I love what is trying to be done here. Some feedback to improve would be to cut out a lot of the noise with the "Take tour". There are too many boxes and things changing on the screen to get a sense of what is happening. Also make it interactive rather than automatically switch onto the next subject. Being a passive observer to so much information trying to be conveyed is very confusing.
I really do like these kinds of approaches to showing the inner workings of different kinds of tech, so think this is on the good path to being a very useful tool, but needs some focus rather than more data/graphs/info boxes.
It's amazing 3D going on, and then 80% of the visual space is popups that completely block it. It'd be have a nice prominent ways of reducing the noise, and that pops were partially transparent.
This is good general advice. If your software needs a "tour," that's a good indicator you should work on your UX instead. If you're just excited to tell the user about a new feature, they'll discover it when they need it.
Not everyone will come to view this model from the same vantage point. Some will simply be curious about some famous software that they don't happen to use. So the tour is an excellent idea. Great presentation. Congratulations.
Considering that it has been vibe-coded with not even 48 hours passed: Is this truthful and accurate at all? Or will it lead to false conclusions and anti-knowledge?
I imagined as soon I saw the initial visual that I would somehow be able to enter a query and it would walk me through the flow through the entire system starting from input parsing to all the way to delivering output and perhaps along the way understand some of the autonomous processes that happen in parallel that aren't query specific but run constantly.
What others are saying - fantastic attempt, but don't know where to start or where to end.
Understanding how scheduling works inside a database used to require numerous architecture diagrams to explain. I was amazed when I saw PGSimCity — it presents such a complex technical implementation process in such an engaging way. Since it's already open‑source, I think the same idea can be reused in other domains, such as cloud computing, Kubernetes, and so on.
Virtually it's so amazing to see. The layers are clearly separated and it does give a sense of the connections being accepted and processed in the central part.
The operation intricacies are a bit difficult to understand because the core looks a bit clogged up. Nonetheless, great work!
It's a cool and very educative way to learn. But I wish there's like a live query thing going on so that it'd be easy to understand. I am viewing on the 27" 4K screen and it's perfect for it, like others said, I don't feel there's too much boxes and info at the same time. Although the site is going blank sometimes if I zoom in a bit too much. Really cool nonetheless.
I have a pretty good working knowledge of the internals of Postgres, but this just confused me. I think it's too busy to understand. At the very least, it would be cool if there were a "slow down" button.
There are buttons on the bottom left: pause and two to adjust the speed (down to 0.1x).
Some parts of the city can be adjusted when you click on it (I just found the transactions/s)
This is really cool, I like having visualization to hold on my head!
Also (assuming this is LLM-generated, apologies if it’s not) seems like the future of learning/self-teaching… gonna try and generate similar things for stuff I’m learning
It surely is impressive,but it’s just that - components of db service as buildings/machine. What it needs is narrative, purpose, with main actors clearly defined - client and data. demonstrating what is involved in the chain when data’s written and requested.
Really great work! I've always wanted to build a CPU simulator(Full PC simulator) in this style. I still haven't fully figured out my own approach, but this will definitely be an inspiration for me. Thanks for making and sharing it.
3.86B tokens to build a visual simulator of a database that runs on a fraction of that compute. we're using the expensive brain to draw pictures of the cheap brain.
Great work! When zooming out a bit, I'm somewhat sure that the 'blinking'/glitching is due to z-fighting. Just something you may want to look into (ie move 3d surfaces so that they're not at the exact same z)
I love what is trying to be done here. Some feedback to improve would be to cut out a lot of the noise with the "Take tour". There are too many boxes and things changing on the screen to get a sense of what is happening. Also make it interactive rather than automatically switch onto the next subject. Being a passive observer to so much information trying to be conveyed is very confusing.
I really do like these kinds of approaches to showing the inner workings of different kinds of tech, so think this is on the good path to being a very useful tool, but needs some focus rather than more data/graphs/info boxes.
It's amazing 3D going on, and then 80% of the visual space is popups that completely block it. It'd be have a nice prominent ways of reducing the noise, and that pops were partially transparent.
Yea on mobile especially
I hear you. WIP!
thanks for all the feedback. It's amazing for me too. It all started yesterday with a single prompt and curiosity what Opus 5 can do.
~3.86B tokens used so far (not counting GPT 5.6 Sol that at some point started to do a lot of legwork for coding)
single prompt Claude Design before putting it in Claude Code
This is good general advice. If your software needs a "tour," that's a good indicator you should work on your UX instead. If you're just excited to tell the user about a new feature, they'll discover it when they need it.
I think in this case a tour is fine and sort of the point. But I disagree with you generally.
Not everyone will come to view this model from the same vantage point. Some will simply be curious about some famous software that they don't happen to use. So the tour is an excellent idea. Great presentation. Congratulations.
maybe try adding tts to the tour?
Considering that it has been vibe-coded with not even 48 hours passed: Is this truthful and accurate at all? Or will it lead to false conclusions and anti-knowledge?
I imagined as soon I saw the initial visual that I would somehow be able to enter a query and it would walk me through the flow through the entire system starting from input parsing to all the way to delivering output and perhaps along the way understand some of the autonomous processes that happen in parallel that aren't query specific but run constantly.
What others are saying - fantastic attempt, but don't know where to start or where to end.
try pressing T
Anyone else getting Reboot vibes?
Understanding how scheduling works inside a database used to require numerous architecture diagrams to explain. I was amazed when I saw PGSimCity — it presents such a complex technical implementation process in such an engaging way. Since it's already open‑source, I think the same idea can be reused in other domains, such as cloud computing, Kubernetes, and so on.
I've always wanted to do an explainer of the deployment system and state-tracking at Fly.io using Factorio as a visual metaphor.
I heard you have some free time now, so let's see it!
I can't believe "Rendering The First Frame..." is not "Reticulating Splines..." :)
Cool UI.
I love this, let's do all of Data Intensive Application SimCity!
Virtually it's so amazing to see. The layers are clearly separated and it does give a sense of the connections being accepted and processed in the central part.
The operation intricacies are a bit difficult to understand because the core looks a bit clogged up. Nonetheless, great work!
I don't know what I am looking at but it is fabulous.
It's a cool and very educative way to learn. But I wish there's like a live query thing going on so that it'd be easy to understand. I am viewing on the 27" 4K screen and it's perfect for it, like others said, I don't feel there's too much boxes and info at the same time. Although the site is going blank sometimes if I zoom in a bit too much. Really cool nonetheless.
Besides the sadly obvious vibe-coding, just note that SimCity is still an active trademark from EA, so might be good to rename it.
how do you know it has been vibe-coded? And why does it matter?
I have a pretty good working knowledge of the internals of Postgres, but this just confused me. I think it's too busy to understand. At the very least, it would be cool if there were a "slow down" button.
There are buttons on the bottom left: pause and two to adjust the speed (down to 0.1x). Some parts of the city can be adjusted when you click on it (I just found the transactions/s)
Ah indeed there is. Totally didn't notice that, thanks.
But even at .1x it's too quick. :) I should be able to fire individual transactions and watch them flow.
This is really cool, I like having visualization to hold on my head!
Also (assuming this is LLM-generated, apologies if it’s not) seems like the future of learning/self-teaching… gonna try and generate similar things for stuff I’m learning
it is in the commit 'Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>'
Visualizing MVCC and transaction visibility would make this even more valuable as a learning tool.
It surely is impressive,but it’s just that - components of db service as buildings/machine. What it needs is narrative, purpose, with main actors clearly defined - client and data. demonstrating what is involved in the chain when data’s written and requested.
Try the tour. It’s exactly that.
yep (via pressing T)
but I agree, could be better – thinking
Really great work! I've always wanted to build a CPU simulator(Full PC simulator) in this style. I still haven't fully figured out my own approach, but this will definitely be an inspiration for me. Thanks for making and sharing it.
3.86B tokens to build a visual simulator of a database that runs on a fraction of that compute. we're using the expensive brain to draw pictures of the cheap brain.
Great work! When zooming out a bit, I'm somewhat sure that the 'blinking'/glitching is due to z-fighting. Just something you may want to look into (ie move 3d surfaces so that they're not at the exact same z)
Correct -- z-fighting on coplanar ground surfaces. Fixing with explicit offsets.
thanks
This is very cool, just some UX tips to make it more legible:
1. remove ~50% of the UI since it covers too much of a laptop screen
2. improve the camera controls so its easier to pan and zoom.
Wow, cool projects are so back again
So much stuff to see but looks very cool!
Wow. Can’t wait to explore the architecture
Amazing, great work. Keep polishing this up!
I like the education tools being developed using coding agents, but there should be some review in the process.
Good luck continuing it, hope you generated something that can be iterated on.
Someone should make a movie called “Postgres” which is about people living within a Postgres city, in the style of Se7en.
“Every city has secrets. Ours have indexes.”
thats cool. n1. spent 15min looking on it rn
maybe try adding tts to the tour? Lol
This is amazing!
Love this
i understood all that.