Second Reality X16

A demo for the Commander X16, a 65C02/65C816-based modern retro computer running at 8 MHz. Inspired by and in part ported from the original Second Reality demo from 1993 for PC by Future Crew.
Captured from X16 hardware with 512KB high RAM and a 65C02 (serial PR893).
Download: mooinglemur.co...
Pouët: www.pouet.net/...

[@akumanatt]

Finally an impressive showcase of 6502 load/store performance

[@florianb3935]

For the newbies here, what do you mean? I don't know about this computer, but I wonder how a 6502 can do so much, is that all prerendered? For reference, I'd expect something more like the GX4000 with that power, where drawing a single column of tiles per frame for scrolling, is already really an amazing performance 😅

[@MichaelPuterbaugh]

It's not necessarily PRE-rendered, but it's a common homebrew technique in 8-bit computing to offload intensive computation to a peripheral coprocessor, leaving the main 6502 with nothing to do but copy data from the coprocessor to the output ports. Some feel this is cheating, other consider it a valid approach; it was in fact used during the 8-bit era, with 1984's Atari 2600 version of Pitfall 2 containing a custom chip designed to feed graphics and audio data as fast as it could be read.

[@Kromaatikse]

@@florianb3935 In this case, the Commander X16 has the VERA chipset, which with the FX extensions is capable of acting like a primitive (1990s style) GPU. Thus, a lot of things which the original Second Reality had to do with the CPU, pixel by pixel, are offloaded to hardware, and the remainder of the work is within the capacity of an 8MHz 65C02.

[@kargaroc386]

I was gonna say I dunno what co-processor it'd be loading from, but I was out of date. The VERA FX extensions let you do all sorts of crazy stuff like line draws and poly fills and can do things like hardware accelerated multiplies and etc etc, almost like a fixed function GPU. That kinda spoils the grandeur of this demo for me. If I were to make a retro computer, I'd give it an overpowered CPU and an unaccelerated framebuffer, and then *you* are responsible for all the calculations and pixel pushing. I guess that's what the original PC was like, and I mean that's what SR was made for lol

[@Kromaatikse]

@@kargaroc386 But some of the most famous retro computers are famous primarily for their graphics accelerators. The C64 has a sprite engine and an analogue synth on a chip. The Amiga has the Copper and a wavetable synth. VERA FX really is just the 21st century hobbyist equivalent of that.

[@EOB16]

That’s a absolutely incredible demo for the Commander X16 and it makes a good use of the VERA FX, I also very like the PC Startup reference in the beginning.

[@alexandermirdzveli3200]

Loved the classic EGA font in the first scene.

[@PeBesik]

great music conversion. demo, itself is masterful. I was amused by the simplification of the terrain effect 😅 - cool Bravo

[@AiOinc1]

Absolutely beautiful! Always love to see ports of this demo.

[@madmax2069]

8:31 is what i was waiting to see. Well done

[@ZNZbane]

I can't believe people are still making 2R ports, this rules

[@AlphaYellow]

And why not, it's widely considered as one of the most influential and best PC demos ever created

[@dbug64]

Very well done, bravo!

[@MobileICTHengelo]

Make Squidward proud

[@f15sim]

Holy forking shirtballs. WELL DONE!

[@Vampier]

there used to be a time where you needed a 486dx for this :) well done!

[@cmachador]

How incredible... the magic returns again!!!

[@jacekdojwa5319]

awesome

[@lowstaar]

Cool

[@kilianhekhuis]

Respect, very impressive! The only thing I'm missing are credits to the original authors of the music and the art work. Iirc they're credited in the credits of 2nd reality, so would've been easy to add.

[@jeffreyhullekes6866]

I think it is custom to refer to/credit the original authors as a group, not individual members, only if they personally know them or had contact with them. Maybe during the part-credits the original individuals could still be credited.

[@kilianhekhuis]

@@jeffreyhullekes6866 yeah, the individual members are credited in the original, so would've been easy to do

[@theoasisbbs]

Nicely done!

[@Foster_MSX]

Cool, well done! :)

[@AtariEric]

Awesome.

[@cosmicrdt]

The x16 would be nothing without the Vera fx. I'd love for you to release the source! Especially the 3d parts.

[@kroniqque]

nice but why voxel waves part is so weak? 7:52

[@MarcSola7]

It would be impossible to accomplish on something that is slower than a 486 PC, so they had to resort with Parallax scrolling.

[@jeffreyhullekes6866]

It was also the last part added and there was time pressure to get the demo ready for release. There are several parts we could improve (a bit) but there is a point (after a year of work) you have to wrap it up. We are happy with the result: you can clearly see what kinds of things you can do with the x16. We hope it inspires others to create demos for this (or other) retro machines.

[@ricksinca5969]

Very nifty, I thought some of these effects looked quite familiar and then I realized it was a remake of an OG demo for X16 ;) Is the relatively low rez of the plasma effect due to something VERA specific, or just due to early days of X16 exploration that'll inevitably refine?

[@mooinglemur]

We'll have to see. The plasma effect is heavy on the CPU but light on RAM usage (the loading pause is preloading for the subsequent effect). I'm sure it can be improved upon with more precalc, and I look forward to seeing this demo outdone by something even more spectacular!

[@HalyconDayz620]

Absolute technical masterpiece. The audio surpasses the original Future Crew (Skaven / Purple motion score). Otherwise - it's all there!

[@qdmc12]

Oo I just realized this was recent!

[@sheaton319]

Is there a name to the track at 4:55?

[@Koutsie]

hahahah, this is awesome!

[@antdude]

Nice! Can youv please post a MP3 of your soundtrack? :)

[@kingdededelicious]

This is obnoxiously overpowered for something that only has an 8-bit CPU

[@davidv776]

Really impressive for an 8bit CPU at 8mhz. However, i feel like the FM sound falls short in order to give the proper experience. Has no "punch", despite notes are somehow acurate. Don't get me wrong is an excelent work in all areas, but i find the C64 version more pleasant on the sound field. Simply, the Yamaha fm chip can't deliver that kind of powerful sounds, needed to somehow reproduce the original experience with Ultrasound. A double SID implementation would have provided the needed "kick" to the melody.

[@pasromano75]

Very impressive .... Close to sega Genesis ....

[@map04wormhole]

Wow!

[@benbreeck3363]

Well, I'm still not certain that a 320×240 Doom port, even at the level of the Super NES version is possible unless it's on a cartridge with add-in chips, but I believe the likes of near perfect arcade ports of the likes of Space Harrier, Road Blasters, Aqua Jack, and Afterburner should be quite possible (within palette limits, of course), provided they're on a machine with at least 1 MB of High RAM. I even suspect that 640x480 ports of Pac Mania, Shinobi, and The Ninja Warriors are possible...

[@danielmantione]

It's still not the original, but is is awfully close to it!

[@tubeincompetence]

Music feels so off though

[@darksword1]

Are drawing to an off-screen buffer and then blitting it to the video ram? Or are you drawing directing to video ram? If so, I thought the X16 wasn't good at direct access to video ram? Did the hardware get changed?

[@TheBeeshSpweesh]

The VERA recently got some "FX" extensions which allow certain types of drawing and bitmap manipulation to be done faster. Without them, this demo wouldn't have been as accurate to the PC original.

[@darksword1]

@@TheBeeshSpweesh yes, but my question still stands. Is the demo drawing directly to video memory or to some off-screen buffer and then blitting it to video mem? The CX16 was known for being very slow for writes to the Video mem because there was no direct access. So how are they drawing these effects?

[@jeffreyhullekes6866]

​​​@darksword1 there are roughly 15 demo parts and they use all different kinds of techniques to create the (visual) effect needed. Asking if the demo uses an off-screen buffer cannot be answered (easily), since all these parts work differently. But for most of them: no. The x16 can write to VRAM as fast as you can towards RAM (linearly). It was never really the lack of DMA that slowed things down, more a lack of knowing/imagining how to do it without it. The FX extension has several clever helpers inside of VERA to speed up things quite a bit, but its still behind a 8-bit VERA port. However those helpers were made in such a way that you could still benefit from them greatly despite the port-like access to the VERA chip. And they are specifically aimed to speed up what would otherwise be cpu or bandwidth intensive tasks.

[@akumanatt]

X16 has no DMA or blitter at all. This is just pure unrolled loop of memory port banging to the FX helper.

[@darksword1]

@@jeffreyhullekes6866 I still don't like the cumbersome port access but the demo is impressive, it's good for the X16 to have such a demo to show off it's capabilities.

[@jc33353]

Depentagrammed

[@MysteriousFoxy87]

That's right, I mean it's not even technically satanic since it's not inverted.. I guess they preferred to remove it so that it was "family friendly"..?? Maybe it could be because they inspired themselves from the C64 version which also has this symbol removed, but for technical reasons