r/Demoscene • u/t2k • 9d ago
recompiled Unreal / Second Reality / Crystal Dream II / Stars
If you're a dinosaur like me and were inspired by demos in the early 90s you might enjoy this project which brings back several of my favorites from that era running in real time in the browser:
https://treylorswift.github.io/demoscene-recomp
These are best viewed with your monitor set to 70hz or 140hz or higher, although the "AI Remaster" of Crystal Dream II should look good at any framerate. There is also a "Smooth City" option for Second Reality which lets you view the final city fly-through at 70Hz rather than the original 35hz.
Cheers
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u/thondat 9d ago
i'm of the opinion that AI recomps / 'remasters' of demos are not an homage to the original art.
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u/chunter16 9d ago
My first thought was "how does one recompile something that was not compiled the first time"
I'm not really bothered by this use of software as long as people understand what they're seeing
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u/chairmanmow 9d ago
did you even look at this dude's project? seems better than watching a youTube video, homage wise, imho. but i'm just some guy
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u/thondat 9d ago
the demoscene has always been about human creativity, the artifacts of which are now being fed to AI models in order to have them regurgitate their input. i know these recomps aren't just one-shots, there's a lot of iterating with the LLM involved etc., but all of that does not even remotely compare with the creativity and prowess that went into the original production.
i was just thinking of Wolfgang Beltracchi, who made history with his very convincing art forgeries. in order to be able to pull them off, he had to be highly proficient at the same techniques that were used by the artists he impersonated. the same can not be said of AI recompers. they just have to know how to prompt.
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u/chairmanmow 9d ago
so it seems like you didn't click it. it's not a regurgitation, it's just running in a browser. not eveyone has a 486 and a soundblaster lying around to play these things. you're just talking about a strawman. not my project - just seems like you're missing the point but i got other things to do. cheers
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u/BananaboySam 9d ago edited 9d ago
I clicked on it and I agree with u/thondat. My opinion is that it's a regurgitation. There are already high quality captures of these demos. So what if it's running in a browser? It's not like it's a proper decompilation and I can inspect the source and learn something. I might as well just watch the youtube video. It's not a native port.
Am I supposed to say "great work?". I can't say that with a straight face to someone who used AI to do the work. I guess I could say "great prompting".
edited to add: I suppose it feels like less of a regurgitation than the post above this (Second Reality ][ (1993) Reawakened)
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u/ShacoinaBox 9d ago
unfortunately, this is gonna be the norm. ppl weaponizing AI to "improve" old works in some variety, or using an LLM to "craft their idea" (when the idea is only half the point.)
not even jus demos, even David Lynch's "Eraserhead" has many "ai upscales" (that all look genuinely terrible) n im pretty sure he'd be rolling in his grave. the dude felt that watching a movie on your phone was blasphemy, now look what ppl are doin to his works.
im not even that anti-ai fundamentally, but holy hell do people pick poor ways of utilizing it pretty much constantly. the internet is just being filled with junk.
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u/zx97 9d ago
Thanks for your comment. I completely understand your point, but let me explain a few things:
I do computer science out of passion, and I’ve always been fascinated by the demo scene—especially the (sometimes) creativity and technical performance of its authors. For me, that passion faded once 3D graphics cards became widespread.
The original Second Reality is tightly coded to run at 320×200 with a 4:3 aspect ratio, using a 256-color indexed palette, and with music synchronization—using the CPU exclusively.
I remember the time when Photoshop started becoming widely known. I once talked with the director of an art school, and his take on what was being done on computers was basically that there was “no added value.” Looking back, it feels like we’re at the same point now.
This isn’t about claiming the original idea. I hope you can confirm you understand that part—but simply about using a new tool available today to push the possibilities forward.
And today the technical barrier—especially the deep knowledge once required at the assembly level—has moved back enough that many more people can be creative and contribute, even if they don’t have the exact same technical background as before. If nothing else, I hope this makes it clear where I’m coming from.
It’s clear this topic is still debated today, and some projects reject the use of AI entirely, while others accept it under certain conditions.
I’m in the second camp—those who want to use the “car,” while still admiring the “horses.”
Also, I’d really appreciate it if you replied directly to my message. Nothing personal, of course—I’m happy to discuss this freely and without filters, and I hope your response can help keep the debate positive and constructive.
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u/BananaboySam 9d ago
This reads like it was written by AI or at least heavily edited by AI, but I'm going to assume you're sincere and respond.
I'm well aware of how Second Reality was coded. I was there when it was released, I've been blown away by it many times over the years, and I studied the source code when that was released. I've been involved in the demoscene since I was young (I'm 47 now). I had a long break but came back to it around 2016 and have been releasing demos every year since mostly for MS-DOS with my group Disaster Area. I've also been working in the video game industry for 21 years mostly on console games (since the PS2 and GameCube days).
That background is just to explain where I'm coming from. I'm a deeply technical person and love understanding the deep technical details. I love learning about hardware. I also like learning and I like programming. I'm a programmer for life. But I also like creating things and making things that (I hope) other people will also enjoy.
I understand that this isn't about claiming the original idea. But to me it feels anathema to the spirit of demos, particularly on older more limited hardware. To me demos are about finding tricks and doing the impossible on hardware that shouldn't be able to do those things. That requires a deep understanding of the hardware. To me, a more interesting and impressive homage is something like the C64 port of Second Reality.
People say it's unlocking technical barriers but those barriers could always be unlocked if you put in the time and effort. And if you did, you'd come out with something more valuable than something flashy at the end. You'd come out with knowledge. But anyway I likely won't convince anyone of anything. AI seems deeply polarising.
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u/zx97 9d ago
Yes, I’m sincere, and I really appreciate your answer and your point of view. I’m French-speaking and my English isn’t very good, so that’s why.
My goal with SR2 wasn’t to have any pretension about my (limited) technical skills in this kind of coding. It was simply to recreate a demo I genuinely loved to watch, in a better quality than what we can usually get nowadays, while keeping the original algorithm’s idea (what I called the “spirit”).
When you watch the SR2 video on YouTube, it’s pretty common to see comments like “is there a 4K version available anywhere?”—so that’s what I was aiming for, hopefully.
I’m a big fan of all the sceners’ work, and I really appreciate everything you described.
I don’t really care about how a chip works—I don’t have the basic knowledge for electronics or low-level coding, and I’m not interested in that.
I’m older than you - my first computer was a Thomson T08D, and I was blown away by HCL’s productions, like [MegaDemo] (https://dcmoto.pages-perso.free.fr/programmes/hcl-mega-demo/index.html) . The level of effort and clever tricks they used to get such a result was absolutely mind-blowing, probably closer to SR2 on C64 than the original DOS version in terms of tricks.
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u/t2k 9d ago
Thank you for the compliment! I'm not sure what you mean by "not a native port" though.. I can't imagine anything being more "native" than this. But I guess it depends on what you mean by that.
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u/BananaboySam 9d ago
You're essentially running x86 code transpiled to C in effectively a virtual machine. I know some people disagree (because I've had this exact same discussion about the exact same situation with games de/recompilation on hackernews) but in my opinion that's not a native port. Based on what your AI wrote in the readme ("That recording is translated into C - the original instructions, one for one, with the exact cycle timing of the emulated machine") I'm assuming your C code basically represents the instruction stream and manipulates a sort of CPU state object representing memory/registers etc.
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u/t2k 9d ago
Could you point to an example of something that you do consider to be a native port? Maybe that would help me understand what you mean by that.
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u/BananaboySam 9d ago
I mean it’s running in a browser, that’s pretty far from native no? This is a demo that I ported from dos to windows. I’d call that a native port https://m.pouet.net/prod.php?which=5413
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u/t2k 9d ago
Looks nice! I agree there's a difference between porting from DOS to Windows and from DOS to a browser (not to mention the AI aspect of it).
What I aimed for was something that runs as much like the original code as possible while also minimizing the friction / installation / hassle to get it running. I never considered anything other than a browser as the target because every computer has a browser, every phone has a browser, etc. But a browser can't run x86 code - so, it runs a simulation of it.
Thanks again for the feedback!
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u/BananaboySam 9d ago
I would say that a native port doesn’t have any emulation or translation layers.
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u/mat-industries 5d ago
Nice, maybe you can do a recomp, that it runs under Win11 and use the power of modern gfx card.
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u/KoodiRonsu 8d ago edited 8d ago
Don't listen to the people who shout "slop" on this thread. They are just Reddit drones with no meaning in their lives, regurgitating what someone else told them to say and think about things.
I do like the results of those remastered versions. But there is a big "but" in all that: Old school demos made for old retro hardware weren't usually cool to watch because they would have been some design masterpieces. What actually made them so special was the fact that they were able to run on such minimalist hardware resources of their time. When you look at the originals, you can marvel "How on Earth were they able to do all that in realtime on so limited hardware?" But with the remasters it's all running on modern hardware using HW acceleration running on super fast multi-core CPU. So the most important part of what made them so enjoyable to watch isn't there anymore.
A better alternative would probably be a website which runs preconfigured emulated original demos in window / fullscreen. This way people could watch the original faithful demos emulated in a webbrowser without having to dive deep into how to use emulators. That would be a useful website.
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u/yeusk 9d ago
Nice slop, who tf cares?