Into The Pink
After 3 years of absence on PC demoscene we are back with “Into The Pink”. This demo might be special in some terms. It perfectly scales itself based on the computer you run it on. This means that you can use it as benchmark and whenever you’ll put new hardware then you’ll notice a performance boost. For benchamrking click the right checkbox in the configuration panel. “Into The Pink” was done in 8 weeks and was meant to be an experiment to test some of the new techniques and also to see if we are going in a right direction. While writing about this production we will use an opportunity to greet our new coder misz. Welcome aboard mate!
EDIT: The new 1.04 adds a functionality to submit performance results to our database. It can be accesed here.
EDIT: Warning - version 1.04 contains a bug! If you own a SLI config please turn option to use only one card for better performance. We are working on it.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I tried running the final on Vista 64bit SP1 with an ATI hd4870 card, and the progress bar in the beginning stops at approximate 85%. Nothing happens even if I wait along time. In the task manager the executable uses full cpu, but memory is constant.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I observe the same crash, with an HD3870 on Vista 64bit without SP1. On the same machine under XP, it just crashes (standard dialog box inviting me to inform our friends at MS, or to Debug
) at exactly the same point on the progress bar (i.e. somewhere around 85%). Latest DX runtimes and latest ATI drivers as usual.
October 14th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Thanks for the info! I’ll post the fix tomorrow. Hopefully it’s an ATI issue and not VISTA. Otherwise I’ll need another day for a VISTA fix :).
October 15th, 2008 at 12:02 am
Same here, 4850 sorta hangs before the last 5% of loading, right before it hangs sometimes there’s a slight flash that seems indicate the demo starts to run or something (but no sound), my graphics card’s fan also spins up a bit from then on.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:03 am
(oh and I’m also on Vista 64bit SP1 with a ati 4850)
October 15th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I think that I’ve managed to reproduce and fix the bug!
if you’ll encounter any other bugs then just let me know.
Cheers!
boznaj
October 15th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Thx a lot, worked, fantastic demo, congrats!
October 16th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
1.01 Crashes (in atioglxx.dll) here around 5% into the loader bar. HD4850/Catalyst8.10/WinXP/E6750.
October 17th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Psycho: Hello :), thanks for the info - I’ve managed to reproduce the bug on 8.10 drivers. Fixing it now.
October 19th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
The new version has been uploaded. It should handle this 8.10 bug.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Yeah it’s working now
However, it seems like a serious workaround or problem - i noticed it was alot slower than under vista64 with 8.9 drivers. Now it’s 6100 frames (default settings) in XP/cat8.10, while 8200 in vista64/cat8.10 - and still 10600 in Vista64/Cat8.9.
October 20th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Psycho: I’ve noticed the same :(. When I switch from 8.10 to 8.9 I got 20% performance boost. Ah why they’re always make things worse. I’ll try to figure out the cause.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Don’t worry about it - Performace will be back in 8.11
(devrel beta: xp: 7500, vista64: 10700 - impressive difference btw).
October 21st, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Psycho: Ah I’m glad to hear that ;). I was quite pissed at ATI for that performance drop. Tomorrow we’ll start a result database so we’ll see how it looks in a bigger scale :).
October 24th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Best demo ever.
This is real art.
It almost made me cry…
December 10th, 2008 at 12:24 am
I´m my computer ( HD 4870, Win XP 32 Bits Pro, C2Duo E8400, Rampage Formula, 2X2 Gb OCZ ) didn´t work….anyone have a software fix ????
December 21st, 2008 at 1:22 am
Awesome demo!! I put up a 720p video of it on Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut3FxxTY7fM&fmt=22
December 21st, 2008 at 2:08 am
Shadowdane: Thanks - we’ll link it after we finish with new page design (this one is temporary).
January 8th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Once again very abstract, very surreal, and very strange. Coherence is a word you may find beneficial to learn.
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Absolutely amazing, I love Linger in Shadows on the PS3 and as soon as I realized you guys developed both this was a must-download for me. I took first place on the benchmark at 720p with 16xMSAA ;D
February 19th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
buzka
April 4th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Awesome !

May 5th, 2009 at 5:18 am
Just a FYI — this has a ton of problems on Windows 7 RC1. The entire image flickers like crazy. I tried running in XP & Vista Compatibility modes. That didn’t fix it.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:20 am
Just updated to Windows 7 RC1 and well your demo has some big issues with it. The entire image flickers like crazy.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Outstanding!
I hope that soon you will create even more impressive demo
October 25th, 2009 at 1:38 am
nice demo…i like it very much…i got a good score..im 59 i think.
very good graphics..i hope to see other demos.
good job!!!
November 10th, 2009 at 1:40 am
świetnie, że jesteście
super demko, gratz.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Rispect! ;] bardzo fajne ;]
March 17th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Hi, I have a problem with my Ati HD6950 (BIOS Mod to HD6970), the screen remains black for the entire demo but the sound work (also the benchmark results). Catalyst 11.2.
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64, E8400 3.0GHz, Ati HD6950, Asus P5Q-E, 8GB Ram OCZ 1066MHz.
Please fix it
July 24th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
really cool demo,real art
July 29th, 2011 at 4:08 am
Any chance of an SLI update for this great demo? It sucks that it can’t use my 2nd GPU!
June 8th, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Any chance of a working version for Crossfire HD5850, Vista x64.. Only getting black screen, can hear the music but nothing else.
Used to work but 1.04 not working anymore !! Shame.. Such a cracking demo.
June 18th, 2012 at 10:12 am
stutheterrorist: yeah that’s a shame, unfortunately I got the source code completely broken lying somewhere on dismounted drive. Right now we are trying to archive everything for such fixes.
September 24th, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Black screen with HD 7770.
October 21st, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Black screen with ATI 5850.
February 12th, 2013 at 1:25 am
New card, new problems… There’s no black screen this time, but visual C++ runtime error. Radeon HD 7850.
October 25th, 2013 at 10:22 pm
Last time I was able to run this was on my 8800GT in 2009.
It didn’t wanna run on my HD4870 or HD6850 but it runs great on my new laptop! Core i7-720QM, Radeon HD5650/HD6500, Windows 7 64bit SP1.
February 12th, 2014 at 7:04 pm
this program crash my system… thanks a lot
December 13th, 2016 at 11:42 pm
It’s almost 2017 and this is still one of my very favourite benchmarks. I just love how creative and epic it is. It’s a work of art first and a benchmark second. I love that.
Excellent work chap.