31 years later, still my favorite demo of all time. Even with today's GPU-blasting monstrosities. The way the visuals sync to the music is so perfect even many of the remakes of this demo don't get it right.
It's funny that even with my 4k 120Hz g-sync display and a high-end RTX card I very, very rarely feel the same kind of excitement as I felt in the mid-90's when I ran Second Reality in my 486 that had 4 MB of RAM and a 800x600 CRT display. Sometimes less is more.
Fun fact: the loading text says "570K conventional memory needed" But that's not true. Second Reality needs more like 595k conventional memory to run. Otherwise, it will crash out on the spinning dots part. Absolutely load EMM386 with any Future Crew production.
This is what is called a demo for a demoscene event. In this case, it was for "Assembly 1993". The idea is it combines the skills of artists and programmers to push the hardware at the time to the limit of what their imagination can dream and then everyone votes for the best demo. This demo was mind blowing for the time and it's no question that the programmers and artists who made this most likely went on to create big things in the computing industry. This demo being shown was using the raw PC hardware to the maximum potential, long before dedicated graphic cards were in household computers. The effects they created and the 3D scenes that were shown were mind blowing for the time. To this day, a lot of demoscenes still exist and people from all over the world dream up and create new effects for these demos for old computers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene
@@t0rxe wow! Sounds like a combination of a benchmark and a skills competition. I wonder what languages they used to make all those visuals. Thankyou for the rundown!! And the wiki link, looks like I've stumbled into a new obscure aging tech rabbit hole, the internet is a wonderful thing sometimes.
@@t0rxe ok no I was wrong, this is way more interesting than I thought. Ties to the original hacker scene, combining a music video and top tier programming and hardware.... ahhh I'm hooked
It's certainly way more interesting than today's programs. Second Reality essentially is a collection of independent small programs made to appear seamless running as one program. Each part is programmed direct to address hardware, no APIs, no nothing. Hence the demo needed a computer to meet some strict requirements or otherwise it wouldn't run at all. The parts were written in Pascal and Assembler language and maybe a third language I forgot about. What Future Crew did with this demo is to above and beyond anything seen or even imaginable on any consumer computer at the time. The perfect synchronisation of sound and visuals was a glimpse into the future. Usually x86 computers as that time ran Windows 3.1 doing Excel and shit, you know. Second Reality is the CULT x86 demo for good reason and beloved by tech people even after three decades all over the world.
Probally a lot of assembly to squeeze as much out of every clock cycle as they possibly can. We are talking about counting every byte and even bit and finding ways to save on those as well as hyperoptimizing the code. I've seen IBM XTs and Commodore 64s do stuff nobody thought those computers could possibly do with just the stock hardware back in the day. - by autosensoring this reply, YT automatically agrees that it's bullying and harassing me thus causing me lasting psychological harm.
holy shit... this is ... ... thank you! this feels like youtube before google. i miss it. lols @ working 586
Ah, love the old school goatrance and psyhodelic visuals xD
Old school filming too, no capture device, no editing, no enhancement, out of focus video, lo res !!! Nice!!
31 years later, still my favorite demo of all time. Even with today's GPU-blasting monstrosities. The way the visuals sync to the music is so perfect even many of the remakes of this demo don't get it right.
It's funny that even with my 4k 120Hz g-sync display and a high-end RTX card I very, very rarely feel the same kind of excitement as I felt in the mid-90's when I ran Second Reality in my 486 that had 4 MB of RAM and a 800x600 CRT display.
Sometimes less is more.
We were young back then.
Agree!
What a score!
I was collecting those demo's . People had no idea what computers are actually capable of .. Demo's was the proof of that.
My school had theses Aptiva pcs
Fun fact: the loading text says "570K conventional memory needed" But that's not true. Second Reality needs more like 595k conventional memory to run. Otherwise, it will crash out on the spinning dots part. Absolutely load EMM386 with any Future Crew production.
Thanks for the tip, For years I thought it was a problem with the machine or something else.
Computers today are envious xD, no one does this much anymore just because they can, sadly.....
Correct me if I'm wrong because I genuinely don't know what I'm watching. Is this what would run on the system at a show? For sales?
This is what is called a demo for a demoscene event. In this case, it was for "Assembly 1993". The idea is it combines the skills of artists and programmers to push the hardware at the time to the limit of what their imagination can dream and then everyone votes for the best demo. This demo was mind blowing for the time and it's no question that the programmers and artists who made this most likely went on to create big things in the computing industry. This demo being shown was using the raw PC hardware to the maximum potential, long before dedicated graphic cards were in household computers. The effects they created and the 3D scenes that were shown were mind blowing for the time. To this day, a lot of demoscenes still exist and people from all over the world dream up and create new effects for these demos for old computers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene
@@t0rxe wow! Sounds like a combination of a benchmark and a skills competition. I wonder what languages they used to make all those visuals.
Thankyou for the rundown!! And the wiki link, looks like I've stumbled into a new obscure aging tech rabbit hole, the internet is a wonderful thing sometimes.
@@t0rxe ok no I was wrong, this is way more interesting than I thought. Ties to the original hacker scene, combining a music video and top tier programming and hardware.... ahhh I'm hooked
It's certainly way more interesting than today's programs. Second Reality essentially is a collection of independent small programs made to appear seamless running as one program. Each part is programmed direct to address hardware, no APIs, no nothing. Hence the demo needed a computer to meet some strict requirements or otherwise it wouldn't run at all. The parts were written in Pascal and Assembler language and maybe a third language I forgot about.
What Future Crew did with this demo is to above and beyond anything seen or even imaginable on any consumer computer at the time. The perfect synchronisation of sound and visuals was a glimpse into the future. Usually x86 computers as that time ran Windows 3.1 doing Excel and shit, you know.
Second Reality is the CULT x86 demo for good reason and beloved by tech people even after three decades all over the world.
Probally a lot of assembly to squeeze as much out of every clock cycle as they possibly can. We are talking about counting every byte and even bit and finding ways to save on those as well as hyperoptimizing the code. I've seen IBM XTs and Commodore 64s do stuff nobody thought those computers could possibly do with just the stock hardware back in the day.
- by autosensoring this reply, YT automatically agrees that it's bullying and harassing me thus causing me lasting psychological harm.