Crystal Dream 2 by Triton

[RacerXGTO]

I still have this executable. LOL. "CD2.EXE"

It won't run on anything with the latest system board architecture. I have an old Thinkpad MMX that runs it just fine LOL

[dmauas]

What a beautiful, classic, amazing work of art!

Still today, I get shivers when listening to the beginning! :) Awesome orchestration with amazing music!

[warlockamnesty]

it was running on my 386 SX, 16MHz

[rutgerjaap]

funny that every time that cube comes in when I watch is it is inverted :) (1:00)

[bernatk]

OMG, this was like 100 years ago lol.

[aetmir]

Thanks for uploading this piece of history :-)

[leerees]

This is the first time I've ever heard the GUS, it sounds so clean compared to sb software mixing. Wish I had the GUS back in those days!

[ibm5155]

galaxy mini could play this demo o_o in silence

[thomastvivlarenDOTse]

Yes, this was Computer Crossroads '93 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The days prior seeing this the 1st time I had messed up my stomach severely due to stress, no sleep etc. All that disappeared watching this. Quite an out-of-body experience in a way! :) I would have crapped my pants if needed before missing out on this epic demo experience.

Our crew (Scum Of The Earth. on the Atari ST) only competed in the 2 bitplane graphics compo which our graphics man (Lobo) won before Red/Omega by the way. :)

[jatimatiktimoska]

:O

[seymore15074]

I'm a software engineer today because I watched this when I was about 12.  I knew right then what I wanted to do with my life.

[kordets]

This is mindblowingly awesome for me as an aspiring, beginner demo maker!

[MrDimwit646]

the 3d here is great, too bad that they flicker when gravis ultrasound is selected for music

[asassinoooo]

The last menu music was absolutely the best music in this demo, unfortunately it's not present in this video :°

[asassinoooo]

A masterpiece. I love old demos.

[tubeMonger]

I like this demo.

[hreasons]

Another one of my favourite PC demos of the 90's. Had these guys finished their game "Into the Shadows", it would of given Quake a good run for its money.

[tomcatmwi]

What "Hackerence"? It was released at Computer Crossroads '92!

[zeroic]

@tomcatmwi You're partly right. Crystal Dream was the one released at Hackerence '92 and Crystal Dream 2 was released at Computer Crossroads '93.

[breakdanc3]

if was an ordinary gamer or what not i would think this is pretty lame,

Since i started learning C++ and a little bit about what goes into creating graphics, this video is simply Amazing ......

[dh2k]

Oh also i've made the plasma, i've got my own 32 track mod player with effects.. hahaha, early demoscene was absolutely awesome. And a couple of years later I've called my first own company to Triton Technics as a respect for the creators of this demo. =)

[dh2k]

I was 15-16 years old by that time when this demo was new and I've made almost everything I saw into this in 80x386 asm + turbo pascal... just like as the original one. I've got EXACTLY the same 3d star system, the polygon filler with lightsources, 3d matrix rotator, i've made a polygon charset editor and I've got the fonts in 3d... it was an awesome period, and i remember almost no one listened this kind of electronic music IRL by that time only a few demo geeks =)

[darkbit1001]

@dh2k word. It's kind of funny to me now that I hear a lot more 'demo' music in mainstream now! :)



[dh2k]

@darkbit1001 Couldn't agree more =)

[zeusgb]

Good stuff!

[TheGreatCodeholio]

It's very unlikely to be the video card. Demos like these didn't use hardware acceleration, they drew all the polygons from software.

Demos back then used the timer interrupt (IRQ 0) to fake a vertical blanking interrupt since most VGA cards didn't provide one. Sometimes the demo will do a VGA page-flip from the interrupt too early, when it's almost-but-not-quite done drawing. When that happens you see the incomplete frame. Crystal Dreams has the same problem, especially in DOSBox.

[cv643d]

IMHO this is quite advanced for 1992?

I love the vectors in the first 2-3 minutes and the cube split in half.

[ped7g]

yes, it was top notch technology back then. Triton guys were very talented, some of them were later in the team behind unfinished game "Into the shadows" (the released running demo of engine did put us on the floor, literally, very polished and very smart tricks in coding) , which turned into "Starbreeze Studios" (games like: Knights of the Temple, The Chronicles of Riddick, and more...)

[lewisthecollard]

Don't try this: Stare at the center of the video as the fractal stuff plays from 3:14 onwards. Then, pause the video at 3:37. IT KEEPS ON MOVING aiiieee my eyes what is this I don't even.

Awesome demo though. :)

[tuxicle]

This was rendered entirely in software, so can't be a video card issue.

[kristell9]

I've seen FC's new entries but I like the classic look of the old ones!

[Databamse]

It is amazing how much money they could make by using sine and cosine in the days.

[Willd86]

where i can download this plz...

[kokopiko]

I remember it from early 90`s on COVOX. Great demo.

[1337Shockwav3Games]

@kokopiko Best thing ... it's still great on covoxes in 2010 :D

Use this demo as a test for all covox plugs and/or boards I solder.

In fact I blame this demo on me currently soldering a stereo covox.

[moneymatt12]

this shit changed my life

[szczepl]

@moneymatt12 I've been searching for the menu theme for years, thank you ;-)

[dh2k]

@moneymatt12 mine too!!!! =)

[fremandn]

I find it ironic that I could have seen this in perfect quality on the hardware in 1992, but I can't even watch this video without pauses due to buffering, flicker, and visual artifacts in 2009 on a relatively recent computer via YouTube.

[Clive0075]

GRAVIS RULEZ !

Fantastic soundcard at the time.

Even the AWE32 soundblaster could not reach its quality.

Never understood why Gravis never became number one with this product, it had NO real competitor for 3 years.

[asassinoooo]

Hey, the credit song was GREAT... why don't you have included it? :|

[asassinoooo]

5:50 ... google earth in 1992 :D

[WildGuruLarry]

Ambient Power still sends shivers up my spine!

[PearlsphereBiophilia]

Love the music!

[prankmypants]

raytracing in 1992 woah

[gyoza1138]

The music still holds up wonderfully today.

[DrMurx]

By the time of its release, this demo was really amazing - and it still is, to me. Visually stunning and a master piece of tracker music! For those of you who're interested, the score's tracks are in order: "Decalogue" by Vogue (Intro, Text scroller, Linear algebra), "Ambient Power" by Vogue (Plasma, Mandelbrot zoomer, Vector slime, Virtual reality), "Desert Dawn" by Lizardking (Rendered pictures, Torus, Vector world, Chess game), and "Trans Atlantic" by Lizardkind (Menu).

[kinmanyuen]

wow... music, the golden age of MOD

[strep2k]

Actually, s3m.

[tuxicle]

Probably XM - this is a Triton prod, remember?

[iamgreaser]

This is before XM was conceived. There's an 8 channel MOD in there which I have on this computer.

The track at the credits screen is by LizardKing and is an Amiga 4 channel MOD.

[seymore15074]

My favorite demo. I like the write intro credits that morph...simple and clean.

Is too bad they don't do the information part at the end, it tells how many polygons are in the chess part, etc...it's amazing.

[turducken321]

I favorited it because of the Mandelbrot Fractal Zoom.

The Virtual Reality part reminds me of the last level of Star Fox for Snes

[turducken321]

92, a year before doom. Pretty impressive for running real-time

[itekisan]

Impressive, and beautiful! :)

[drdigital1]

These guys were the only threat Future Crew ever had. So ahead of their time.

REAL MEN USE DOS!

[Jawattdenn]

1541 DOS?

[Veloaprx]

Ranked 1st at Computer Crossroads 1993

and was released there aswell... if im not totaly wrong.

[asassinoooo]

Che periodo meraviglioso per l'informatica! *_*

[Denibull]

Wow. Thank you for a great upload! This is absolutely amazing demo. Music rocks!!!! Thank you!

[kumbo]

what is amazing about this demo is the music arrangement and composition/sequencing using the tracker software...Mad respect...I was only 15 at the time when this was released

[asassinoooo]

Hey... you cutted off the music of the main menu (to the end)... :(

[Ph0rte]

yeah the end music song is the BEST song. one of Lizardking's best compositions ever imo.

[Madsy9]

According to Mindcandy and Wikipedia, this demo was released at Computer Crossroads in 1993, not at Hackerence in 1992.

One of my old-time favorites

[thomastvivlarenDOTse]

That is correct. TCC '93 in Gothenburg was the occasion and the feeling watching this, at the time, revolutionary demo was one of being mind-boggling... Triton then went on starting Starbreeze Studios. Hey Lobo/S.O.T.E. still around?

[1337Shockwav3]

Man ... I really love how the music changes when the globe pops up. Awesome tune.

[mcgocken]

brilliant!

[Bajsnissse]

Most of the songs in the beginning of the demo were made by Vogue and NOT Lizardking. Lizardking made tunes at the end.

[rogerpenna]

Wow, I am from Brazil, and I remember running this back on my 386 DX40 in 1993... showing my friends that PC was better than a Sega Genesis.

That ship part was fantastic. I wanted a game like that. It came in the form of INFERNO, but that game was not so good hehehe.

[JCKC]

Ahahahah Eu também tinha um 386 DX 40Mhz em 1993 e também rodava esse demo, na minha opinião o melhor (que eu tinha acesso na epoca). Só falta tu ser de Porto Alegre também! De tanto que gostava desse demo que acabei anos mais tarde convertendo para MP3 as musicas, que são excelentes!

[JCKC]

I'm Brazilian too, in the same year with same config (386 DX40) and running this very good demo! Today I have converted the music of this demo in MP3, and I listen in Ituntes.

Congratulations for Triton Group! :-D

[rogerpenna]

not from Porto Alegre, I am from Novo Hamburgo.

[Blackhawk145]

whoa, you don't happen to be Trantor on SSP, are you?

[rogerpenna]

yes, I do happen to be that person. Did you arrived here by following the link on Check This Out Too? lol

[Blackhawk145]

haha, yeah! I'm ThatKidFromBoise lol

[rogerpenna]

the internet is a small place, believe it or not. I´ve already met accidentaly other SSP forumers in other places, like a science fiction forum, etc.

[pablodeheras]

Masterpiece! /Paulus (Prophets/CorridaSoft)

[peklop]

and fifteen years later twenty Gravis UltraSounds sadly rusting in my collection

[gyoza1138]

did you do this in a VM or something? Some of the effects, namely the fading in of the text line by line seem to not be working properly, and polys are dropping out. This is close to, but not a 100% accurate representation of this work.

[jonasgulle]

Legendary demo

[ch40sd4v1d]

My all-time favorite demo..

Back in the day I had to show this to everyone I knew.. the fractal zoom is my favorite part.

Thanks for posting it, and thanks Triton for making it! =)

[tritonloot]

What a trip down memory lane.. Thanks! /Anders (Loot/TRN)

[tuxicle]

Wish you guys could have completed Into the Shadows... loved the demo!

[CptTuttle]

I used to love this one, thank you very much for uploading!!! 5/5.

[panti77]

king of doskpop ... lking..

[RacerXGTO]

Hahah! It's on YouTUbe!! I still have this 2MB executable. I have to break out the 'ole hard drive and Pentium 100mhz to run it.

[Bajsnissse]

Why not just use a DOS emulator?

[RacerXGTO]

Because I run software that is specific to the hardware. An emulator just will not do it. And CD2 happens to be on it.

[Pergiacomo]

This demo always makes me cry.

Al is perfect, the graphics, the engine...the MOD!

Wohooooooooooooooo!!!

5 stars ou 5!

[Madsy9]

Actually Crystal Dream II uses .xm, not .mod. Triton is the group behind the famous Fasttracker II

[rogerpenna]

AI? The demo runs always the same. I dont think there is Artificial Intelligence on it...

[djlacee]

I saw this demo about 100 times!

It was my favorite!

Fantastic songs, thanx to Lizardking and

thanx for upload!!

[FoKGoodGuy]

Those were the days :)

[ballebanan]

This demo was great, but I remember it ran like sh*t on my old 386-25 with Soundblaster 2.0  :D

[JCKC]

Tanks for this demo! You should be recorded Credit music too, it´s very good too. ;-)

[CuddlyCheerful]

True nostalgia! Still gives me goosebumps much in the way watching it at The Computer Crossroads '93 did (it was not released at Hackerence as the poster claims)...

[panti77]

the mod still gives me the chills :) sometimes miss the good old scene days.

[phred75]

classic! These guys were doing some unreal shit on a 386!

[staticlayer]

I love this demo!

[cv643d]

Wow very nice! First time I have seen this legendary demo, usually I am not so impressed by PC demos but this one is awesome!

I dare to say it, but it is better than some hi-end Amiga demos from that time!

[zeroic]

I did not do the original captures, but I guess it's a DosBox glitch :)

[rtrspm]

Good demo indeed :) However i did notice some glitches here and there (like the end of the starwars scroller that tears a bit) that weren't present on my good old 486 :) Did you use DosBox or are these just things caused by the videocodec itself?

[valcaron]

First "demo" I ever laid eyes upon, the summer before I entered highschool and spent my days at my friend's house watching these things and playing Monkey Island. This is what made me want to be a programmer (among other demos out there I used to watch all the time)... although I've yet to make anything demo-ish even today (I'm more than capable, just a lazy flake).

Ambient Power is an ace track <3

[dh2k]

I created the same starsystem movements and created a similar flat vector engine... also my first company called triton technologies after this prod.. respect 4 triton. :)

[fdp1234]

Good times...!