Technology Demonstration - Computers and Gaming

Computers and Gaming

Technology demonstrations 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 "tech 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.