TLDR: Which graphics demos, if any, work on the C64 Mini?

I've been interested in the 8-bit demoscene for a while; I'm always impressed by what those coding wizards can do on such limited hardware. I'm cross-posting here to increase my chances of finding someone who is equally interested and more experienced with C64 demos.

After getting the C64 Mini and flashing the latest firmware (easy flash drive loading), I naturally tried to run various demos on the new machine. Music demos like SIDBurners 6 and 7 work perfectly, but every graphics demo I try to load either locks up or crashes, showing no change after sitting for several minutes.

I don't know if it's just a coincidence or the actual problem, but the working music demos fit on one disk, while the nonfunctional graphics demos span multiple. However, I assume disk 1 would work properly, then prompt the user to insert disk 2 when it finishes, and so on. I realize that disk 1 may be the only one that would work due to a lack of hot-swapping support, but the fact that that one won't even run baffles me.

Either way, as the title suggests, please let me know if any graphics demos run successfully (or at least run disk 1 without crashing). Below is a running list of my results:

Deus Ex Machina - Works with _AD flag added.
Edge of Disgrace - Untested with _AD flag
Desert Dream - Untested with _AD flag
The First Demo Disk - Untested with _AD flag

I had someone point out that there is a flag (_AD) that can be appended to the filename to force cycle-accurate disk drive emulation. This fixed my problem with Deus ex Machina; I haven't tested it on the other demos yet.

Very cool - love the idea of trying to get demos going. I guess some of them use a lot of tricks that could be difficult to get going.

Any progress?

I haven't had time to test the others, but Deus ex Machina side A works with the _AD filename flag, and it's an impressive demo as well. It did seem to hang after the "Big Breadbox is Watching" screen, but I'm not sure if that was just a one-time thing. I'll do more testing this weekend.

Edit: some parts of the demo seemed a bit flickery, but that could be just a de-interlacing artifact or the demo taking advantage of the blurry and persistent (compared to modern LCD's) nature of CRT displays.