recompiled Unreal / Second Reality / Crystal Dream II / Stars
category: code [glöplog]
I thought some here might like to see these old demos running in real time again. I've tested on my desktop and mobile browsers, they work pretty well.
https://treylorswift.github.io/demoscene-recomp
The originals were made to run at 70hz which is kind of an unusual rate these days, so they look best if you can force your monitor to 70hz or 140hz or higher. Viewing at 60hz is ok but not great because it must consistently drop frames to maintain correct sync between graphics and sound.
There is an "AI Remaster" of Crystal Dream II which will run at whatever refresh rate and resolution you use, with some routines expanding to fill beyond the original 4:3 aspect ratio. This is obviously a reinterpretation that tries to stay true to the original while bringing a few modern aesthetic choices. You can hit the "o" key while it runs to toggle between the original and remastered version while it plays.
I have a similar "AI Remaster" in progress for Unreal and Second Reality but there is more tweaking to do before they are worth sharing. In the meantime there is a "Smooth City" option for Second Reality which lets you view the final city fly-through sequence at 70Hz rather than the original 35hz along with some other visual updates.
Cheers
https://treylorswift.github.io/demoscene-recomp
The originals were made to run at 70hz which is kind of an unusual rate these days, so they look best if you can force your monitor to 70hz or 140hz or higher. Viewing at 60hz is ok but not great because it must consistently drop frames to maintain correct sync between graphics and sound.
There is an "AI Remaster" of Crystal Dream II which will run at whatever refresh rate and resolution you use, with some routines expanding to fill beyond the original 4:3 aspect ratio. This is obviously a reinterpretation that tries to stay true to the original while bringing a few modern aesthetic choices. You can hit the "o" key while it runs to toggle between the original and remastered version while it plays.
I have a similar "AI Remaster" in progress for Unreal and Second Reality but there is more tweaking to do before they are worth sharing. In the meantime there is a "Smooth City" option for Second Reality which lets you view the final city fly-through sequence at 70Hz rather than the original 35hz along with some other visual updates.
Cheers
i'll let my agent watch it as soon as I pretend to care!
Yeah, better invent stuff to run the old demos as faithfully as possible, 70 Hz, 4:3, original binaries, warts and all.
I watched it. Really liked it. No scene playback glitches here, unlike those ports that were discussed in the other thread.
"Smooth city" - is pretty funny. I’ve always wanted to see something like that. :)
The AI-remaster in CD2 looks pretty nice overall. Though that part is a bit more questionable, IMHO. Especially adding stars to the scene with the 3D Earth.
P.S. Can someone explain this to an old man - how the hell does this actually work? :) Is there some kind of library that emulates the timer, sound card, interrupts, VGA adapter, etc.? But unlike DOSBox, it’s all built right into the port itself?
I’m especially curious about all those VGA hardware tricks. How do they reproduce those? Do you basically have to emulate the entire video chip architecture? Or what the fuck is actually going on here? :)
"Smooth city" - is pretty funny. I’ve always wanted to see something like that. :)
The AI-remaster in CD2 looks pretty nice overall. Though that part is a bit more questionable, IMHO. Especially adding stars to the scene with the 3D Earth.
P.S. Can someone explain this to an old man - how the hell does this actually work? :) Is there some kind of library that emulates the timer, sound card, interrupts, VGA adapter, etc.? But unlike DOSBox, it’s all built right into the port itself?
I’m especially curious about all those VGA hardware tricks. How do they reproduce those? Do you basically have to emulate the entire video chip architecture? Or what the fuck is actually going on here? :)
Can we go back to interesting decomps yet?
@bitl I'm glad you enjoyed them - or some of them at least
Re: the AI Remaster and the stars I added to Vector World - I went back and forth on that choice. IMO the higher res perfect 3d texture mapping kind of hurts that scene because it cleans up all of the crunchy pixel aliasing in the original low res version. So the stars are there to create a greater sense of movement.
Anyway as far as how it works: it is 99.9% vibe coded with Claude, and what Claude built was more or less what you described: software that emulates the timer, sound card, interrupts, VGA adapter, CPU, OS, etc. All of those specifications are well documented which makes AI well equipped to reproduce them. The VGA architecture is not really that complicated. There was some effort that went into correcting visible tearing in the output, but that "effort" was just pointing AI at the problem, which it fixed after examining the program traces and correcting the VGA implementation.
The real complexity is in the demos themselves. What the programmers, artists, and musicians were able to conceive of and build 30+ years ago blew my mind and still does - they deserve all the credit!
Re: the AI Remaster and the stars I added to Vector World - I went back and forth on that choice. IMO the higher res perfect 3d texture mapping kind of hurts that scene because it cleans up all of the crunchy pixel aliasing in the original low res version. So the stars are there to create a greater sense of movement.
Anyway as far as how it works: it is 99.9% vibe coded with Claude, and what Claude built was more or less what you described: software that emulates the timer, sound card, interrupts, VGA adapter, CPU, OS, etc. All of those specifications are well documented which makes AI well equipped to reproduce them. The VGA architecture is not really that complicated. There was some effort that went into correcting visible tearing in the output, but that "effort" was just pointing AI at the problem, which it fixed after examining the program traces and correcting the VGA implementation.
The real complexity is in the demos themselves. What the programmers, artists, and musicians were able to conceive of and build 30+ years ago blew my mind and still does - they deserve all the credit!