Actually, Vista was NOT the problem. I was. :-) Once I got the setting right it works beautifully on Vista. In fact, I love the scenery.

I have downloaded and used many of the GAOTD programs and most of them are just great.

Egypt screensaver, however, froze my system the first time I tried to use it. The second time it gave me a "loading" message that lasted 10 minutes. I uninstalled it before the third time.

Alex

Well, I'll take a chance to offer my 2 cents as well:

The screen savers that are offered are usually very good. I downloaded the few 3Planesoft screen savers and liked them so much I purchased all of them. I consider that a good investment. I don't use screen savers a lot, but when I do it's because I like the content of the 'saver. I've downloaded a few of the Astro-Gemini ones that I thought were interesting (this Egypt one among them). In addition, I've also downloaded some RIXANE INTERACTIVE screen savers as well as a couple from TERMINAL STUDIOS. I'm rarely disappointed.

This time, when I installed it I did what I normally do with most GOTD offerings: I installed (but didn't run the app), then I activated it. With this one, the screen saver didn't work. Specifically it did the same as #29 mentions above. It would say LOADING... and then revert back to the desktop (or the Screen Saver manager). However, I did go back and read the README.TXT file to see if I missed anything and it recommended running the ACTIVATE.EXE first and then running the SETUP. Well, since I had just got done running the ACTIVATE.EXE, I now ran the SETUP.EXE again and this time the screen saver worked.

For the most part, this is a nice screen saver. The only real complaints I have with screensavers (like this one) are twofold.

First, it's something that I've seen in quite a few screensavers that feature virtual environments: The tendancy by the designers to put "lens flare" in at certain points. Perhaps all I need to make me happy is greatly reduced lens flare or perhaps an option to just turn it off. When I'm watching a screen saver, it seems to me that it is supposed to be as if *I am there* experiencing the scene as if it was real. However, my own eyes don't have glass lenses and therefore my own eyeballs don't have lens flare. To me it detracts from the illusion or the suspension of disbelief. Please turn it off.

Secondly, I wish that screen savers could have a built-in feature where *I* can select the music to play with it. Too many times (such as the 3D Wild Dolphin screensaver that came out here recently) the music is just too sickeningly sweet to listen to. Yeah, I know I could conceivably start my MP3 player with a bunch of songs that I like and set it to autorepeat just before I start the screensaver. But that defeats the purpose of the screensaver which is to start up after an idle time and do it's thing automatically.

Admittedly, both of these complaints are directed at the screensaver makers, not at GAOTD. True, not everything they put out is my cup of tea, but most is and I cannot expect them to "please all of the people all of the time".

Thanks for listening GOTD and thanks for any of you for reading this!

Yes, 3planesoft installed a screensaver manager, which I promptly deleted. Very simple thing to do. I still have all 28 of thier screensavers because the quality can't be beat. I think they should make the manager an option to install instead of just installing it. But it's a simple fix. The free alternative Magentic, also installs a manager but I like thiers, it also lists all of thier wallpapers too and they have thousands of EXCELLENT quality wallpapers besides the many very nice screensavers they have, all free (The Lost Watch is one of them)

To all of you who hate screensavers, yay for you, I happen to love them and not only do I have all 28 of 3planesoft's savers but I have over a dozen of Magentic's also and now the Egypt one I downloaded today. It's nice enough to keep as well. So piss and moan and have your little tantrum all you want. GAOTD is here for EVERYONE, not just you.

Compared to Astros, Wild Dophin 3D screen saver which was very nice. This screen saver has a slight jerkyness to it. Which realy isn't a hugely major problem to me at all. Other than that, the scenery was way more breath taking than the Dophin one. Matter of fact, I made a screen shot of a certain spot in the screen saver and made it my computers wallpaper. Along with the Microsoft Windows skinning program Aston Shell which was also what I think was the best GOTD from here ever. Keep the great things comming GOTD :)

Thank you, WhiteRabbit, for your extended comment #68. You must have been writing earlier while I was writing and posting, or I would have followed your instructions and found out that my Raedon 7500 Series video card only has 64 MB memory, so my updated drivers will not help. Guess it's time for an upgrade.

I have yet to be able to download it, keep getting a 404 and this has been happening since this morning.

Hi guy's & dolls,
Who needs a screensaver when you have the opportunity to put all your self made awesome pictures in the windows "my pictures slide show"!!
Isn't that right????? huh?
Have a good one,
remi put AL

I installed this on my Vista machine. All I got was music, and a blue screen. Tried changing the graphics settings. Nuthin helped. Uninstalled! Screensavers are almost useless, but wanted to play with it for some eye candy. A winter holiday screensaver would be good.

For anyone getting just a a blue screen black screen, white screen and perhaps also music, a Forum topic has been started on this.

Windows vista home basic: poor install took three tryes did install, failed to work even once would atempt to load and failed twice. required ctrl-alt-del ended up having to crash to shut down. uninstalled- will not attemt any of their programs again.

I’m also unable to get it do anything. All I get is music and a black screen, I assume because my desktop color is set to black - probably why others are getting just a blue screen, or a white screen. . .

Using Win XP SP2 and a nVida graphics card. Not sure which one right now. No time to check. Darn, I really wanted this one.

are you kidding me with the negative comments.I think it use to be people actually made a comment on the software and you actually might learn something.Instead its become a forum on the choice of free software. Don't like the choice? Don't download it and shut the H--- up for the sake of the rest of us!!! Free is good!!!!!!!!

LOVE Ancient Egypt! Thank you!!!!!!!! = D

The Elefun screensaver I mentioned above earlier has now rolled over to the next free screensaver. The new one is called Three Bears, which is another forest picture with three bears rollicking around a fallen dead tree. This looks like another nice one to have. For those who still haven't heard of the Elefun site, they give away a free screensaver or animated wallpaper every day. (By the way I don't get commissions on 'advertising' Elefun, lol. They have given away a couple of decent games over on the giveaway site; which is how I discovered the free screensavers).

By the way, well said Fubar; I agree with you 100% on the screensaver manager issue. I happen to like screensaver managers myself. Besides as Fubar also mentions they are infinitesimal in size; especially when today’s cheaper hard drives are getting bigger and bigger.

Amanjeev comment #65, you don't have to download the screensaver; remember it's free for today so why be so negative.

As usual, the ‘majority’ of those complaining have nothing really useful to say about how these screensavers could be improved or why they think they are rubbish, apart from those having problems running them (but then, some of those will probably have not have bothered to check out their computers spec’s). Thanks to those who offer useful negative criticisms though and those who offer links to other screensavers as I'm sure the Astro Gemini Developers are reading the comments and may either learn from other screensavers and hopefully take on board what people are saying. If they don’t then I’m sure in the future they will sink as any company who isn’t willing to embrace the latest technologies would.

On the whole I have enjoyed the main rival’s screensavers more though.

Frank, I actually misread your post earlier. For some reason I did read that you'd implied that they wanted images in exchange. I did download the screensaver you mentioned (as someone, possibly you mentioned this screensaver previously) and did think it was far inferior to today’s giveaway; although if I was given a choice between the two on any other day I would opt for the Freeware one because I wouldn't pay the asking price that Astro want. Sorry for the misread post. By the way as a second language you are pretty good.

For those having problems running this screensaver; do you know what your video card is? or indeed do you know whether you have a video card? If you bought it off the shelf, the odds are that t doesn't have a graphics card, but an on board graphics chip, which is unlikely to be a 128Mb capacity graphics chip because all the 128Mb chips I've had have had to have separate cooling fans. So the chances that this isn’t running are for that reason. You can check your video memory by going to the start menu (in XP anyway) and clicking on the run command. Type in dxdiag and then click on okay; the Direct X diagnostic tool will appear. Click on the Display tab and check the Device box. You can read off what your video memory is from the approx' total memory. If it's less than 128Mb, chances are you'll have trouble running this program. As someone suggested above turning down the screen res may help a little, but hardly at all as a lot of memory is required to keep imagery in the buffers for the next screen refresh.

Those who say that the graphics on this screensaver are rubbish, are probably spoiled by the latest graphics cards and play some of the more recent games, all of which I may add have superb graphics and are rendered so by the excellent cards they own. Anything more than about 3 years old will not be so true to life though.

However that’s only my opinion. For those who berated the educational value of this by comment #33 by ZShadow. You obviously don’t know Egypt very well. I made an error in my first post about how as part of the screensaver, you float down the Nile past the Temple of Karnack; an easy mistake to make, especially for someone such as myself who has memory problems due to drugs; however the temple that you do pass is actually the Rock Temple of Abu Simbel (as mentioned in the intro to this download) and is correct in it’s imagery, so in my opinion just for this the screensaver would get a big thumbs up. The internal depictions of the tombs are reasonably accurate also; this screensaver is showing what the tombs looks like now with all the glory missing. I certainly think it has educational value, if only to inspire the children of parents who’ve downloaded this screensaver to check out some history.


Sorry for the tirade. I’m just a little fed up of seeing the same old comments from the same people whenever a screensaver is given away, especially when some don’t seem to know their facts, or PC’s. I also apologise if I come over condescendingly; I don’t mean to.

Wouldn't work right for me...uninstalled it.

Thank you *64 Fubar about the heads up about screen savers from 3 PlanetSoft. I will avoid them as well. I guess we differ about the need to install a screen saver manager. For me I don't like this unwanted addition to my computer. I am sure others will love this program. But others will hate it. Anyway I appreciate a chance to comment. I'm going to leave here to check out a progran called Nexus Radio. It claims it can stream radio files and download to a mp3 format. I'll give it a try.

I can't believe I am writing this as this seems so stupid. Why the hell should I be happy to have a screen saver?

#60, gpc111, the games install far more icons, and frequently also mess with your favorites/bookmarks without your permission. 3PlaneSoft also installs a screensaver manager. I don't understand why people get so excited over such small programs--they're infinitesimal compared to the bloat of, say, an office suite. The advantage of the developers' managers is that they collect all of each developer's managers in one location, so that you don't have to search through the long list of Windows screensavers. They also let you change parameters without running the screensaver--the Windows manager continually runs the screensaver to provide a demo. You don't have to use the developers' screensaver managers.

I often have problems voting on a comment -but, today I have not been able to give any plus (yes) comments at all. A few negative votes did not register. The few negative votes that did register gave -2 votes rather than the correct -1. I wish that on several of the negative votes it registered a -5.

Looked like a nice one, but I'm also unable to get it do anything. Tried installing it twice, all I get is a few seconds of music and a blank screen.

#34, Niels, Egypt 3D doesn't "hijack internal services". Use some common sense, just what "services" would a screensaver use that are related to GBPVR's recording? On some computers, 3D software may consume a lot of compute, which can interfere with other processes. There may be problems with your graphics drivers--driver bugs can definitely damage things.

# 47 consider yourself lucky that you can not download this. I love screen savers but I hate this publisher's habit of installing unwanted icons to the desktop. I can live with those because I can easily delete them. What make Astro Gemini programs a way thumbs down for me is the "screen saver manager" that is also installed. Windows has a nice way to manage screen savers. Why must you force yours on us? It's not needed. On the plus side the game giveawy is very nice. I would suggest you skip this dud and head over to a nice download. It's another Alawar game. Maybe Astro Gemini can learn something from a quality company like Alawar. Alawar offers quality software that is easy and fun to use. Astro Gemini offers so so software with unwanted additions to the users computer. I have commented before about these offerings from Astro Gemini. I guess they do not care. They seem to be more interested in spamming your computer with worthless ads and worthless programs. Wait... they do have a lot of great programs. But do you want to put up with all of their extra BS? That is my thoughts. Maybe you have your opinion too. Others would like to hear so tell us what you think.

Thanks for the offering GAOTD-- normally I ama fan of screensavers [I'm disabled and they can be a window to the universe for me especially when preparing to meditate] but all I am getting for this one is a white screen--the screennsaver never opens and if I wait long enough using alt-ctr-delete into the taskmanager, I can kill the process. I checked the pre=requisites and I have them. I'm disappointed because I have a thing for Egypt and the pyramids.

Oh well, I look forward to tomorrow, as for now I will stick with Magentic--lots of variety and detail and free also. http://www.magentic.com/gallery/gallery.aspx?type_id=2&id=10004

File not found...

#5, perhaps the Hallowe'en Screensaver will be the offering next Saturday (or even on the 31st itself).

#10, make sure you read the "Read Me" file and follow the correct activation procedure, as this should be the full non-ad version today.

#22 & #44 & #50 - my sentiments exactly! : )

#34 & #43 - thanks for the heads-up. Interesting that a screensaver would have such a negative impact on other unrelated programs.
Astro Gemini, I've been standing up for you and complementing your screensavers every time they've been offered here. Please do not reward my generosity in such an insulting fashion. Please fix your software. One Bill Gates is bad enough. : )

#48 - Absolutely right. When it comes to this site, some people who download have a lot of trouble reading fine print.
Also make sure your computer meets all of the System Requirements. If it doesn't, the program probably won't work properly in the first print. That's where most of those complaints come from in the first place, I think.

#51 - It's Vista. Read my earlier Bill Gates comment. Half the "legacy" software in the world created prior to Vista won't work properly on Vista without a great deal of tinkering. Try switching back over to XP Home Edition, works much better than Vista.

GAotD - great work as always, keep it up and thanks again. : )

This is another Astro Gemini screensaver which has great beauty, although uneven due to some textures which could be improved, and the lack of anti-aliasing is annoying (high display resolution helps). It has good-quality and pleasant but repetitive music. Egypt 3D does a good job of varying the camera paths, and as typical for Astro Gemini, the wildlife is parameterized (varying) and generally high-quality (the crocodiles could look a little better). The river scenes are particularly beautiful. With a midrange graphics card, Egypt 3D delivered smooth, relatively high, framerates. Screenshots and more comments on Bladedthoth's forum:
http://forum.bladedthoth.com/viewtopic.php?p=205#205

Same comment as #49. The Dinosaur offering messed with my sound settings. Will avoid Astro Gemini offerings.

I was impressed by this one.
I usually hold out, but I am going to give this a good rating.
The graphics aren't to gaming standards, but do make a nice picture.
I did notice the looped music restarts hard (you'll now when it loops).
There was also added sound effects with the birds, alligators, snakes and whispering in the chamber.
My laptop does stutter a little in the hall ways.
I like the content.
Not the alligators so much.
It gave me a real Age of Empires (Age of Mythology) jones.
So I'm going to have to play it now.

Would I recommend this product: Yes, I believe I would.
I would also ask will Astro Gemini Software follow this up with more areas of egypt? Go for an addition with the pyramids and sphinx.

This is the second screensaver I've installed from GAOTD which will not work on my Vista machine. Any explanation.

Ok, enough with the childish posts complaining because the giveaway today isn't something that YOU wanted. There are milions of people on this planet besides YOU. Get a life.

Now then with that said, on to the screensaver giveaway today....

I wasn't going to download this since I already have ALL of 3planesoft's screensavers. (They can't be beat, in my opinion. The best FREE alternative is Magentic) but due to the number of people who are posting about having issues with this running and believing it to not be the full version, I decided to install this just to check it out.

The file downloaded, activated and installed flawlessly.
It also runs flawlessly and is the full version, no ads.
This tells me that the problems other people are having are either

1...Your pc needs some cleaning and tuning or

2...You are not reading the readme file thats provided in EVERY download and following the instructions for activating your software to full version. To date I have NEVER recieved a giveaway from GAOTD that was not full version as stated by GAOTD. If YOU are not getting full version software, YOU ARE NOT ACTIVATING CORRECTLY!

As an example: I previously mentioned that I have all of 3planesofts screensavers. I have them because I like watching them and for no other reason, That is my choice. However, One day I set one to play and it gave me a black screen. I tried another one and it ran but was very choppy. Well common sense told me ok, something somewhere has gotten corrupted in some way, time to clean and tune...I ran all of my cleaning softwares, Adaware, Spybot, Ccleaner, Glary Utilities and Registry Mechanic. There are all tried and true and have been working flawlessly for me for years. After cleaning I rebooted my pc.
Then I fired up the screensaver again and it worked wonderfully just like it was supposed to. All of them did.

So please people, PAY ATTENTION! Read the readme file thats included with every giveaway EACH AND EVERY TIME YOU DOWNLOAD AS THEY DO CHANGE!
Use common sense! If something that works for most everyone else does NOT work for you, Clean and tune your pc! It's common sense people, think before you post!

Thank you GAOTD!

With how thoroughly the Dinosaur SS from Astro Gemini screwed up my sound settings, I'm just going to avoid AG-gravation entirely. The 3Planesoft screen savers I have installed (Clock and Castle) work just fine and don't mess around with my sound settings. Sorry, I just won't trust anything from Astro Gemini software. My need to hear things is too immediate for me to open the settings on my Sounds and re-reset my Wave slider.

"As Is!"

I read complaints almost everyday and well to be honest did anyone read the fine print. It says as is. Now when you buy a care and the car dealer hands you the paper work and it says as is. Your getting just that. As Is. The car you bought isn't in the best of shape. Or is wouldn't say as is. Although I enjoy reading your comments about the free offers here and I think its great that we can obtain free programs and desktop items such as this screen saver however it seems as though you complain more then saying just what the program does or doesn't do. In other words I liked how Thanos made his comment in #43 Pros and Cons that had tact.Names are also posted with each post we are not numbers we have a name so if you want to comment to some one hey give us our names back giggling. Again I enjoy your comments.
I copied and pasted the fine print for you as it looks however that some may have missed it.
THIS SOFTWARE PRODUCT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. WITHOUT LIMITATION, TO THE FULLEST EXTENT ALLOWABLE BY LAW, END USER ASSUMES THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE DOWNLOADED SOFTWARE PRODUCT.

Can't download this one. Main download link gets me a file that is "invalid or corrupted" every time, and the mirror link gets me a 404 not found msg. Help, please?

# 35 If you read my comment you would have noticed that I tried all of the resolutions, even noted I went all the way down to the lowest and the saver was still jerky.

Well, I must be weird, cos I like the Astro-Gemini stuff. Though I have to admit, Atlantis is still my favorite. Thanks GAOTD. Though I have had to turn off the sound, cos it is hard top take the running water, and roaring animals in the background[the dinosaurs] It looks like Egypt should be a good one to add to the group. I like alternating them, sure wish i had a Halloween and Christmas one!!! hint hint

Calm down people...it's just a screensaver. If you don't have a need for it, just don't download it.

My wife paid for the 3D Halloween screen saver a year ago because she and her family are Halloween nuts, her old computer crashed and she lost the registration number for it, after contacting Astro for over 3 months she finally got the information, however now the screensaver just does a blue screen all the time, not much info on Astro's site either.

I am an A+ certified technician, and in my oppinion,

con : waste of time totally, system errors, heavy foot print/ resource hog, little or no help or information on their web site for paying or nonpaying customers, and their customer support sucks.

pro : the graphics's on some of the one's I have seen are really quite good

This screensaver installed on my Vista machine without causing a blue screen as mentioned by others. My setup is a Vista Home Premium running on a dual core Athlon 3500.

I found the movement to be just a tad jerky in three of the resolutions I tried. The graphics quality was comparable to that found in my copy of Myst (the masterpiece edition, which was made for older PCs, and does not compare favourably with newer games.

Nontheless, I give this screensaver a thumbs up. The coloration is beautifull; and, it presents a very interesting journey at a nice, leisurely pace. It would present a nice diversion from more strenuous computer tasks.

It passed the spyware scans from three programmes.

...but you're offering a Snowy Bear game giveaway on the other page, and I'm SO right there for that one! I loved the last Snowy game you gave away. :D

*skips the screensaver and immediately heads over to download today's game offering*

Number of technical problems posted + the fact that it's Astro Gemini, which when I DO try, I NEVER end up keeping = won't be downloading this one. But thanks anyway GOTD! Look forward to seeing what you have tomorrow. :)

# 27 Whiterabbit...: "I’m not giving away my images for what looks like second rate freeware screensavers"

I know English is not my first language but if you really tried the SCRs:
you are not requested "to upload" your images anywhere,
just to browse pictures in the SCR setting and only in/for your personal using system !!

X an useful PC Performance SCR:
http://www.newbytesoftware.com/pcps.html
Frank

Comment #21 - Who cares about the glaciers anyway? Besides that, the Astro Gemini screensavers are pretty much useless. Every time I download one, it turns out to be the demo. Personally, I'm a little disappointed in GAOTD for even putting these up. You could get demos anywhere.

An interesting concept let down by poorly coded 3D engine - In the days of most PCs having fairly good quality 3D graphics cards, stuff like this should not stutter or be extremely low in polygon and texture detail.
This wasn't so much a bad freebie, as a poorly executed and ultimately disappoining one.
As for use as a learning tool, I doubt that the interiors of real Egyptian tombs were remotely like any of the ones shown in the screensaver.

It hijacked some internal services making my GBPVR (mediacenter) software unable to start the internal recording service .

It's OK when you just don't like the software, it's not OK for it to interfere with other installed software!

I actually like screensavers, and you can learn the structure of Egypt's tombs from this one! Awesome and educational! :) Thanks GAOTD!

Sorry...McAfees comment again:

When we tested this site we found links to 3d-screensaver-downloads.com, which we found to be a distributor of downloads some people consider adware, spyware or other potentially unwanted programs.

Here is what McAfee had to say when visiting their site:

this screensaver is an old hat and is regularly available as a download free,so today my theory is thumbs down

I thought this one looked as if it might be interesting to view, so downloaded and installed it. On my XP SP2 setup it installed without problem but when starting it would not get past the loading screen before it crashed out to the desktop. Re-installing it did not make any difference. It is now uninstalled.