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Now we have to deal with Win8 and should reevaluate common 4k intros compo rules.

- IMHO D3DX from DX9 can not considered "standard" anymore - therefore we should disallow the usage of it.
- Can dx9 still considered "standard" on current vanilla windows? If not - disallow it.

It would be nice to see 4k intros again which work on vanilla configurations - without installing some stuff from 2010.

This makes things harder - but - 4k intro coding is not for pussies.

If you refer to my post in the other thread, it was one of my dx11 intros that couldn't run because of a too old d3dx11.dll (ie the shader compiler)
Maybe it would still work if linked to an older SDK version, I just really don't get why the june 2010 update isn't part of win8.

If we disallow dx9 we would either be enforcing OpenGL or Windows Vista or later (Dx10+). I don't know, but there still seem to be lots of people out there using Windows XP.
Besides, init code for DX10+ is bigger than DX9.

Don't tell me any of us demosceners will install this Win8 crap?

I admit that there are very noticeable speed improvements for day-to-day activites, my games run more fluently than on a vanilla windows 7. But that wasn't enough to have me keep it. Running windows 7 again, fuck metro.

I guess the first 7 is meant to be a 8 ;)


Would that be such a bad thing?

I think it's at least something we should discuss and we shouldn't be too nostalgic here.

If you want to have a 4k using current technology (means dx10/dx11 level features) you are forced to use OpenGL anyways on XP.

Well there might be many people still using a XP - yes - but how many of them have the hardware in their machines to run a current tech 4k intro?

you're not even supposed to work on a 4k, go finish (start?!) on the bloody demo already, the soundtrack is getting cold.

Isn't Windows XP more than 10 years old? Wasn't the demoscene about making cool and incredible stuff with the currently available technology?

I'm all for las' idea.

that's funny coming from someone who decided to end his last party's compo night with an amiga demo compo :)

the point isnt that we're not including the latest techonolgy - we are. compo machines are usually up to speed, and i would assume they will be in the future too. but excluding dx9 would probably render half the current engines in the scene useless with no good reason other than "we dont like to download the latest runtime".

Still, sometimes it might be a good idea to abolish legacy technology in order for new stuff to grow and become awesome.

Also - the Amiga demos ARE using the currently best available technology (for Amigas).

:)

DX9 is also using the best available technology (for XP). Just... don't continue that line of argument, it doesn't work.

As for the "abolishing"... how exactly does it help? We're REMOVING possibilities. When did we outlaw software rendering, for example? Or fixed function? I mean on that level, how about abolishing OpenGL instead for it's abysmal compatbility?

Well we removed DOS demos a couple of years ago. And DX9 is not evolving anymore. OpenGL, on the other hand, is. So that argument also doesn't go anywhere :)

Also, I'm just supporting las. I don't know shit about windows programming :)

The question is, did we remove DOS because noone was using it anymore or did we remove it because we decided to end some arbitrary support cycle?

Slightly off topic, but what the hell. I'm guessing some people here have had a good look at win8 RT now - what's the deal with demos?

Software is only available from the store, following apple's iOS example, but we know apple ban demos from the store (either telling you it's not interactive and doesn't serve any purpose, or suggesting you call it a 'lite' because they don't allow demo versions... yes, seriously!). Would MS' app store rules allow a demo?

And if not, is there another way of distributing a demo other than handing out the code and relying on having a dev license to build it for your own hardware?

OS X happily runs any binary you'll throw it. You mean Win8 won't? :O

D.Fox: Since when DOS is removed? 99% entries in 256 compos are MS-DOS and I haven't heard any party orgs complaining it's outdated or something.

psonice: As far as I understand, going through Windows Store will be required only for mobile/tablet devices.


And as far as the discussion goes, I found DX9+D3DX combo to be compact and effective for 4k, and as long 4k's are evolving because of it, I see no reason to exclude this. In worst case scenario, 4k category will end up like 256 where most entries have to be emulated or require fancy setup. As you did not banish Atari/Amiga/C64/other people from the scene, I see no reason to banish DX9/XP ones.

Seriously? Imho they aren't evolving just because of a old API and I have to admit that I don't see that much evolution in current 4k intros.


Examples please - Maybe we are talking about different OpenGLs here but I can't agree on what you are saying - If you know what you are doing - you can write pretty compatible code.

Maybe we are all a bit biased here.

Consider the following case:
You want to show somebody outside the scene (maybe somebody you think could be a cool scener) your 4k. He/she has some high end machine, with the latest stuff running on it - now you give him/her your 4k and tell him/her to download some redistributable from June 2010 in order to run it.
Then try to explain him/her why 4k coding is still awesome.

las: dx 4k on win8 will be a big question anyway - you DO know that fxc is not a part of the system anymore, don't you?

las: Why coding 4k is awesome needs no explanation. And your argument might as well apply to 256 intros running on several MB DosBox.

If you want to make DX10+ 4ks having no dependency on anything on Earth, go for it, nobody will stop you from doing this. And if people want to make 4ks running in specific environment/system setup, you shouldn't stop them, too.

Yes.
To put it into bold test so everyone stumbles across it:

D3DX is discontinued. The current DirectX shader compilers (d3dcompiler_45.dll and up) are only available in the Windows SDK and devs are expected to put them besides their applications.

So what to do about 4ks? If we add the no-current-DX9-on-Win7/8 situation to the bold sentence above we run into serious problems. And shader bytecode is pretty bad, compression wise.

(64ks can probably get away with precompiled shaders, but no fx files and no fancy sahder code generators anymore.)

Preacher: I wish it did - PPC emulation was dropped in Lion :)

I keep hearing about these compatibility problems with OpenGL while never having seen them myself. Of course new versions kill backwards compatibility and you can't use all the vendor-spesific extensions everywhere, but my gl programs have been running nicely on all hardware that's supposed to run them.

I don't recall much about DX9 even though I wrote a few programs with it, but I tried 11 a couple of months ago (after hearing smash's rather inspiring seminar - I still prefer gl, though :>) and it was a very positive experience compared to my memories of DX coding. So with the hardware getting gradually more common, I think there'll be a natural migration to DX10/11. Might not be a bad idea to encourage it, though - I'd be lazy to rewrite a working engine too, even if I knew it would be a lot more awesome once done :)

Ah, so no shader compiler? Well, that sucks for intro coding.