Question about screen savers.

PancakeGoblin · Post by **PancakeGoblin** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 4:28 pm

Anybody know any freeware screen saver designing programs? Any help would be great!

- PancakeGoblin

Sir Games-A-Lot · Post by **Sir Games-A-Lot** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 2:15 pm

What Operating System are you using? If it's Windows you should just be able make any image a screen saver (atleast in XP I don't remember if you can do that in the other versions). For Mac or Linux I have no idea.

PancakeGoblin · Post by **PancakeGoblin** » Sun May 07, 2006 8:23 am

Sir Games-A-Lot wrote:What Operating System are you using? If it's Windows you should just be able make any image a screen saver (atleast in XP I don't remember if you can do that in the other versions). For Mac or Linux I have no idea.

Sorry for the late reply, the pancakes...they were calling me.

I'm using XP, but I want to add videos and images and a bunch of stuff to it.

Post by **SpongeBuell** » Sun May 07, 2006 1:03 pm

Sir Games-A-Lot wrote:What Operating System are you using? If it's Windows you should just be able make any image a screen saver (atleast in XP I don't remember if you can do that in the other versions). For Mac or Linux I have no idea.

I think you may be confusing wallpaper with screensavers (which drives me nuts!)

Wallpaper: the background image on your desktop
Screensaver: video thingy that comes up after a set amount of time of inactivity

blackbox_dev · Post by **blackbox_dev** » Sun May 07, 2006 1:41 pm

SpongeBuell wrote:
Sir Games-A-Lot wrote:What Operating System are you using? If it's Windows you should just be able make any image a screen saver (atleast in XP I don't remember if you can do that in the other versions). For Mac or Linux I have no idea.
Which drives me nuts!

Me too.

Actually, I thought that screensavers were just executable files with some extra info. They have a '.scr' file extension though. Here's a screen shot to prove my point. You can see the info that a normal .EXE file would give you:

I'm going to do some more experimenting with this later. I'll post my findings later.

Post by **marshallh** » Sun May 07, 2006 2:28 pm

Yes, they are normal EXE files that must respond to several command line switches. One launches the setup dialog of the screen saver, the other runs it and so on.

PancakeGoblin · Post by **PancakeGoblin** » Sun May 07, 2006 6:00 pm

But i want a screen saver designer app, no help here?

psychotic_mechanic · Post by **psychotic_mechanic** » Sun May 07, 2006 7:07 pm

Are you using a CRT? Screen savers don't "save" LCD's at all, in fact they hurt them (just a little).

blackbox_dev · Post by **blackbox_dev** » Sun May 07, 2006 7:12 pm

psychotic_mechanic wrote:Are you using a CRT? Screen savers don't "save" LCD's at all, in fact they hurt them (just a little).

How does it hurt them? This is a serious question, I actually want to know.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Sun May 07, 2006 7:14 pm

I stumbled across this page.

Might find free stuff here.

psychotic_mechanic · Post by **psychotic_mechanic** » Sun May 07, 2006 7:42 pm

LCD's don't suffer from burn-in like plasmas, but the backhlight in a monitor has a definitive lifespan. If you always leave your computer on (I see this a lot with laptops) with the screensaver running you are slowly killing your backlight. To maximize life of the display you should set the monitor to power down instead of changing to an aquarium scene.

I've walked into meeting / class rooms before where the projector was left on with a screen saver running...