mekka & symposium Competitions

Preface

 The first version of the compo rules we published was very restrictive - some of you might remember. In the course of events, some people complained about them. Some complaints were well-reasoned, some were not. After three months of discussing and making the rules more open, we came up with this final rule set. We find it's a good compromise between technical progress and keeping a kind of scenish spirit by limiting possibilites.

General
Rules
  • The competitor must be present, or in case of group contribution, at least one person of the group.
  • All entries must be delivered until deadline (for time table see below)
  • There will be a preselection for the music competitions (we can't show 200 modules). The selections will be based on quality, not on names or music styles.
  • No contribution disks, videos, CDs etc. will be given back.
  • You have to agree that we'll spread your contribution during and after the party, via Internet, BBSs, CD-ROMs etc.
  • Just in case: The rules might still change; stay tuned to announcements.

The
Big Screen

 This is our 6x4 sqm screen we had on the Symposium & Mekka '97 and which we will also have on the MS98.

The screen

C64
Competitions

 Two fine competitions to honour the roots:
  • The C64 Demo Competition: Maximum size is a standard 5.25 DD disk (both sides).
  • The C64 4K Intro Competition: Maximum size is 4096 bytes (not more than 16.12 blocks...).
Note that there are also the C64 Graphics and C64 Sound competitions...

The C64 configuration is this:

  • New SID
  • Action Replay MK6
  • 1541-II

IBM PC
Competitions
  • The PC Demo Competition: The summed size of all the files belonging to the Demo must not exceed 6 megabytes (6291456 bytes). The demo must work with an SB16, too.
  • The Win95 Demo Competition: The summed size of all the files belonging to the Demo must not exceed 6 megabytes (6291456 bytes). Full DirectX usage is allowed. The competition machine will have a 3DFX card and a Pentium MMX 166.
  • The PC 64K Intro Competition: The size may not exceed 64 kilobytes (65536 bytes).
  • The PC 4K Competition: The size may not exceed four kilobytes (4096 bytes). A -nosound option doesn't have to be provided.
The configuration of the PC and some general notes go like this:
  • CPU: Intel Pentium 166MHz, 512K Level 2 Cache
  • RAM: 32MB
  • Sound: Gravis Ultrasound PnP 1MB and SoundBlaster 16.
  • Graphics: An S3 Trio64V+ (80C765) based card with 2MB of display memory, SDD 5.3a or later will be running.
  • We will be running MS-DOS 7.0: Win95 is not running, it has been shut down into MS-DOS mode.
  • Maximum resolution is 800x600. Please try to avoid excessive mode switches, as this may lead to considerable video beam drop out times.
  • All entries (except the 4K ones) must also work if no soundcard is present, or they must provide an explicit -nosound option.

Amiga
Competitions
  • The Amiga Demo Competition: The summed size of all the files belonging to the Demo must not exceed 5 megabytes (5242880 bytes).
  • The Amiga 40K Intro Competition: The size may not exceed 40 kilobytes (40960 bytes). 40K, not 64K!
  • The Amiga 4K Competition: The size may not exceed 4 kilobytes (4096 bytes).
The competition Amiga is a 68060-based machine. We don't know yet whether it will be an A4000 or an A1200, and it doesn't matter either. Your contribution has to work on a 68030 with 8MB FastMem. Assigns and installation scripts are forbidden. Custom libraries may be used, but not installed outside of the contribution directory.

Graphics
Competitions

 All the entries will be shown at least twice, at different daytimes.

Music
Competitions
  • The MOD Competition: Allowed are ProTracker modules only, that means four channels, and playable with all the usual mod players on all the usual platforms. The only restriction is: Don't use more than 447 kilobytes (457728 bytes). We will show twelve selected entries to the audience, using ProTracker V2.2a on Amiga.
  • The XM Competition: Don't use more than 713 kilobytes (730112 bytes). We will show twelve selected entries to the audience, using the latest FastTracker on an AWE64. Only XM modules and other formats playable by FastTracker are allowed!
  • The C64 Sound Competition: All formats allowed, the entry must be an executable file delivered on a standard C64 disk. The C64 screen will not be shown during the competition.
We will show 4:27 (four minutes and twenty-seven seconds) of each song.

Other
Competitions
  • The 32K Game Competition: For PC and Amiga. The above configurations apply. Maximum size of all files is 32768 bytes. Temporary files on the harddisk are allowed, they will not be included in the byte count. They will be removed before playing the game. The coder will play it on the big screen. If you are planning networked games, contact us in advance. We will do a preselection on this competition to ensure that no two-hours gag program will win again, instead of one of the games into which the programmers have put a lot of work!
  • The Wild Competition: Use any hardware you want, and hand in your work on a VHS or S-VHS tape. You may also bring your wild hardware, but please get in contact with the organizers in advance to make sure we can actually connect it to big screen beamer.
  • The Fast Intro Competition: The one thing that must not miss on any party. Surprise surprise ;-)=
ms.demo.org - Mekka & Symposium 1998.