3m type escape codes.  This enables ansi
artists to produce texts and pictures which are visually smart.

 The  earliest  reference  I  have  found on the internet to the PC demo
scene is 1987 and the earliest for the Amiga is 1985 so we know who came
first.  However it wasn't until 1992 when the PC demo scene got it's act
together  and  created  disk  magazines.   This brought more scene group
names  together in order to release a production many could enjoy.  This
had  a  great  deal to do with a lot of Amiga and Atari sceners crossing
over  to the PC demo scene at this point in time.  More would follow and
if  you  look through the PC demo scene today you will come across a lot
of  references  to  long  dead Amiga groups such as Anarchy and Majic 12
which  are still alive on the PC.  Most groups on the Amiga scene have a
PC  division  and  on  the  PC scene these groups say they have an Amiga
division.   The  fact however is that they have coders for the Amiga and
the PC and the rest of the group work for both formats even if they only
have  one  type  of  machine  because  the software they produce such as
pictures,  ascii,  music  and  articles  is  transferable  between  both
platforms.   That  is  why  famous  Amiga artists like Peachy, Danny and
Facet are well known on the PC demo scene as are musicians Aquafresh and
Moby.
 With  this  knowledge  you will feel instantly at home in the PC scene.
It's  links  to  the  Amiga  scene  are  so great that if you don't load
Windows for a week you'll swear you were on the Amiga scene still!

 The  demo  scene on the PC scene is more defined than that of the Amiga
though.   The  main  reason  is  that  the  Amiga  scene's traders trade
"anything" from demos to games and full blown comercial utilities.  This
is  not  so  on  the  PC  demo scene.  Due to the large size of the PC's
software  releases,  you  often require a CDROM to port the utility/game
between  machines.  This is not practical hence scene traders trade demo
warez  mainly.   They do trade small warez that will fit onto a disk but
they are usually coded in asm by sceners and are not commercial.
 Piracy,  however  is  not  reduced  either.   Cracking groups are still
around  and provide pirate CDROMs as well as smaller games in ZIP format
so the scene boards do a lot of trading.  Most Amiga scene boards have a
PC  section  but  these  mainly  contain  small  PD  warez  for  ease of
downloading and disk storage.

 What I have written here of course is an overview or "first impression"
of  the PC demo scene from my point of view.  I have written it with the
intention  of  informing  you  Amiga  "die-hard" sceners that there is a
scene  similar  to  ours on the PC and to increase your knowledge so you
know  a  bit  more  about it.  As I probe deeper into this "other" scene
I'll write more articles for future editions of The Word to let you know
what  I find.  You can email me if you wish to know any URL's for the PC
demo scene.


 Before  I  finish  this  article  here's a quick review of some PC demo
scene disk magazines...


|1-Disk Magazine Reviews



 PAIN

 Issue reviewed: March 1997

 Pain  seems  to  be a regularly released scene mag as there is an issue
out  every  few months.  As soon as it loads it reminds you a bit of The
Word  as  it  has  a  small top bar displaying the current article being
viewed and a menu bar at the bottom of the screen.
 There  is no mouse control only CURSOR and ENTER controls for selecting
articles and ESC for going backwards and quitting.
 The  gfx are colourful but blocky.  This is largely due to the over-use
of PC ansi.
 After  reading Pain you get the feeling that you have seen this type of
mag  before  and you'd be right if you ever read Grapevine 9 - 15 as the
layout  and  article types are just the same.  It has a good section for
coders as well as the usual scene news and advert sections.
 A  good feature is the clock on the menu bar.  Upon loading, Pain reads
your system clock and uses it to display the time on the menu.

 6/10 - Informative, useful and very colourfull Grapevine clone.


 IMPHOBIA

 Issue reviewed: 12 (July 1996)

 After  running  the  executable  from  DOS  you  are  given a soundcard
configuration  and  asked  if  it is correct.  If not you can enter your
soundcard  setup  from  a  series  of  questions.   Mine is SoundBlaster
compat, 220h, IRQ 7, DMA 3.
 The  loading gfx is f'ing amazing!  On my PC monitor it looks virtually
stunning.   So  far,  the diskmags I have seen from the PC scene did not
compare  to  ROM  or RAW or any of the high quality looking diskmags the
Amiga  scene  is  known for.  The menu is just as good with high quality
art work.
 The  menu  is  split  into  sections  such  as MAIN, EDITORIAL, CHARTS,
ARTICLES,  INTERVIEWS  and  CREDITS.  Once you click on them (Amiga like
mouse pointer) you are presented with a two column article format with a
font that looks like it came from the RAW team.  As you move through the
article there is a bar which shows the amount you have gone through.
 This  diskmag  screams  quality  at  you and if it were on the Amiga it
would  be  No.1  in  the  diskmag  charts.   Full  credits to Orange for
producing  such a virtually stunning piece of work!  A few more articles
would be nicer though but it's great for chart info.

 9/10 - Great gfx, easy to use and a cool charts section.


 SCENIAL

 Issue reviewed: 2

 Just  like Imphobia, Scenial has a soundcard setup at startup.  It also
has  a  cool  loading picture of a high quality.  The menu is similar to
RAWs  and  the articles are 2 columns wide.  The menu bar has no buttons
as everything is keyboard or mouse orientated within the article window.
The progress indicator is in the form "1/1" where you are at page one of
one.  This is located at the bottom of the screen along with the article
name.
 There  are a wide range of articles grouped together in a style similar
to  the ROM teams.  Articles about the mag such as editorial and credits
are  listed under "Home Base" then there's "Scene Hall", about the scene
in   general,   "The  Lobby",  which  is  general  chit  chat,  "Serious
Computainment",  about  computers  in general (mentions the Amiga), "Fun
Computainment",  which  would  be listed under "Bollox" if it was in The
Word,  "Culture",  life  in  the PC scene, "Pure Entertainment", humour,
jokes  etc,  "Music  Corner",  guess.   Also  there is "Technical Warp",
"Interview  Torturing",  "Charts",  "Anarchy  Class"  and  "Greetings  &
Sites".
 Scenial  has  cool  music and stunning demo graphics for the header and
background.   A  quality  diskmag let down by the use of a bright yellow
TOPAZ type font.

 7/10 - Quality gfx & sound, a good read, crap font, cool exit ansi.


 WHAT!?

 Issue reviewed: 1 (Dec 1995)

 This  mag  starts  by saying "Windows 95 required...  NOT!!!  ;-)" when
run  from  DOS.   It  uses  the  MIDAS  sound  system  to  configure the
soundcard.   This  is a piece of code which I've come across on lot's of
scene  productions like disk magazines and demos.  It allows the user to
choose  his soundcard preferences from a series of menus before the main
code is run.  Once completed the program tests for a mouse etc.
 A  screen  then  pops  up warning the user of the possible inclusion of
obscenties  inside this magazine.  A rendered image or two later and you
are  presented  with  the  menu  screen  which appears to be of a LOWRES
quality.
 The  article  content  is sparse and the mouse interface is jerky.  The
menu is designed to look like a HiFi facia but the colours are wrong.

 3/10 - Blocky, limited Gfx, sparse articles, crap exit ansi.


 YAHOO

 Issue reviewed: 5 "The Party Issue"

 Yahoo  starts off with a quickset menu from DOS whereby you select your
soundcard.   Although  I  typed in my soundcard prefs correctly it still
freezes.  This is annoying, I miss the Amiga's guru as at least you know
the thing's bloody well crashed!
 After  selecting  "No Sound" You are presented with a short bland intro
telling  you what is in this issue.  The menu bar is in a graffiti style
with the article menu as a text file with PC ansi as section headers.
 Control  is by mouse at first but once you get into the mag it lets you
use  the cursor keys.  The format of the articles are a white background
with  black  text.  Sort of an inverse DOS.  The only colour to be found
is the main menu bar at the bottom of the screen.
 There  are  a  lot  of  articles  which  include a good charts section.
Overall  it's ok for content but the lack of colour makes it look 2D and
very boring.

 5/10 - good content but not much to look at.


 UNREAL

 Issue reviewed: 3

 Unreal  seems  to  be  an  ansi  artists dream.  The whole thing is put
together  with  ansi.   You are presented with an option of choosing the
font  at  the  start  and  once you enter the mag, the borders, menu and
backdrop  image are all done in PC ansi art.  There is some code present
as  the  ansi art attempts to do some short colour cycling.  The menu is
very  much  like  Tools  deamon  in  that  you select one of the headers
UNREAL, ARTICLES BY, INTERVIEWS/INFO, GROUPS, ANSI and SYSTEM.
 Once  you  enter  an  artcle  (by  using  cursors  and  enter), you are
presented  with  the  article  displayed on an "EDIT" type backdrop with
more  ansi  art  of a blue/grey colouring.  There is a percentage bar to
indicate the amount of article read.
 The  ANSI  header  is  a list of ansi art in this feature.  This ranges
from  words to pictures and is pretty impressive.  I'm hoping to port my
Amiga ascii skills over to the PC to produce some Carnage Ansi art and I
hope I can do some as good as these guys.

 6/10 - Cool ansi art, mainly for ansi artists though.


 NEW WORLD ORDER

 Issue reviewed: 7 (Aug 1995)

 After entering the exe name at the DOS prompt it informs you that it is
messing  with your soundcard, then a kick-ass music module starts at MAX
volume!   It's  a  sorta  cool carib jive with some technical background
thrown in.
 The  menu  is pretty smart and reminds me of early GENERATION issues on
the Amiga.  The article page counter is in the format ?/?  and there are
4  music  modules you can select by pressing F1-F4.  There are tonnes of
articles  which  is  just  as  well  as the magazine comes as a ZIP that
barely fits on a HD floppy!
 The  menu  format is like VISUAL INTENSITY on the Amiga.  However there
seems  to  be a problem running on my machine as the scren flickers when
you change pages and the resolution is only about 600x400.

 8/10 - good content, gfx and sound. Nostalgic Amiga-type interface.


 GENETIC DREAMS

 Issue reviewed: 1 (Sept 1994)

 Hmm..   no sound and no on-line help features in the mag.  There were a
few  articles  but  the  interface  was  too  small  and  clumsy to use.
completly keyboard controlled.

 1/10 - Boring yellow text, not much to read or look at.


 ALT-1

 Issue reviewed: 14 (1994)

 This  uses  cool  ansi  art animation to prompt you as to your hardware
config  before  the  magazine loads.  However it uses an automatic MIDAS
soundcard detection routine which fails to detect my soundcard so I have
to load with no sound.
 The  menu  is  crap  and  of  a  low-grade ansi quality.  Selecting and
reading  the  articles  seems to involve a long process of code and ansi
art.   In fact it seems to be another ansi art magazine.  Looking at the
advert  section  in most of these magazine I've reviewed here you notice
that  the graphics artists of the PC scene are split into 2 groups, ANSI
&  VGA.   The  ansi  artists  create  all the fancy ascii/ansi art which
includes text, full colour and animations and the VGA artists create the
stunning pictures of the pixelised variety.

 1/10 - clumsy, jerky, ugly interface but has some good ansi at start &
        end.


 Taken  from  Imphobia 12, here's an idea of the PC demo scene's charts.
Recognise any names?


|1-CHARTS



Popular...

|1-GROUPS



                                 Nooon
                                 Orange
                                Complex
                                Valhalla
                                  EMF
                                  CNCD
                                  Jamm
                                Halcyon
                              Future Crew
                                 Plant
                             Impact Studios
                                 Pulse
                                Realtech
                                 Triton
                                Oxygene

|1-DEMOS



                         Stars, Wonders../Nooon
                           Caero/EMF & Plant
                              Dope/Complex
                               X14/Orange
                              Inside/CNCD
                       Second Reality/Future Crew
                               No!/Nooon
                               Verses/EMF
                           Solstice/Valhalla
                               Reve/Pulse
                               Dream/Jamm
                      Project Angel/Impact Studios
                             X-Tal/Complex
                            Contrast/Oxygene
                           Television/Orange

|1-INTROS



                          Bill G Force/Complex
                            Drift/Wild Light
                           Cyboman 2/Complex
                         Fluid Motion/Valhalla
                            Nation Zero/Jamm
                      Lasse Reinbong/Cubic & $een
                          Magic Carpet/K.L.F.
                        Sea Robot of Love/Orange
                      You am I you am the../Orange
                             Airframe/Prime
                               Dawn/Jamm
                     Who else can upgrade../Orange
                            Believe/Valhalla
                          Transgression 2/MFX
                             Detour/Halcyon

|1-CODERS



                             Jmagic/Complex
                              Barti!/Nooon
                             Hoplite/Orange
                               Karl/Nooon
                               Tran/Tran
                            Sandman/Valhalla
                            PSI/Future Crew
                         Walken/Impact Studios
                              Saracen/EMF
                             Galvados/Jamm
                             Mik Sair/Plant
                            Maxwood/Majic 12
                              Mr. H/Triton
                             Blitz/Halcyon
                              Vogue/Triton

|1-GFX ARTISTS



                                Ra/Nooon
                            Der Piipo/Orange
                              Zebig/Speed
                             Visualize/Jamm
                             Peachy/Masque
                         Danny/The Black Lotus
                               Suny/Speed
                           Marvel/Future Crew
                                  Made
                           Pixel/Future Crew
                              Lazur/Pulse
                             Pack/Majic 12
                               Ukko/Live!
                              Antony/Pulse
                           Haplo/Zuul Desing

|1-MUSICIANS



                              Dune/Orange
                          Necros/Legend Design
                           Skaven/Future Crew
                       Purple Motion/Future Crew
                        Zodiak/Cascada & Complex
                             Scorpik/Pulse
                           Lizardking/Triton
                            Big Jim/Valhalla
                               Moby/Nooon
                              Jugi/Complex
                              Basehead/FM
                           Shad/Pulse & Live!
                             Clawz/Oxygene
                               Groo/Coma
                               XTD/Pulse

|1-SWAPPERS



                              Akira/Pulse
                             Medicus/K.L.F.
                             Lemming/Orange
                           Diskhawk/N-Factor
                              Unreal/Pulse
                         Taskmaster/Fascination
                             Cortez/Absence
                             Climax/Amable
                            Yarpen/Exmortis
                         Thorin/Melon & Scoopex
                                 Rommel
                              Goofy/Taste
                            Zenial/The Grid
                          Fortune/Fascination
                        Kwazior/Slaughter House

|1-MUSIC DISKS



                       Progression/Five Musicians
                              Epidemic/iCE
                        Chaotic Mind/Future Crew
                      Go for the record 2/Majic 12
                         Journey 1/Future Crew
                         Journey 2/Future Crew
                        Winter Melodies/Anarchy
                            Peek a boo/Acme
                            Inferno/Pentagon
                               EGG 3/KFMF
                         2nd Difference/Orange
                     Lotus Position/Five Musicians
                             Assidge/Orange
                            3rd Punk/Orange
                       Nothing on Tv/Renaissance


 I'll  leave  you  with  this  thought.   Although the Amiga's future is
uncertain  due  to  the  business side of the Amiga, the PC has become a
global standard platform and therefore the demo scene has secured itself
a  home  which has a bright future.  The Amiga scene is limited to those
countries  which the Amiga was exported to but the PC is everywhere from
Russia  and  China to Alaska as can be seen by the amount of productions
out  there.   The average amount of votes in the PC scene charts is from
10 to 20 times greater than any Amiga scene mags.

 I'm not saying sell your Amiga and buy a PC, more "get the best of both
worlds".   If you can't afford a PC, stick with your Amiga and check out
my PC scene articles to stay up-to-date on the going's on over the wall.


End
