Technology demo
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A technology demo is a prototype, rough example or an otherwise incomplete version of a product, put together with the primary purpose of showcasing the idea, performance, method or the features of the product. They can be used as demonstrations to the investors, partners, journalists or even to potential customers in order to convince them of the viability of the chosen approach.
A frequent example of tech demos in the computer industry is Douglas Engelbart's demonstration of oN-Line System in 1968[citation needed].
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[edit] Computers and gaming
Tech demos are often used in the computer industry, emerging as an important tool in response to short development cycles, in both software and hardware development.
- Computer game developers use technology demos to rouse and maintain interest to titles still in development (because game engines are usually ready before the art is finished) and to ensure functionality by early testing. Short segments using finished game engines may be presented as game demos. Critics are also fond of calling certain complete games technology demos, due to the emphasis of the designers solely on the game's technology, severely lacking content in the process. id Software in particular has garnered its share of such criticism.
- Graphics cards manufacturers use tech-demos to showcase the performance of their cards even before there are any games that can deliver that performance or before the product is ready to be used outside of the development labs. In November 2002, NVIDIA started the practice of featuring realistic female characters in graphics card technology demos, by releasing Dawn for its GeForce FX card. The demo featured a scantily-clad forest fairy with semi-realistic short hair and beautiful wings. Later NVIDIA followed with similar, new demos and ATI Technologies joined the race.
- Being by nature much less complex than complete games (that have to include dynamic physics modelling, audio engines, etc.), technology demos for graphics can deliver substantially better image quality, making the general look of games lag several years behind video card technology demos. For example, the PlayStation 2 demos Namco Girl (a lifelike female character from Ridge Racer winking flirtatiously at viewers) and old man used all the processing power to produce a high-quality single character model, in a static environment. Xbox trailers also showed Raven, a buff woman and her robot, showing off martial art moves.
Computer technology demos should not be confused with demoscene-based demos, which, although often demonstrating new software techniques, are regarded as a stand-alone form of computer art.
[edit] Fakes
Occasionally, technology demos prove out to be rigged or even completely fake. For example, an empty case with some blinking LEDs can be presented as the product, a demo of Internet QoS software can be done on a LAN with manually-regulated traffic, and a pre-rendered video or pictures with notably higher-quality models or resolution can be presented as actual game footage. This last example happens so often in the game industry, it has earned the nickname bullshot.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The mother of all demos - Douglas Engelbart's demonstration
- 3dfx technology demos - from 1997 "Wizard of Tower" demo for Voodoo1 to 2000 "Rocketburger" demo for Voodoo5.
- ati radeon tech demos - most of these require a radeon card to run
- nvidia geforce tech demos - most of these require a geforce card to run
- crysis tech demo - video hosted by google
- 3dmark tech demos/benchmarks - a series of commercial benchmarks/tech demos focused on gaming, with trial version downloads
- ReadyDemo, a Flash demo production company - Consulting firm producing amazing custom Flash product demos
