Great screensaver. I use it regulary - I do recommend. Properly speaking I like night city, it's grat dark sights...

Doesn't work on my desktop with Windows 7 64-bit, or on my laptop with Windows 7 32-bit.

#48, imacountrygirl, #58, consuella, expand the reviews for Easy to Install, Stable, User Friendly, Feature Rich, Reasonable Price, and Helpful Documentation at the top of this page, and note Happy Person's review of each. I get tired of people trashing a product because they don't like the application genre or because their OS is messed up. I've never had a screensaver fail to run. Also, this screensaver doesn't "hack your OS", contain spyware or malware, etc. It's just a screensaver. And for all the other whiners, I don't run screensavers as screensavers, I run them standalone as relaxing CGI animations.

Hello... It turns out that there was nothing wrong with the screen saver, but my direct X was broken or something. I was able to install, activate, and run Big City Night 3D screen-saver with no problems of any kind after re-installing DIRECT X. This is a keeper... It is not super great, but it is not bad either. Thanks !
Windows Vista Ultimate 64x SP2 with the latest Direct X (fixed!)

@ #26:

I agree. When I saw this, I was certain GOTD was giving away Manhattan.

This is not the first time that GOTD has misled people.

My wife downloaded Online Armor because she thought she was getting King Arthur.

Installed & activated fine. Runs great on XP PRO SP3 32bit, Vista Ultimate 64bit, & 7 Ultimate 64bit. Great as a free screensaver but not worth $14.95. Needs some help with graphics quality. Btw, I am running all 3 OS's on PCs with a 1.5GHz Intel Dual Core, 4GB RAM & nVIDIA GeForce 9400GT.

To foolbar at #22

Your post is totally uncalled for. Happy Person deserves some respect for his daily contributions to GAOTD.
You are seing things when you say that Happy Person is whining endlessly about dll.
Did you stop taking your pills?

I can not preview the screensaver!

I dunno, but there might be a re-run for this since many people are getting errors and problems.

~Joji~

can i post?

@Thom Porter: You said "2 easy ways to save energy with your computer:

1- Remove your Desktop background and set your desktop color to Black
2- Set your screen saver to “Blank”"

These would be true if you are using a CRT (tube) monitor. However, these have no effect on the power consumption of an LCD monitor. The power consumed by an LCD monitor is not affected by whether the display is showing white or black or anything else...the backlight is always active unless the monitor is in a sleep mode, and that is why the LCD monitors draw the same amount of power regardless of what is being displayed.

You pointed people to "blackle.com" to set their browser's home page to a dark background. On that site they reference a report from 2002 about different ways to save energy with monitors. As far as the white/black screen on LCDs, that report says:

"Among the few LCD monitors in the table, the power used to display a white screen is indistinguishable from power used to display the desktop. Thus, it appears that display color is a significant determinant of on power for CRTs, but not for LCDs."

So, for the small percentage of people still using CRT monitors, your comments are correct. For those using LCD monitors, a black screen consumes just as much power as a white screen.

The proper way to save power with either a CRT or an LCD monitor is to set your Windows power settings to turn off your monitor after x number of minutes. The monitor doesn't actually "turn off," of course, it just goes into standby mode until you move your mouse or hit a key. In standby mode, the monitors only consume a watt or two...just enough to watch for the signal from the computer so they know when to return to normal mode.

These programmes were called screensavers because they used to save your screen from damage. And, of course, are not needed for that purpose anymore. However, screensavers have grown quite sophisticated over the years (f.i. Dreamaquarium)and have become programmes to enjoy in their own right. But the name sticks and this fact seems too big for some to handle, judging by some of the posted comments. Maybe those troubled by this could vent their apparent anger in a more constructive manner and come up with a better name to describe this kind of programme. And so save screensaver fans their moaning, every time a screensaver is given away!

Be warned that this program uses the nasty Themida copy protection system, which works by installing a rootkit (i.e. it hacks your operating system).

@#20
Haha! Yeah, make it like GTA and it might be fun to watch, eh? Add some crime and real ugly city stuff, and then you'd have a fun screen saver! LOL

Uh oh.. must be out of software to offer up this crap.

Anyone who owns Windows would be a moron to use your screensaver. It's one of the worst memory suckers on a Windows machine. N00bs use screensavers. Nobody else.

When I first installed, Norton yelled at, saying it has a keylogger. Sure enough, it did. This is heading directly to my recycle bin, where it will be gone forever. I can get much saver screen savers for free.

I don't understand how someone would normally pay $15 for this screensaver and a free keylogger.

I always looked forward to the screensaver giveaways since I use screensavers on my laptops, and have really missed them. Too bad Big City is the first of the year, since the graphics and general design aren't worth the regular price, much less being free today, as it wouldn't have been worth downloading 10 years ago either.

#22, Fubar, I sincerely appreciate your comments, I find them knowledgeable and informative. I read all the comments, yours and others, to help me decide whether the GAOD is something that will be useful to me before I D/L anything, so I greatly value your opinion. Respectfully, IMHO, when you seek to diminish another person, you only diminish yourself.

Ha,Looks like a old 3D game screen with no action;-)
Thanks GOTD,for this
Does anyone think it will run fine on Win XP Pro SP2?
Your replies will be appreciated...

I totally agree with post #10

Screen Saver != Energy Saver (Especially this one!)
2 easy ways to save energy with your computer:

1- Remove your Desktop background and set your desktop color to Black
2- Set your screen saver to "Blank"

There are other ways, such as Hibernation, Hard-Disk spin down, etc. Your mileage may vary on these other options. For instance, I find that most systems do not fully recover from Hibernation and end up running slower than they did before suspending their state. Still, if you are the type to leave your computer on for extended periods of time without using them, these options can save you some cash!

Also, setting the home page in your browser to a dark-colored website can help. Blackle is a great dark alternative to Google: http://www.blackle.com/

Since your (LCD) screen is NOT IN JEOPARDY, you don't need a screen "saver". If you want something to automatically convert your computer into a visual entertainment device, I guess that's fine if you don't mind having another program eating resources, but let's not blame it on what your screen needs or doesn't need.

@27 - "This consumes more power than when the user is busy using their PC and thermally stresses CPU and GPU This is environmentally shameful.

Ouch, ouch! Thank you for the heads up. Never had the slightest!

I like the Picasa screen saver, which fades our own photos in and out. Lots more interesting than a fake city.

@14, I had the same experience with WIN7 64 bit machine. Just seems not to be compatible. Too bad I would have liked to have used it. My advice to GAOTD and developers is that even though it is not possible to be backwards compatible with older hardware and software, At least you could have made an attempt to work on current equipment. I noticed WIN7 not listed in minimum system requirements, but VISTA was. Usually VISTA compliant software works on WIN7, what's that all about??

I'm another XP SP3 user who can't get it to work.

Shame. I love those retro-style graphics.

Re comment #10...
> I don’t really use screen savers anymore. I just set my screen to
> go black after awhile. They used to have a purpose, but they’re
> kind of a thing of the past now, so it seems.
>
> Comment by SloppyGoat — January 31st, 2010 at 5:14 am

Au contraire! Look at all the wasted resources. And the driver conflict possibilities. Not to mention the mental masturbation possibilities. And of course there is the economic impact of $, development resources, etc. for such drivel. I'm amazed that SO much of Windows appeal (and even feature creep) is for junk like this.

Skipping this one...

I used to be one of those people who were against GAOTD offering screensavers. It has been so long, well, this is a welcome change. I installed Big City Night on my Win XP. It does work in preview mode, but when I give it an activation time, it wont run. I tried a few time settings, but it wont launch automatically. My other screensavers time in just fine. When watching the screensaver, I get this feeling I might get mugged. I took note of the acorns on some of the balconies. I rate the graphics only fair at best, but will keep it. Thanks GAOTD, a screensaver once in a while is welcome. Anyone else have trouble getting this screensaver to launch when setting the inactivity timer?

Works okay on Windows 7 32 bit. I like it since I have only the Microsoft ones left. The other giveaway ones we got didn't work on my Windows 7.

Nobody needs a screen saver! I haven't used one in over 10 years!

When I want to install it, I get a warning:
Access violation at address 00409942. Write of address 00401000.
How to solve it?

You don't like screensavers, huh?
Well that is just an opinion to respect, but please respect mine too: I do love screensavers. And I'm not alone. Don't begrudge us our opinion. Very much appreciated.

Screensavers cannot be used anymore?
Really? Just loving to watch it, while walking by my pc doing other things has a nice ring to it for me. What more should I want.

I join Whiterabbit, it would be very nice to see a frequent return of screensavers. One every to weeks cannot be too bad for those who despise them.

And indeed this one is a bit raw in the visuals, but so what, I can't wait for the next one

Hi Whiterabbit AKA Stephen,

Long time no speak, I hope this finds you well. There are many freeware and excellent screensaver makers at http://cybamart.com/freeware%20library/ under "Screensavers" (would you believe?!? ;-) ).

Unfortunately today's giveaway will not work on my computer as I have Windows 7, even under the compatibility mode all that happens is a black screen flashing against what's currently showing on screen.

To #26: I don't know what you're reading but my front page reads "Give Away Of The Day - Big City Night 3D screensaver". Unless the word "screensaver" was added later in the morning, I knew immediately that this was a screensaver.

Ugly, useless, wasteful, and full of bugs.

The software equivalent of the love-swing I bought on eBay that now sits in a box in my cellar.

xp home service pack 3...not working for me....when i try the preview..it blinks for 3/4 of a second..and thats it!! tried the direct x as previously mentioned by el barto...rebooted...still..same..bummer..disappointed!

I quickly uninstalled it. This is not the kind I need. I want to be able to CREATE my own screensaver or replace some of the objects and personalize.

Thanks anyway.

I think this developer missed his calling for being a graphics designer by at least ten years, Haven't seen this type of graphics since those early GTA games. Ran choppy on my Vista 64 with dual radeon hd4950's had to use revo uninstaler to get this off.

to 16 and 3:
Corner A Art Studio (old giveaway) makes screensavers that are animated, not just slide shows. If you missed it watch for its return. I think Windows 7 will make wallpaper display a series of your images as a desktop, and screensavers as well, but no animation.
After reading the reviews here I did not d/l this one, too iffy.

@6 Lisa

Geforce4 nonMX - there are 3 versions of Geforce4 video cards, 1 is the MX version ... just means that the non MX version should work, your 6800gt should be fine & is above the requirements.

Anyway, tried the screensaver on Win7 HP 64bit & it does not work ..

#17, HappyPerson, instead of whining endlessly about a missing DLL, read the ReadMe. That's probably the listed DirectX DLL. It's not the responsibility of applications to install DirectX. If the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer doesn't fix it, just Google the DLL.

This is an OK screensaver, but definitely not one of my favorites. I don't mind the primitive graphics, it's about the atmosphere, and even a slow GPU should handle this fine. There's not a lot of variety in the music or the scenery. However, it doesn't support multi-monitors. 64-bit users will need to change the installation, check previous screensaver giveaways. Other users having problems, your DirectX or video drivers are messed-up, or you have a really primitive graphics card. This creates an extensive log in the program directory. I'd rather it didn't, but if you're having problems, you can check the log (Program Files\Lacombo\3D-Big-City-Night\lacombo.log). On Vista and higher, the registration entries will get virtualized, which is generally OK, but it's better to right-click Activate and Run as an Administrator.

It looks like GTA with all the fun removed.

Hi... I am sorry to say that it does not run here either. I tried admin account and compatibility mode, but I only get a blank screen.
It installs fine and activates okay though !
Windows Vista Ultimate 64x SP2 with latest Direct X.

Not sure why you'd want this thing chewing up and heating up your cpu when you aren't there, but it does have its charm, I suppose, in a retro 1990's graphics kinda way.

Now where's that uninstaller?

Unsuccessful installation on Vista (64-bit) OS. Ran it using Admin Privileges, but still did not work, so uninstalled it asap.

2 Freeware Vista-Compatible Options (to create screensavers from SWF & Video Files, respectively) are:

1. Instant Storm

2. Video Screensaver

#3. "All I need is a freeware screensaver making program. Any ideas?"

You don't need one. Just use "My Pictures Slideshow" which is part of XP, and point it at a directory of your own pictures.

Hey Kevin #2 . . .
"Tour around its streets and enjoy a landscape painted by a palette of darkness and florescent lights in beautiful 3D screensaver."

Install on windows 7 64 bit but just flashes black screen then exists.
I have uninstalled this one. It does not remove publisher from the registery when it uninstalls

#3: I have been SO happy not to see very many screensavers lately. Thank you, GOTD! Screensavers are completely uninteresting.

Doesn't work on my system - XP SP 3. Tries to load, then reverts to desktop.