I run windows 7 64 bit and unlike above comments it worked fine for me.

Screen saver takes a little while to initalise 10-15 seconds and looks good when it starts. Ok may not be the best screensaver out there but if you want a F1 looking screensaver you probably won't find one for free or that looks this good.

Well done GAOTD at last a screensaver for petrol heads.

Whilst not something I can get excited about I thought I would give it a try. Runs smoothly on my Core2Duo E6400 with 7900GS rig. The music is a bit naff and the engine sounds aren't great but the cars and course look ok. Installed without any issues on Win 7 32bit.

Installed easily and runs well on windiws 7 64bit home premium. The initial static sound is quite tolerable. It looks great but I would never pay for a screensaver. I only look at them for amusement once in a while. I don't know how to check my cpu usage while it is running.

"The most skillful F1 drivers will battle each other for the Grand Prix on your desktop."
Many of those F1 teams don't exist anymore; it's about 10 years old. So is the graphic. Nothing wrong with that, but they should mention it. Arrows, Peugeot ... Bill Clinton?

Installed and Activated, however, it would load up slowely and then
suddenly stop altogether! I use an AMD Athlon II Dual-Core M320, 210
Ghz, with 4 Gigs of Ram, and my OS is Windows 7 Home Premium.

Persoanlly and with respect, i have to vote Thumbs Down!

Worked well on Windows 7 64bit. [high end video card].
I generally hate screen savers and never amused by them, but this one....unbelievable!

#20: "... Installed and Registered successfully on a VMware Image of Windows XP x32 with 1GB RAM, ... This program is very CPU intensive. ..."

Please bear in mind that the developer(s) state the screensaver uses OpenGL -- a type of hardware assist provided by the graphics card or on-board graphics chipset. When hardware graphics assist is unavailable, if & when possible it's done by much less efficient, much slower software emulation. Oracle VirtualBox is the only VM host I'm aware of with any sort of graphics acceleration, & that's experimental. So in a nutshell, while installing/running 3D Formula 1 Screensaver in a VM might be useful to see how it works, performance shouldn't be expected to come close to what users might experience with actual [vs. virtual] hardware.

Turn the volume down -- may be peculiar to my system, but at the default 70% volume after install, I could hear the sound FX, & I wasn't wearing the earbuds at the time! 1st, & hopefully last time that's ever happened, as they're a rather expensive set.

That warning out of the way, 3D Formula 1 Screensaver isn't a one-file [.scr] screensaver, but relies on a program folder with 9 files at just under 15MB. As the docs show, it dates back to 2005, with system requirements [in the docs] going up to XP. OpenGL graphics are also listed. On an AMD quad it pretty much maxed 1 core, & did use the hardware graphics acceleration on my ATI 4870 [a once higher end last generation card]. While it's not at the level of the latest games, this screensaver will probably stress systems with lower power graphics &/or CPUs. I did see some video glitches [different ones with/without vsync] that likely could be minimized or gotten rid of entirely if I bothered to play with the ATI settings. Using the mouse to stop the screensaver was iffy [using latest Logitech Setpoint drivers], & afterwards software screen calibration was off.

The visual quality is a matter of expectations... not terrible by any means, but if you're a gamer who frets when you don't see 100% of what the latest games have to offer, frankly you'll probably laugh. The road surface is 1 repeating [tiled] texture, while the scenery is made up of relatively simple, static images. There's some attention to detail -- the driver's head moves a bit side-to-side -- but by & large the focus is on the cars themselves & their reflective surfaces. The audio isn't terrible either, at least for the first couple of minutes, but it repetitive nature gets on your nerves sooner rather than later -- inside the 14.5MB data.rar file are 4 .ogg files you might try swapping out if you wanted.

Personally I'm not a huge screensaver fan, & am inclined to give today's GOTD a C+/B- grade... If I wanted something similar with more realism, I'd probably look at using actual race video, since there are several screensaver apps that'll use it, & they wouldn't require my PC to work so hard.

GAOTD's previous offers like Living Waterfalls,Forest Life 3D etc., were fantastic.

I am not interested in sports cars.

I was hoping for suggestions for FREE ALTERNATIVES. So, far none.

Does not work with windows 7 64 bit, even though I installed with run as administrator.

-"The graphics, animation, sound effects and music are absolutely outstanding"-

Where..? I can't see them anywhere!! We have some decent graphics on the loose! Quick,let's gather some prehistoric textures from a Formula '98 and put them in the screen saver!!

Installed fine even on a Windows Server system. It doesn't require any "magic" code typing or registering procedure. Simple install-and-play.

This screen-saver is 5 years old, but still looks very good and doesn't have CPU & GPU extensive requirements.

The good:
=> simple to install and use (plug&play :-) ),
=> good and smooth graphic,
=> shadows and reflections (we can see the panorama on the car's vanish),
=> the driver's head is twitching and moving to the left/right when he is going across the turns,
=> the camera is switching and moving smoothly, so we can't be bored for a long time,
=> it has a digital clock,
=> it isn't CPU & GPU extensive so we don't need a high-end computer to run it,
=> good music,
=> some options for audio (music&fx) & video (resolution) in screen-saver's dialog-box,
=> installs on nearly any Windows (and maybe Linux) system,
=> it's free today :-).

The bad:
=> there aren't any road manoeuvres like anticipations,
=> there aren't any accidents like crashes, etc.,
=> we don't have any options in dialog-box to set up the number of cars, etc.,
=> no hard-braking FX sound - only engine sound,
=> some minor graphic errors like visible black vertical edges of tree's textures,
=> there aren't any smoke or dust special GFX effects (this program is 5 years old).

Summing up, this screen-saver is still very interesting (despite of the fact, that it has 5 years old) and is very simple to use. It doesn't require any high-end computer (and doesn't require 4 graphic cards or 16 CPUs to run :-) ).

I personally like all Astro-Gemini's screen-savers and they are in my opinion one of the best - if not the best of popular 3D screen-savers on the market.

Have fun and thanks into the GAOTD Team!

old-looking, ugly, unrealistic

I wonder if it might be helpful for GAOTD to have 2 separate ratings for the Giveaway of the Day software: 1 for whether people are personally interested in the software and a 2nd for the quality of the software. The ratings of today's giveaway make it appear that this is not a quality piece of software, but, since there are no comments indicating any problems/bugs with the software, I assume that the poor ratings simply indicate that many people weren't personally interested in a screensaver of this type (at least, not the people who get up early in the day!). If those 2 issues are getting mixed up for other software too, that could negatively influence what software people try out since people might not try out software with low ratings because they think the software is of low quality when in fact it might simply be of low interest to others.

This is a reasonable racing 3D screensaver. While I wouldn't call it "extremely realistic", it does have nice reflections on the cars. No screensaver manager or anything. Rendered easily on my PC. Some of the texture maps of logos on the cars were applied backwards, which is a tad distracting.

Maybe Astro Gemini should re-name itself P.T. Barnum, because only suckers would pay $8 for a slideshow of low-resolution screenshots from a decade-old F1 game published by Electronic Arts.

Review of "3D Formula 1 Screensaver"

Installed and Registered successfully on a VMware Image of Windows XP x32 with 1GB RAM, running on a Precision M2400 with an Intel T9900, 3GB DDR2, 5400RPB HDD.

Installation was simple, with very little options. It installs two icons on the desktop (link to website for more & link to start the screensaver immediately. It also installs the program in the Start Menu but under the "3D Formula 1 Screensaver" instead of Screensavers or Astro (so that all the Screensavers would be under it). I suspect if you purchase 20 different screensavers the Start Menu is going to get crowded (unless you manage it manually).

This is a screensaver that kept my attention. The graphics are nice and realistic enough to see some significant detail (Co. Logos, trees, bridges, etc.) Some of the graphics and effects, such as the tire walls, seem to be lacking.

Sound includes FX (car engine revving) and music file. These can't be changed, but can be turned off (thank goodness). In my testing, there was always a burst of sound as it started. A bit startling if you don't expect it.

Frame rates were between 26 and 120.

This program is very CPU intensive. The VMware core was near 100%. The System core (a dual core T9900 at 3.06GHz) ran at between 58%-95% processing. Immediately upon starting the screen save the GPU/CPU fan when on high mode.

Overall, this was entertaining, but not something I would want to run all the time. The amount of processing power required on both GPU and CPU is going to cause serious issues with you system long term. Great for short runs, demos, and Burn-in testing.

YMMV

Downloaded and installed. But it crashes when run. Have tried to change some of the settings, but it still crashed.
Any suggestions?

I like this screensaver very cool graphics handy feature of having the time in the corner too however I turned off the sounds as I prefer my screensavers to be silent other than that I like this and will keep it installed Thank you GAOTD

Wow. Screenshots #1 & #2 on the website has a moderate polygon count, but this screen-saver is nowhere near that many polygons - it's quite blocky in fact. SFX very sub-par too...

Still better music and models than most free screen-savers.

8800GTX SLI so my machine's no slouch either...

Amazing for 2005 perhaps but not so amazing today. Installs and works fine on Win7 64.

Three weeks ago (3 July) the Forest Life screensaver by the same makers made me remark "I had to disable 'Exit on mouse move' when I tested it because apparently the sensitivity was set too high. Normally my mouse would have 'gone to sleep' long before any screensaver would activate but when you forcibly activate it the 'spontaneous' rest activity of my mouse (I assume) makes the screensaver disappear again after 20 or 30 seconds. A user settable sensitivity for the amount of mouse movement (in pixels) that would deactivate the screensaver would help here."

Two things have changed since then. The option "Exit on mouse move" is now unchecked by default. But when I ran the screensaver with the option checked it didn't exit spontaneously so the makers apparently have decreased the sensitivity to mouse movement on this one. A good thing. Now we only need a rerun (or patch) of the previous ones with the same improvement.

For its size the makers have stuffed a pretty decent amount of image quality/realism in the screensaver. My biggest gripe is that the animation frequently stutters. Although I have only tested it on a system that isn't very fast (the framerates are on average between 25-30fps with extremes jumping between 10 and 46fps on its default 1280x1024x32) its specs are (well) above the minimum 'System Requirements' given on the makers' site. When I tried it at 16 bits setting instead of 32 the system crashed when it switched bak to 32 bits on exiting the screensaver. A freshly booted system with little running didn't improve smoothness.

An option to set the process priority to 'above normal' or even 'high' might prove useful here. I've manually added the 3D Formula 1 Screensaver.scr file to Process Tamer with an explicit rule to force it to 'above normal' (I had to use the file's DOS name 3DFORM~1.SCR for this to work) resulting in smooth animation and framerates including extremes between 30 and 60. So the priority setting would work.

I'd strongly suggest implementing this.

I had this, or a similar version, back in 2007 and it was excellent. However I lost it in a meltdown. Glad to see it back.

its not working

Thanks for the awesome screensaver. As a racing fan (all series) I can't help but say this is the best screensaver ever! I'm not usually excited about this kind of thing, in fact, I don't even use them normally. However, this one is top notch. The 3d models are very realistic looking, the graphics are outstanding, and the presentation is really quite good. I've never understood the use of music with a screensaver because if your screensaver is running, you are probably not around. Your housemates / officemates would soon tire of any sort of repetitious drivel spewing forth from your vacated machine. Having said that though, the single track included with this is quite "catchy" in it's own right and the engines sounds are decent. It also displays the time in the lower right corner, which to me, for a screensaver is self-defeating. Displaying anything on the screen in a stationary location, for long periods of time is exactly what you are trying to avoid. The options include volume control, along with the ability to turn off the aforementioned clock, making my complaints somewhat pointless. It also has Gamma (Brightness) control and V-Sync mode, which I cant' speak to. Bottom line for me is, get it if you like screensavers (or racing). It's nice to watch (way better than 3d pipes LOL) but I would like to see this as a game instead. It seems like a fair amount of work has been put into something that will play while you are watching Nascar on the tele.

OS XP SP3, RAM 1 GB, Intel Atom 1.6 GHz, VGA 256 MB, DirectX 9.0C june 2010, the program is ran and then closed.

Did NOT work on Windows7 64 bit. Thanx anyway. Will be back 2morrow

Starting the screensaver will result in an errorbox. There must be somekind of bug, or is it just me? I do have OpenGL and all the other requirements.

I am not over impressed with this software.
On a 1.6 Ghz machine the audio is broken up and the video is jerky.
On a 2.8 Ghz twin core machine it works okay but the computer has to work at around 60% CPU load.
In fact the screen saver makes the computer work harder than many computer games.
So how the heck they think it will work on a Windows 98 or anything less than 1.6 Ghz, perhaps they just made up the spec.
Also to be so heavy on CPU use, means it's is not economical on your electricity bill.
Also the cars are "single speed gearbox".
MOST IMPORTANT - the first fraction of sound that comes out is VERY LOUD (even with the volume turned down) the reason for this being important is that quite a few birds when woken by a sudden sound can literally die (I know personally of a young parrot that went that way - and was diagnosed by the vet and reconfirmed by another independent vet).
So I consider this to be poor quality software and have uninstalled it.

Installed fine but would not run on my (less than a year old) Toshiba laptop with Intel Mobile 4 Series Express chipset with 830MB shared graphics memory and DX10. Blocky, jagged images led to merely colored screens at a max of 3fps, no matter what settings I chose, all the way down to 640x480/16. Crashed every time after less than a minute.

AG should make clear that this needs a true 3D video card with 32MB of dedicated graphics memory and some serious horsepower to display properly - I think many of you with laptops will have the same disappointing results.

Not a keeper for me.

Says loading... then crashed with "Program has stopped responding". Tried different resolutions, turned off music and sound... same thing. Vista SP1 Home Premium on Sony laptop, pretty standard stuff.

Sorry, but so far this thing is JUNK.

3D-Racecar-Screensaver (another 100% free 3D-simulated, animated race-car screensaver option, with ad-promo displays within screensaver)

This screensaver is not working on windows 7 64bit!!!!!!!

Now, that's not nice. Let's try again.

Have downloaded MANY programs from GOTD. Have to disrecommend this one.

A) EVERY screensaver I have ever used in the past 12 or so years has eventually caused a problem. I promise you this resource-greedy program, which DOES look nice on-screen, will cause challenges.

B) Pay for a screensaver? C'mon, you're joking, right?

C) Thanks GOTD for many good giveaways, and double thanks to Ashraf for his perception, hard word, and wisdom

Areas of Excellence:
* Smooth download, installation, activation on Vista x32 OS.
* Shows as registered within PC Screen-saver Settings Menu/Panel.
* Very realistic animations - cars, grass, roads - all look real.
* Beautiful, bright, pleasant-looking, real-life colors.
* Supports Video-selection options: Use desktop settings, use Vsync, whereby user may change/edit resolution choices.
* Supports edits/changes to other settings, such as: Show FPS, Exit on mouse movement, Show time in 12-hour or 24-hour format.
* Supports Gamma Control settings.
* Supports Volume-control settings to: Enable Music, Enable SFX.
* Supports restoring selections to default settings.

Ideas for Improvement: - no deficiencies to note at the moment.

Summary - Screensaver functions smoothly, is realistic, and very entertaining - so a big thumbs up for today's giveaway - thanks, GOTD & Astro Gemini.

Freeware Alternative
MotorRacing Screensaver