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3D Waterfall Screensaver was available as a giveaway on May 23, 2010!
A beautiful waterfall setting is waiting for you far away from the noise of the city.
Watch the eye-pleasing scenery surrounding this enchanting wonder of Nature. Listen to the melodic sounds of the waterfall bubbling by and see the fish rushing up and down the stream.
This is not just another slide-show or simple flash screensaver. The whole setting was built in 3D from scratch and the quality of animation can rival that of Disney.
Windows 9x/2000/XP/Vista; Pentium III or higher; 32 MB Video Memory; DirectX 8.0 or higher; DirectX-compatible sound card;
9.35 MB
$19.95
Put the brilliance and fragrance of lush garden flowers on your desktop. Find yourself in a floral paradise with elegant butterflies and other lovely little creatures. Let the invigorating power of spring take over, bringing with it twittering birds, buzzing busy bees and cute colorful ladybugs.
This screensaver is an outstanding 3D model of the solar system. Every planet is there along with its satellites and even a small info graph with basic facts. All the proportions and trajectories are right. It's not only the sheer beauty but also the educational content that make Solar System 3D Screensaver an absolute must-have.
This incredible saver shows you a stormy ocean surface with swirls over it, complete with sunset sky and lightnings. The realistic 3D environment and stereo sound FX makes it fantastic.
Do you want to see what's inside the Matrix? Well, you don't need to take the red pill and you'll always be able to return. This brand new 3D Matrix Screensaver will take you there in no time. Your screen will become the gate to numerous worlds of the matrix. They will fly by and as you get closer you'll be able to decipher the code and see what they are like!
Bring the beauty of an exotic fish tank to your desktop! Own a virtual aquarium of your dreams full of cute sea creatures, beautiful accessories and vibrant water plants.
There's no real use for screensavers if saving screen is the main objective. However, I am looking for some soothing sceneries to pop up on the screen when I sit thinking for more than five minutes... and that's where a screensaver is useful. Maybe should be renamed and called thinksavers... soothing sceneries and sound to aid thinking.
But this is not it. The screenshots looks horrible. I'd think that with the hardware today, they can at least come up with some top of the line graphics... maybe some direct3d 9 stuff at least (to be compatible with most PCs). Guess we'll have to keep on using some video screen saver then...
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Thanks GAOTD and Astrogemini for the gift. I appreciate the time and work that was put into the software and the gift.
Have a nice one:)
Felstrex
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Installed flawlessly on XP SP3. Ran very well on my Celeron 2.8 Ghz at full 1920 X 1080. Don't know the frame rate.
I was nicely impressed with the scenery, panning, birds, and waterfall sound. For the developers, my recommendations are to: 1) vastly improve the look of the water on the waterfall; 2) improve the base of the falls where the stream begins (right now it is too stark a dividing line); 3) slow down the speed of the stream; and most importantly, 4) at least give an option to delete the 'music' - the waterfall sounds and the bird sounds would be much better without the 'music'.
All in all, it could be very nice. as it is, I would be disappointed had I paid for it.
Thanks, developers and GOTD
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Hi Dan, With respect to screensavers FPS means Frames Per Second (though in gaming terms it means First person shooter) :)
As for today’s screensaver. It's okay. As someone mentions above you an tell it was made several years ago as graphics have moved on a tad since this was made. with DX10 and now DX11 bump mapping and textures in general look much better. This is rather blocky, though maxing out the Antialiasing (8 samples) helped improves things, but this would likely cause the screensaver to run badly on older computers.
On the plus side I liked the additional touches such as fish in the river and butterflies in the meadow grass.
The dark castle that was given away a few years ago had a better looking waterfall plus had a day/night cycle with much more varied views. Still, for its day this was a nice looking screensaver. I’d like to see Astro Gemini update it because you can get much better looking waterfalls now and rock faces look almost real. :) In fact a lot of the Astro Gemini collection could do with an overhaul. (please as love screensavers) Some of them would go well with the Atmosphere program that was given away a few weeks ago (I bought the pro edition and am using it for meditation)
I meant to post a reminder earlier today that there has been several more games posted over in the forums recently. Check out weeks 88 to 91 to find some decent freebies:
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/forum/17
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Hi Dan, With respect to screensavers FPS means Frames Per Second (though in gaming terms it means First person shooter) :)
As for today’s screensaver. It's okay. As someone mentions above you an tell it was made several years ago as graphics have moved on a tad since this was made. with DX10 and now DX11 bump mapping and textures in general look much better. This is rather blocky, though maxing out the Antialiasing (8 samples) helped improves things, but this would likely cause the screensaver to run badly on older computers.
On the plus side I liked the additional touches such as fish in the river and butterflies in the meadow grass.
The dark castle that was given away a few years ago had a better looking waterfall plus had a day/night cycle with much more varied views. Still, for its day this was a nice looking screensaver. I’d like to see Astro Gemini update it because you can get much better looking waterfalls now and rock faces look almost real. :) In fact a lot of the Astro Gemini collection could do with an overhaul. (please a s love screensavers) Some of them would go well with the Atmosphere program that was given away a few weeks ago (I bought the pro edition and am using it for meditation)
I meant to post a reminder earlier today that there has been several more games posted over in the forums recently. Check out weeks 88 to 91 to find some decent freebies:
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/forum/17
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This would have looked poor on a Windows 95 comp
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Installed, not impressed. Created in 2005? Still selling for $20? Um, yeah.
Graphics reminded me a little of the Wii Island Resort.
Will stick to my current screensaver that I paid $10 to register and has at least been updated a few times in the last 5 years.
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I don't know what the heck "a FPS" is. Anyway, I'd love to try it, but it starts the loading screen and quits the second the audio begins. 1920x1080, Win7 Pro 64. Uninstalled -- thanks anyway.
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I've denied access to programs and now I cannot open the FolderMage Pro. Can anyone help me?
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very bad screensaver
very lagy graphics
give 0 out of 10
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I was able to download it now with Firefox instead of IE8 but it won't come on with Windows 7.
Anybody with Windows 7 Home Premium get it to work?
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Not meaning to sound retentive, but I don't get the whole idea of screen savers. Like, why?
Who sits and stares at the screen when they are not actually doing any work or gaming or whatever??
Sure, I can understand having something on that screen when you're dealing with customers or something, but the term "relaxing" when describing a screen saver sounds to me like some people are just really really really lonely or really really really really bored.
Anyway, I don't use them so I will pass. But I love this site and always look forward to seeing what's on the menu.
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Respectfully, installed easy on my 32bit Windows 7 Home Premium; and
it looked nice on my LED 19 inch Monitor. However, it sporadically
would quickly flicker [flash]; and the time of the day displays in
the right bottom portion on the screen. Other than that, it is okay.
Oh, and the music is somewhat serene. Lastly, I uninstalled (kudos)
to the system restore) in Windows 7 for the above reasons; and am
undecided in whither to vote in favor based on my personal experience
with it!
P.S. Like #6 identified in that it does create a desktop shortcut
automatically for "Other 3D Screensavers" which is simple to remove;
right click and click on file location, delete it; and then delete
the desktop short cut!
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Looks good and runs fairly smoothly aside from a bit of hitching on camera move on both highest and lowest settings on XPsp3 athlon 64x2 4200, Radeon HD 3800 agp.
Graphics are better than the Astrogemini screensavers we have seen before, and as Fubar noted, this did not install the screensaver manager, but it does leave an icon for their site on the desktop.
Installation provides an icon on desktop for the screensaver to run on demand, you can right click on it and configure it on the fly, which is useful since I like to have screensavers but don't want them to load unless I load them manually just for some eye candy.
I don't think this is worth 19.99, pricing under 10.00 would be more reasonable, but it is free for today and overall a nice addition to the collection.
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Not bad but the graphcs ae very similar to those seen in a FPS
trying to do true 3D of something as complex as water or plants is not a good idea it just looks odd. the tree shows this perfectly. If they had stuck toa more limted view and faked the 3D the way aquarium savers do it would have worked better. having said that the grass/reeds work well
will not be keeping this one
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Why does nobody build these things for multiple screen systems? This would be just awesome if I could set what screen this will go on to and/or more than one screen. I have three outs on my card (only two active at one time) and it would be so cool if I could get this on my big high-definition screen without setting the big screen as primary.
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Nice screensaver! The entire thing is constantly moving, which is how a good screensaver should work. I have installed too many where only parts of it move so they are just decorative not true screensavers. As previously mentioned it doesn't look like "Disney" quality but is really nice regardless. This screensaver reminds me of a video game. Like something from Zelda or Ico. Thanks gaotd!
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Astro Gemini apparently took notice of our previous complaints about the installation of their screensaver manager. They only placed a link to it on the desktop this time. TY, Astro Gemini!
My firewall blocks it from accessing the internet every time it is started. However, that appears to be by my access provider or Firefox rather than the program itself. I continue blocking it, anyway. I also noticed that Sandboxie showed something was still running when the program ended. I had to have SB terminate it. Don't know why that is, but maybe it's because it's sandboxed.
I don't use screensavers at home, although I do at work. So I'm considering this as 3D artwork moreso than a screensaver. It runs okay on my 5-year-old, cheapie XP computer at the default settings, although somewhat jerky and too slow. Setting the graphics resolution in the configuration to 640 x 480 at 16 bits improved the motion tremendously without too much loss of detail. I don't sit with my face inches from the screen when I watch it anyway. I move to the couch and view it as I would a movie. I also unchecked the option to render grass, etc. with sharper detail.
I find it well-done as 3D animation. But I think it needs touching up in the water-rendering part. To me, the water is the most important part of the scene, but the artists seem to have focused more on rendering the trees and grass.
I will keep it to view at times as a relaxing experience. I wouldn't use any 3D program as a screensaver as it works the hardware too much during times when it too could be "relaxing"!
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I'm absolutely mystified by all the negatives here. Installed easily on Vista 64, and looks gorgeous on my 1080p Dell 23" monitor. Since the sound is a little weak I've turned it off and use sound effects from Atmosphere Lite Plus, a previous giveaway. Perfect! A big 2 thumbs up for me! And thank you GAOTD. Keep 'em coming!
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I downloaded this mainly for the waterfall sound to use to muffle other outdoor or street sounds. Although that did not happen, I do enjoy the light music and bird sounds. It takes you through a short sprint in the woods around the waterfall, which is nice. However, when does "mist" fall over the rocks into the water below. There is no water falling into the pool below, only mist.
All in all this is a keeper because I usually cannot put any gaming sort of videos on my PC as it is older and would use up all my CPU resources. However, I did not notice any slow down with this screensaver.
Now for the Stickr on the giveaway site--extremely annoying. You literally have to move the uninvited stickers out of the way and when you hit the delete button instead of disappearing they go into thinking mode, forever. Probably won't go away until I leave the giveaway website!!
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It's nice to see a screensaver offered again. I can just hear the screensaver haters now. I know they are not needed with today's monitors. I know they may waste energy, blah, blah, blah. If you don't like it don't download it. Thank you GAOTD team for your hard work. Thank you Astro Gemini Software for your gift.
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It is a beautiful screensaver.Don't be put off by some negative comments above. There are various scenes, changing like a movie. Like someone else has commented, the graphics of waterfall needs to be improved. It looks like smoke,or steam and too transparent. I also wish it was possible to control the speed of the fish - they seem to be on steroids.
BTW, is it possible to turn off the clock?
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Thank you for sharing this giveaway. I know that the goal is feedback. First I will give you my positive comments. It's greenery looks realistic, in term of the time put into the art (I am not referencing the movement of them). I like the selection of music for it. It goes well with the peaceful scenery. It looks like a game, and has me wondering where we will go next.
As for other feedback, the movement of the leaves and water does seem somewhat older. With the amazing speed at which computers change, it is such a highly competitive market. You would likely need to please those who keep up with all that to market it successfully. If you were able to update your graphic work, you might consider making this a walk through game of some sort....
Thank you again!
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I'm not a user of screen savers or even turning my display off for that matter but I appreciate the free software regardless.
As far as Screen savers go, it is one of the better ones.
Simple, relaxing and basic graphics-wise so it runs even on a slower system. I installed it and grabbed the SCR file anyway for a friends PC before un-installing. She loves it.
My suggestions would be:
To not sprawl the desktop links.
Turn the music off by default
Have a blank intro instead of a splash-screen.
As for the moaners, the screen savers are here on the odd occasion and everything suits different people, I can't care for "another media converter" but I don't give it a bad rating unless it really is bad (as a couple really have been)
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IMHO "...the quality of animation can rival that of Disney" may be about right, ***When you remember that Disney is known for cartoons -- not realistic animation.*** ;-)
Seriously, it is better looking than a blank screen on standby, but poor compared to the scenery in most 5 year old 3D games. The water is rendered in a way that suggests rather than looks like water, the foliage (i.e. the *blocks of* tree leaves) look like static objects that change position instead of being animated themselves, & in one scene [this screensaver has a few] the intentional blurring of foreground foliage looks IMHO nasty. But the rocks & tree trunks etc are painted nicely, so it's not too bad if/when you don't notice or can overlook the flaws.
[Tested on an AMD quad rig with an ATI 4870 graphics card in XP Pro SP3 32]
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Thanks, GAOTD. I like your productivity giveaways but there's no reason to be all work and no play. Really appreciate the animated wallpaper and screensavers you've offered.
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Installed fine, screensaver works. This is a nice screensaver; graphics are a bit older but it's pretty to view as screensavers are; thanks GOATD
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Thanks GAOTD. Love screensavers.
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This is some seriously unwell behaved and flawed software. When you select it from the dropdown list of screensavers its process is started. In WinXP it's shown by its DOS name and only in Win7 by its long name. As soon as it that process starts it eats up all my CPU power. At that time the screensaver itself isn't even running yet. This happened on a WinXP-SP2 system, another WinXP-SP3 system and that same second system under W7Ultimate.
On the first system with a fairly modest GeForce 6200/128MB graphics card it runs at 15FPS with an already pretty busy system at 1280x1024. On the second (faster) system with a reasonable ATI HD2600XT/512MB card under WinXP-SP3 it runs at an average 6FPS(!?!?) That system runs a fairly heavy Simulator game at high quality settings at decent frame rates and the 3D planet screensaver that was on GOTD a few weeks back at on average in the two hundreds FPS, occasionally dropping to just above 100FPS and maxing at well above 300FPS. That one is a graphically less demanding screensaver of course but still.
Only on that second system under W7U it runs in the 50s FPS. Which is a value I'd expect.
BUT!!!! on all three installations the screensaver spontaneously quits after about 10-20 seconds and returns to the regular Windows screen. That's no good for a screensaver! That's a serious flaw!!
Both XP installations have Symantec firewall running but on the W7 system I'm testing Comodo Internet Security (Free version). Not only warns it about constant accessing of many different 'Certificates' registry keys but it also caught it accessing the internet. I believe this happened when I opened the screensaver's settings window.
82.94.229.11 which is a82-94-229-11.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com
82.94.229.35 which is a82-94-229-35.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies
If I want any content delivered to me I'll ask for it thank you very much!
Also:
207.46.170.10 which is wwwtuk2vip.microsoft.com. Huh?
207.46.170.123 which is wwwtuk1vip.microsoft.com
64.4.31.252 which is wwwbay3vip.microsoft.com
Who are all these VIPs and why is this software phoning Microsoft?
Although these sites are not directly harmful (apparently Symantec has presets that allow these accesses) I still hate it when apps unnecessarily access the internet behind my back. Something tells me I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Get your priorities in order developers! Make software behave the way WE want and not the way YOU want.
And when I let Comodo block all this it takes a long time before the settings window finally opens. It apparently first try to tell everybody I'm about to open that window. Well don't!
Although for the 20 seconds it runs it looks nice enough methinks 'thanks but no thanks' is in order here.
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Surely the purpose of a screensaver is to save the screen and hide information when you are not there? Nice enough, but not worth wasting 10mb even on a 160gb hd. Leads to a website where you can buy a cd full of their screensavers for over $100!! I wonder who would spend such money just on screensavers?
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Easy to install on xp 36. Poor quality sound & graphics. Rather expensive at $19.99. Still its nice to try out these giveaways so the creators can improve on them.
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Why do I get the impression of an unfinished product. Some of it is pretty, but it doesn't rival Disney by any stretch of the imagination. The waterfall looks more like thick steam coming off that cliff. The rocks by the stream look too straight-lined in places. The fish look flat, but their jumping wasn't bad. The stream was sort of peaceful. Not real looking, but I liked some of the shots of the water. The panning over the scenery was jerky in places. The way the plants moved while it was panning could give some people motion sickness.
I would not have paid for that product as it is right now and they need to sharpen their skills if they really want to sell it and still say it rivals Disney. It has possibilities is all I can say at this point.
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This is one of my favorite screensavers, despite the aging graphics and flaws. Your enjoyment will depend heavily upon the ability of your graphics card and drivers to deliver good frame rates and high resolution. I'm averaging around 30 FPS at 1920x1200. With my drivers, I noticed that VSync was ON with no FSAA, but OFF with 4x FSAA. At 4x FSAA with my card, the highest framerates dropped, but the lowest increased.
Like almost all screensavers, you can change the settings, such as turning the music and sound effects on or off, changing quality settings, etc. I have no tolerance for people who complain about such things when they haven't even bothered to look at the settings.
As for all the usual whining about screensavers, some of us enjoy them as standalone, relaxing animations. Astro Gemini doesn't support multiple monitors, this will display on your primary monitor.
This offering does not include a screensaver manager and does not access the Internet.
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Very nice screensaver .Good to see Astrogemini again. Thanks GOATD
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Installed & ran ok on x86 Win7 Home Premium. Graphics ok. The music that accompanies the waterfall sounds is awful. And this programme installed a shortcut to 'Other 3D Screensavers" on the desktop. Immediately uninstalled it. Yuk.
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Looks good but i like the full screen ones better
another thing screen savers aren't that important
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The music is not bad, but I don't like music with a screensaver. Good thing you can turn that off. The graphics on the other hand are well, not the worst, but certainly not comparable to Disney renders.
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VERY NICE SCREENSAVER THANKS MUCH
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Installed okay on Win XP SP3
Ran at full antialiasing at 1280 x 1024 using a ATI HD3850 @ steady 60fps.
The animation is akin to FPS games from the 2000 to 2004 era and nowhere near the "the quality of animation can rival that of Disney."
Disney-Pixar has nothing to fear....
Uninstalled
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Installed on WIndows 7 64 Bit fine.
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