Future Crew - Second Reality (1993) [60fps]

Title: Second Reality
Group: Future Crew
Platform: MS-DOS
Type: Demo
Released: October 1993

[MatthewHill]

Funny that I'm watching this on a PC with about a billion times more processing power, and I'm still impressed by the creativity, imagination, and ingenuity.

[fonkbadonk]

THIS was the turning point for the PC. Gaming and in general. I'm sad this historical milestone doesn't get the recognition and views it deserves.
This was when the PC finally was proven to be able to handle multi channel PCM sound, and full screen, full frame rate, full color animations on top, as well as floating point vector calculations. This demo wasn't just a milestone, it was a lightyearmountain.
I had this running on my dad's 368DX40 with an 8 bit SoundBlaster (mono only!), and it ran smooth except for two or three minor scenes, and blew my ~11 year old mind. And it still kind of blows my now 41 year old mushy brain.
This demo should be front and center at any programming or CGI related course, and they all should link to this flawless recording of it.

[thorstenhamann]

Wow, it's been 30 years already. If you watch this remember that this was before 3D acceleration was a thing. All of this incredible animation and rendering was hand-written and hand-optimized. And the whole design, including the transitions and dramaturgy was groundbreaking. This is better paced and designed than many things you see produced by agencies even today.

[matts]

I had 486DX and Sound Blaster 1.5 when I saw this first time, and I was like WTF. My jaws dropped because of the hacks and effects used in this demo. Nobody did any games for PC at that time using visual effects like in this demo. Side scrolling games had tearing problems etc. This demo has also 16 channels of digital sound even on 1-channel DA calculated in realtime by a software, if not Gravis Ultrasound were used (I had that later also). Nobody did that before The Future Crew. They also made Scream Tracker I bought straight from Sami Tammilehto (PSI) in 1989-1990 by mail. That was AFAIK the first tracker ever made for PC and it was a blast, and it changed everything in the PC world. And I'll never forget that kindly written letter by Sami and the disks of MOD music included in the mail. Big respect!

[panfilovcev]

Don't forget to attend Assembly '94

[PhilipBroughtonMills]

It's 27 years later yet today I still thought of this.

[mconfalonieri]

It was a masterpiece in 1993. It is a masterpiece today.

[Aletek]

GOAT demo. Back when you had no clue that your personal computer was able to do this shit. Jaw dropping stuff, plain and simple.

[rezneba]

People forget that coding this back then was the equivalent of making apple pie from scratch; as in creating the apple, yeast, sugar and flour from only the 4 letters of DNA. Genius. There is no other word.

[shawty_ds]

I still remember the first time I saw this on my humble 386 back in 93, this and panic just left me completely in awe. I had my own small demo group at the time, and was proud of our work, we aspired to one day to reach the loft heights of Future Crew and others like them. Never quite got there, and myself ended up becoming mostly a "line of business" applications developer.

Second Reality, Panic by FC & Astral Blur by TBL where my absolute 3 favourite ever produced.

[parkamark]

The 60fps capture really does this demo justice. Looks just how I remember it running on my 486-DX back in the day.

[beast]

The fact that this demo still impresses even 30 odd years after it's release shows just how influential it was back in 1993. An end of the Amiga's time in the forefront, but a sign of what PC architecture was capable of in Commodore's stead. I suppose, you could argue that the Amiga scene walked so the PC could run.

[LunarDelta]

God, the music that plays during the city scene gives me chills every time.

[JCrashB]

Who's watching in 2019?
I've been blown away by this demo for 26 years now, and there seems to be no end. First watched it on my 386SX, 20 MHz, 1 MB (!) RAM with Soundblaster Pro. Didn't run so smooth, had to upgrade ;). I taped the music on Compact Cassette so I could listen to it while driving my first car, a 1985 VW Jetta. The part starting at 11:30 still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it.

[firestarter]

I was into the demoscene before this video, i remember how groundbreaking this demo was to me.
I remember i got it working on an 386dx40, my first PC, before that i was on atari st.
Remarkable how times have changed. I ran around and tried making this demo work on other people's computer just to show them how amazing this demo was.

Thank you for the video, and thank you for the memories!
Love you future crew babies

[BlackWolf-]

back when this came out, I had it running on ALL of the Packard Bells in the Walmart electronics section. Boy, that was still one of my favorite jobs as a kid. Store 1668!

[Serious_Drinking]

This is the best demo music ever made. I find myself listening to it over and over. It’s perfect!

[plasticparrotfairford]

I still remember a mate being really excited, handing me some floppys with this in a split zip over a few discs. I was just blown away by the graphics and the music.
If you'd told teenage me that in 30 years I'd be rewatching it on a little device you could carry in your pocket I'd have laughed. Pocket computer devices of the time were things like the psion 3 (which I loved at the time!)

[MarcShake]

Everyone says: "Doom" was the biggest thing in the 90ies.

Nope. THIS was.

[Perfidion]

I remember watching this for the first time on my 486 DX2-66, and noticing the poor machine choking on it every so often. The graphics and music were mind-blowing for the time, and the phrase "I am not an atomic playboy!" is stuck in my head to this day. These guys were seriously talented.