 | Downloading |  |
I have problems downloading from your site!
You can login to the ftp servers from scene.org with username 'anonymous'. Use your email as a password and you should be doing fine. If you have problems connecting to ftp://ftp.scene.org/ you can use one of our mirrors like ftp://ftp.se.scene.org/ or ftp://ftp.no.scene.org/. The complete list is available in "sites and services".
How do I run demos I downloaded? Why does it tell me my 3D card sucks? What's an ADF file?
Sometimes readme.txt files tell you which hardware and OS is needed, sometimes they don't. Having the perfect equipment to run a demo is sometimes difficult even for veterans, even though it has gotten better since PC demos started to run on higher level operating systems like Windows.
Keep in mind that demos often require state of the art hardware: if you know that your hardware is a bit behind the times, try to download demos that will have been released while it was still state of the art.
You can also try reading fact-sheets and comments on sites such as pouet.net to know more about specific requirements.
I just discovered scene.org. Is there a list of demos I can download, a kind of top10?
Between 2002 and 2012, we have been organizing the Scene.org Awards, an annual gala which honored the best releases of the past year. The Scene.org awards were decided by a small experienced jury who vote for the nominated demos. So, the awards nominees and winners are an excellent choice to start with.
Before we started the Scene.org Awards we maintained a section called viewing tips to give you an overview of each year's releases. It includes demos and intros released before 2002, that the scene.org staff considers absolutly essential to download.
You can also check the files / top downloads section of our site for monthly and all time charts of the most downloaded files from our archive.
Other viewing suggestions can be found on sites such as:
I am unable to download anything from 'incoming' directory - there is '550 - permission denied' error occuring constantly.
Incoming directory is write-only so you just have to wait for the files to be processed and moved in the correct directories. Normally this is done within a day or two, but it might take more depending on the season. If it's urgent, you can always send a mail to the FTP admins to hurry up.
| General | |
What are the differences between a demo and an intro?
The big difference is the size. An intro is usually no bigger than 64Kb while a demo will usually be approximately between 256Kb and several megabytes.
I'm putting a link to scene.org on my site, will you put a link on your site to mine?
As a general rule, we don't link to external sites. (Among the exceptions are our sponsors.)
Should I be worried when my anti-virus software reports a
virus/trojan/packer in a file downloaded from scene.org?
Maybe, but probably not.
Many intros and demos use a packer to decrease their file size.
Unfortunately some malware attempts to disguise itself by using similar
packers. Good anti-virus software will be able to unpack files to test
whether the packed file is a virus or not, but some less sophisticated
anti-virus scanners can't do this and will always report a virus when
they detect such a packer.
In most cases you can simply ignore these false positives. However,
it's possible that a virus has slipped through our radar, so you should
always be careful when your anti-virus software complains about a file. You
can scan the file with some alternative anti-virus programs to see if they
also report a virus. You should also send a copy of the file to the company
that created the anti-virus software so that they can analyze the file. The
more complaints they get about false positives, the sooner they'll fix their
software to correctly identify these files.
I have a capable server and would like to become a scene.org mirror? What can I do? How much bandwidth/space will it take?
We must first thank you for your offer. Mirrors of scene.org are welcomed and encouraged by us.
Mirroring us is easy, but requires some diskspace and available bandwidth. A decent 24/7 uplink of at least 10Mbit/s and enough diskspace should be more then enough.
As of June 2013, we have:
630GB parties
| 43GB 2013
| 43GB 2012
| 40GB 2011
| 64GB 2010
| 47GB 2009
| 55GB 2008
| 55GB 2007
| 88GB 2006
| 38GB 2005
| 39GB 2004
| 35GB 2003
| 34GB 2002
| 25GB 2001
| 11GB 2000
| 5.5GB 1999
| 3.8GB 1998
| 2.3GB 1997
| 2.2GB 1996
| 1.2GB 1995
| 1.8GB 1994
| 236MB 1993
| 428MB 1992
| 135MB 1991
| 2.8MB 1990
| 100KB 1988
297GB music
167GB demos
2.8GB mags
18GB resources
351MB graphics
+------
1.1TB total archive size
If the entire archive is too big to mirror you can decide to only mirror certain sections of the archive. Our mirror system can handle partial mirrors so people will only be directed to your mirror for files that are actually on it. We suggest to mirror at least the latest party directories (2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004 for example) because these are the most downloaded files.
We prefer the usage of our rsync server for mirroring purposes. The services are "rsync.scene.org::ftp/" for the scene.org archive and "rsync.scene.org::mirrors/" for the mirrors archive. But you can also use an ftp based mirror setup by normally connecting to our anonymous ftp site at ftp.scene.org using the mirror package from sunsite.
Our current German mirror at de.scene.org usually transfers 10 to 15 GB of traffic each day. This should give you an idea of the traffic you can expect to have.
After this, I would like to set up the mirroring. Now, I've never mirrored anything with rsync, so I will need some help.
Mirroring with rsync is pretty simple. This is how a sample script would look like that mirrors the music section, mags section and the party releases from 2000 till now:
#!/bin/bash
# start script
mirrorbasedir="/ftp/pub/mirrors/sceneorg/"
mirrorit() {
mkdir -p /ftp/pub/mirrors/sceneorg/$1 && rsync -rult \
--delete rsync.scene.org::ftp/$1 /ftp/pub/mirrors/sceneorg/$1
}
# first do the party releases
startyear=2000
endyear=`date +%Y`
year=$startyear
while [ $year -le $endyear ]; do
mirrorit /parties/$year
year=`expr $year + 1`
done
# then the rest of the sections
mirrorit /music
mirrorit /mags
# end script
Can you post a news about my software / my site / my party on scene.org?
Scene.org only posts news about events related to the life of the server and its archives. The de facto news aggregator of the demoscene at this point is BitFellas. If you want to announce a party, make sure you submit it to Demoparty.net as well.
| Parties and competitions | |
I am a party organiser. How do I upload the productions?
Here's what you need to do:
- Use your favorite ftp client, and connect to ftp://ftp.scene.org/
- Go to /incoming/parties/[partyyear]/ (if the year directory doesn't exist, create it.)
- Create a directory for your party as such: <party-name><party-year>: MYPARTY03 for example.
- Create a subdirectory for each competition and upload the archives in their respective dirs.
Don't forget to upload your party's competition results in a results.txt file, which begins by describing the party itself and when/where it was held.
A few hints that can spare us a lot of work:
- Sanitize your filenames. To avoid encoding issues, filenames should consist of lowercase alphanumeric characters and underscores only. Remove all spaces or accented characters.
- Prefer ZIP over RAR.
- Please, do NOT upload entries unpacked if they consist of several files. One entry should always be one single file.
If you are unsure on how to structure it, check other party directories on our archive.
I entered a competition in a party, but I don't see my entry in the party directory. What should I do?
Please upload it to ftp://ftp.scene.org/incoming/parties/[partyyear]/[party-name]/[compo-directory]/
You can do this by ftping to ftp.scene.org, logging in as user anonymous with your emailaddress as your password, go to the directory /incoming/<party-name>/, and upload the files in the right compo directory, creating any of those directories if they don't exist.
| FTP Directories & Accounts | |
I have an ftp-account. How do I access it?
To upload files you can simply use your ftpclient to logon to ftp.scene.org using anonymous login. Then go to the /incoming/ directory and create a directory called <your-name> (using the mkdir command) under the appropriate directory for the ftp account you applied for. (demos, music, ...) In this newly created directory upload your files. The incoming directory will be emptied at least 2 times a day, and your files will then be moved to your directory in the archive.
Remember to put file_id.diz files in your zipfiles to make the ftpadmins' lives a bit easier. Also please always zip your releases, because this way we can check them easily on errors (that can occur while uploading).
How do I delete files? How do I manipulate the content of my FTP directory?
To overwrite files, you can follow the upload procedure as described above using the same filename as the file in your directory and when we move the file, the old one will automatically be overwritten.
To delete certain files from your directory, you have to mail ftp@scene.org and tell us which files need to be delelete. We will then remove the files for you. Same goes for other operations in your directory.
For any other complex operation on the content of your directory, mail us at ftp@scene.org
When i zip my MP3s and store them into your incoming folder do you simply move them to the pub-folder or do you unzip them? I'd like them unpacked on my FTP directory.
Well, if you want the MP3/modules to be unpacked in your directory you should upload them unpacked. The statement about using zip in our welcome message is there to let people know that we can verify zipfiles for corruption, but not unpacked MP3/modules.
So you are allowed to upload unpacked MP3/modules. We recommend uploading along the information that would be contained in a file_id.diz in a .txt file.
The mail I received said: "Remember to put file_id.diz files in your zipfiles to make the ftpadmins lives a bit more easy." What are file_id.diz files?
It is short ASCII file, which you can create with any text editor, describing the content, authors and otherwise interesting information about the archive to the downloader.
For a demo, it would mention what hardware is supported.
For a music release it would include the name of the group, the name of the author and file types.
Before the internet, releases would often be distributed using BBS. (bulletin board systems) Archives on a BBS contained a file named file_id.diz that would describe its content. It was displayed without having to download the whole file.
| Applications | |
I'm a musician interested in obtaining ftp or web space. I'd like to know if you think I deserve this space.
The application process is being revamped, and as a consequence the application process is closed for the moment
| Sending a mail to us | |
I don't know what language to use
You guessed right by using English :) The Scene.org is composed of volunteers from all around the world, with people from Finland, France, the Netherlands, the US, the UK, etc. English is our de-facto standard language.
| Redistribution | |
We would like to create and sell compilations of music / demos that we downloaded from scene.org? Can you give us permission?
The International Scene Organization only has distribution rights of the works contained in its archive.
None of the works (songs, demos, graphics, videos) present on our archives are in the public domain. As such you need to contact yourself the respective authors to ask them specifically if they are willing to let you exploit their work commercially.
To do so we suggest you either read the contact info if present in the ftp directory, or from the archives and accompanying text files.
We know it can prove difficult sometimes to locate the copyright holders from the handles they leave with their file. You are then advised to try to reach them through the email addresses contained in readme files.
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