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Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

creativeapplications.net

41–50 of 78 posts

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#42
Does this give anyone else the sense that with amazing processors we have available that we're being really wasteful with these bloated apps we currently have?

I mean if these guys are able to do this in 4K, what else could be done in operating system terms if we achieved that same level of excellence?

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#43

I'm pretty proud of my programming skills. I've worked in everything from assembly to JavaScript, JIT compilers to websites to large-scale, fault-tolerant distributed systems. etc. etc. But demoscene programming is still the one thing that leaves me totally in awe, feeling like I wouldn't even know where to start to achieve what these guys pull off. Even if I could imagine fitting all those drawing and sound generati…

Have to start when you're young =) I'm in the same place as you. Pretty sure if I started doing it when I was 10, it'd be self-obvious by the time I turned 12.

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#44

I'm pretty proud of my programming skills. I've worked in everything from assembly to JavaScript, JIT compilers to websites to large-scale, fault-tolerant distributed systems. etc. etc. But demoscene programming is still the one thing that leaves me totally in awe, feeling like I wouldn't even know where to start to achieve what these guys pull off. Even if I could imagine fitting all those drawing and sound generati…

For a general discussion of synchronisation, Martti Nurmikari gave a talk at Assembly last year

http://thedemoscene.tumblr.com/post/8659078065/martti-nurmik...

Alcatraz use an interesting system based on Clang and llvm to export all that from Maya as source code

http://thedemoscene.tumblr.com/post/22588846914/digi-alcatra...

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#45
post #30
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mov ax, 13h int 10h

You are correct. And using a mov to ax rather than xor+mov to al is counter-intuitively one byte smaller (there's one more byte of immediate value in the former). Every byte counts! (I tested using "nasm -f bin")

However, in .coms you could assume that AX was 0 upon entry and skip the XOR.

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#46

Does this give anyone else the sense that with amazing processors we have available that we're being really wasteful with these bloated apps we currently have? I mean if these guys are able to do this in 4K, what else could be done in operating system terms if we achieved that same level of excellence?

These demos rely on the OS to access sound & graphics, they could not reach the fidelity they do without the OS hiding away much of the file size. You could not do a 4K demo if you had to include the infrastructure to load a modern graphics driver & OpenGL/DX libraries. They are also only small in terms of package size. This demo for example uses about 550MB of RAM while running(Win7x64).

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#47
post #11

The lossless 60 fps high definition video capture is currently unavailable (traffic limit). Any mirrors (or torrent would probably be a pretty good idea)? YouTube 1080p version seems to have pretty terrible quality.

Somewhat humorous that the full resolution demo of a 4k intro is too large to handle on the server. Just post the source

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#48

I'm pretty proud of my programming skills. I've worked in everything from assembly to JavaScript, JIT compilers to websites to large-scale, fault-tolerant distributed systems. etc. etc. But demoscene programming is still the one thing that leaves me totally in awe, feeling like I wouldn't even know where to start to achieve what these guys pull off. Even if I could imagine fitting all those drawing and sound generati…

On a C64, you disable interrupts, pull out your trusty table of opcodes, and can time everything down to a single clock cycle.

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#49
post #46

Does this give anyone else the sense that with amazing processors we have available that we're being really wasteful with these bloated apps we currently have? I mean if these guys are able to do this in 4K, what else could be done in operating system terms if we achieved that same level of excellence?

These demos rely on the OS to access sound & graphics, they could not reach the fidelity they do without the OS hiding away much of the file size. You could not do a 4K demo if you had to include the infrastructure to load a modern graphics driver & OpenGL/DX libraries. They are also only small in terms of package size. This demo for example uses about 550MB of RAM while running(Win7x64).

Right, but you could do pretty impressive stuff even on a VIC-20.

Re: Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes

#50
post #6

I was an intern at a game company last year. I showed the CEO some of the stuff that is going on in the demoscene. He got really worried and told me to not show that to any of his staff. He was afraid that it intimidates his highly paid coders and designers. I found that rather disturbing. How are you going to kill Hollywood if you are afraid of algorithms?

The funny thing is that many game programmers I know grew up watching demos if not making them. Who hasn't seen at least one Future Crew demo?
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