Hardware Heritage
Falling snow is a classic "intro" effect, often used to set a moody or festive tone. From the hardware-multiplexed sprites of the Amiga to the raw pixel-plotting loops of the PC, this effect demonstrated a machine's ability to manage dozens or even hundreds of independent moving particles simultaneously.
Amiga Sprites
On the Amiga, snow was often rendered using hardware sprites. Each of the 8 hardware sprites could be multiplexed vertically, allowing for dozens of flakes with zero CPU overhead for drawing.
PC Pixel Plot
PC snow usually involved a dedicated array of (X,Y) coordinates. The CPU would erase the pixel at the old position and plot it at the new one. High particle counts were a badge of honor for optimized 386 assembly.
Modern Fragments
This demo uses a fragment shader to render soft, anti-aliased circles. By calculating distance from the center per-pixel, it achieves a high-fidelity "glow" that legacy hardware couldn't produce.
Falling Snow
Classic winter intro aesthetics with soft particle dynamics.
Legacy BASIC
for i=1 to 100 pset(x(i), y(i)), 0 ' erase y(i) = y(i) + speed(i) if y(i) > 200 then y(i) = 0 pset(x(i), y(i)), 15 ' draw next
Modern Hybrid
// Cellular Automata (JS)
if (grid[down] === EMPTY) {
move(i, down);
} else if (grid[downLeft] === EMPTY) {
move(i, downLeft); // Pile behavior
} else {
stay(i); // Accumulate
}
// Render via Texture Upload