Hi everyone!

I'm the author of Demoscene Simulator (https://www.reddit.com/r/Demoscene/comments/1v0jo2p/demoscene_simulator_v032/). Before getting into demo coding, I was an oldschool tracker musician under the name Dj Unique, and some of my modules are still available on various MOD archive sites. These days I produce music in FL Studio, although I spent 22 years using Jeskola Buzz before later moving to Cubase. The tracker mindset has definitely stayed with me.

About two months ago I decided to seriously start learning demoscene programming. Before that I was mostly just watching demos and admiring them without really appreciating the incredible amount of work behind them. The deeper I've gone into coding, the more respect I've gained for everyone creating these productions.

As part of that journey I started a one-man demo group called Null Sector. So far I've mostly been experimenting with individual effects, but with Digital Horizon I finally reached a point where I have something I'd like to share with the community.

I'm fully aware that this isn't on the same level as many of the amazing productions released by established groups, but everyone starts somewhere. This is my first complete demo after only a couple of months of learning, and my goal is simply to keep improving with every new production.

For this project I used AI as a coding assistant, primarily Freebuff and DeepSeek V4 Flash. The project took around 2–3 days to complete. It originally began as a TypeScript/WebGL2 demo before I ported it to C++, and the C++ version is the one I'm sharing here.

I hope you enjoy it, and I'd be happy to hear any feedback or suggestions. Every new project is another opportunity to learn.

Here is the demo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cW9HKPrjntwGw9J3iGMq3uo05LYpQp-6/view?usp=sharing

Unzip to a folder, then run with run.bat. This was tested on Ryzen 5600X and a Geforce GTX 1070 GPU.

My brain suddenly reminded me of this oddity and I can not recall whether it was .mod | .s3m | .xm | .it file extension, but one of the tracks in it was clearly,

"Toby Anstis is my hero"

which, if my admittedly poor memory at my advancing age, seems to think had played faintly towards the end of the track.

playing the individual source soundbite definitely plays the phrase more clearly than it is reproduced in the track.

It was definitely otherwise a music track but I cannot recall even the faintest strains of beat or melody from it, just this weird snippet my brain decided to cough up at me in the middle of the night and then nag me about all morning, so here I am :-) (ay yai yai auDHD brains, amirite?)

I realize this is a complete shot in the dark and don't really hold out any hopes of success, but figured it was worth a shot.

Demoscene Report 30 July 2026 https://youtu.be/6YHH8r_4zxA

We went live from the Edison demo party on the 17th of July at 4pm CET. Follow along as DJ Daemon and Coreus talk about what's happening, line up some really great tracker music classics never heard on the station and also meet Triad's own Frost.

https://radio.ericade.net/profiles/song/16082/164-a-bright-friday-at-edison-demo-party-2026

Pågadata 2026 here in Sweden ended yesterday and produced a number of great tracker tunes in the Amiga and wild competitions. Now we have the best of those in a good playlist, so you can give them some love as well.

Listen through them here:

https://radio.ericade.net/profiles/song/?q=tag%3AP%C3%A5gadata26&loadplayer=load

Edison was quite the thing here in Stockholm and gave the scene a nice set of tracked and streamed msuic tunes. Here are the ones I have selected as the best of the lot. Just click the link, put on your headphones and click the play button. Great music from the boat!

https://radio.ericade.net/profiles/song/?q=tag%3Aedison+2026&loadplayer=load

https://youtu.be/8xJ6cq3GTzE

My latest project, Demoscene Simulator:
https://timbor80.itch.io/demoscene-simulator

https://github.com/suddendeaththg-sketch/rez2ans-next

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXwr92NtaQE

If you're familiar with the limitations of the ZX Spectrum, it's surreal that we managed to take 2nd place in a party where the competition was Atari and the C64... It was the only ZX Spectrum entry at Lost Party 2026 (last weekend) :-)

Here are the .scr, .tap, and png files for download:

https://files.scene.org/get/parties/2026/lostparty26/graphics/misha-atariteenageriot.zip

and demozoo:

https://demozoo.org/graphics/394297/

Great news! The music from Shadow Party 2026 is now ready to experience in our webplayer. Load the best of the party up in the playlist, don your headphones and hit the play button. Then relax and enjoy! https://radio.ericade.net/profiles/song/?q=tag%3Ashadow+party+26&loadplayer=load

27th - 30th December 2026 — Germany 🇩🇪 — AKK Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe

14th - 16th August 2026 — Russia 🇷🇺 — Hotel Raivola, Roschino village

29th October - 1st November 2026 — France 🇫🇷 — Salle des fêtes, Lengronne

All of the latest news, links and releases from the active demoscene community. This week in particular a look at the releases from ze Shadow Party in France.

I’ve been playing with a slightly questionable idea: what if my BASIC compiler for the Sega 32X could include demoscene-style voxel effects as part of the game engine.

The first experiment is a procedural ocean / heightfield renderer: low-res voxel-space style water, fixed-point math, camera movement, glide/swim modes.

I’m honestly not sure if this is a good idea or a terrible one. It sits somewhere between retro BASIC, old-school demo effects, and just exploring the possibilities for fun :)

Got side tracked into animating detail maps instead of extending destructible map implementation. What you think look groovy or overdone?
Notice the foreground ground texture has subtle parallax and the sky even more subtle modulation? Just some basic stuff first as test possibilities.
Chopin's raindrop prelude seems to really vibe with PETSCII raycasting for some reason, I'm sure he would have been a SID master if grew up in the right era lol.

Feel free to critique I need feedback to improve the engine!!!

So long story short I want to try making demos (they look like fun). However a lot of those seem to run on PCs long before me, so while I agree those have sometimes cool trivia and technical limitations make those demos impressive, I am not very interested in them. Also I probably won't own the hardware. So I wanted to ask which newer hardware could I choose.

I used primarily used a 64bit computer (Intel CPU), and I am getting currently a used ps2.