Thank,s GAOTD.

I have never been able to get any of these to work from this company , so I would not be to keen to buy any

What about the other half of the world where December is the height of Summer?

#3-Gosh, you're witty. an you shut up now?
#23-Where exactly did it say this is a Christmas screensaver?
#25-Idea time: Move to a climate that won't cause you to whine.

#56, ViperWorm, I'm glad I inspired you to at least take a look at this. My comments on this are in comparison to other screensavers, I don't think that it's fair to compare screensavers to games. Games have gigabytes of textures, budgets of tens of millions of dollars, hordes of graphics artists, use game engines, etc. While Winter 3D is clearly using higher than DX7, it's not much better than DX8. It's clearly not using most DX9 features. The screensavers usually have very simple models and limited textures. People complain that they're too large, load too slowly, exceed their video card's texture memory, and render too slowly if the developers try to do anything decent. So yes, it does come down to atmosphere over graphics. The still shots for this do look pretty poor graphics-wise, but for those who have sufficient CPU/GPU to render this at a reasonable resolution and frame-rate, it's much better with motion.

My definition of photo-realistic is an image which is indistinguishable from a photograph. You're not going to see that level of technology within our lifetimes. If you read my 3D Screensavers thread on BladedThoth's forum, you'll see that there's a link to Crysis screenshots. It should be obvious to you that they're computer-generated. If you think that they look photo-realistic, compare them to the Finland in Winter photos linked on this page. For distant objects, you can use real photographs as textures. For near objects, that's not sufficient. It would take terabytes of data to accurately describe objects in 3D, if the objects are unique, and taking into account all the aspects of shape, color, texture, reflectivity, translucency, refractivity, multiple layers, elasticity, deformation characteristics, mass, wind resistance, and on and on. Then, you would have to have the compute to process all of that data and the interactions, both optical and physical, between every portion of every object. Graphics will improve, but will be distinguishable from real-world video for decades to come.

Beautiful screen saver I'm glad I downloaded it.

Nice to see all that snow in a picture, it is 67 today and we never get to see that stuff. Kinda makes you wonder what the Yankees won in the War of Northern aggression... Happy New year to all that have to shovel that stuff just to go to work!

As typical of many of AG ss's, you float around over a drawn scene with soft music playing. In this, you mostly see chimney smoke, and a lot of snow falling on a peaceful village populated with a snowman, a car, a bridge and several houses. The snow really enhances the 3D effect, giving a fuller sense of depth. The colors are muted and dull, but that is as you would expect in such a place, I suppose. (It's been a while since I've seen any snow like this!) It feels like floating through a nicely-rendered Disney cartoon movie; but that isn't a bad feeling to me.

While good, this ss isn't as appealing as some of their other ones, such as the recent Santa's Home. Though, I must say, I thought it was worth checking out. I will keep it around a while. I only like to view ss's occasionally, anyway.

This is a rehash of the Christmas Time 3d screen saver from last year! Shame on Astro Gemeni!

I like it. Thanks

YAY!!!! I have been waiting for this one all year! I saw a preview of it last year, and really wanted it. It installed perfectly and looks great! A bit jumpy in places, but overall I Love It~ Thanks

OMG this one is so bad
I had to look twice to figure out that was suppose to be a
volkswagon beetle

I would wait for a different screensaver

I read many comments and #26 really inspired me to download this.

So now I can honestly say that this saver has a very nice atmosphere, but it is utter garbage graphic-wise. But then again most screen savers are.

I really couldn't tell whether this was DX9 or DX7, since graphics are similar to those of Call Of Duty 1 or even worse, actually they are worse...
It is sad they actually say this is high quality render, and even sadder is that some people actually think you can't produce photo-realistic renders in real time nowadays. Have you ever heared of Crysis or Call Of Duty4? Those are photo-realistic if your PC has the power to run it on absolute max.

Nevertheless, this is a nice free gift,
GOTD rules!
Peace.

>paul

Thank you very much.

>R.J.

Maybe it's because 75% of the Internet and the people on it is in the northern hemisphere, and 50% are in the USA. Of course, that was a rough approximation, but you get the idea.

>Steelslinger512

Or you could stop complaining about free comments. I do agree, though, that something should be judged on its own merits(I mean, why do people who hate screensavers come here on Sundays? Are they masochistic?). As I've said before, if it was screensavers every day, we'd have a right to be mad about there being screensavers - but if we know that it's only one day of the week, then why bother coming?

Thanks GOTD ana Astro Gemini,

For your lovely giveaway today. Though Christmas had passed. Is still pretty neat to have this sweet little SC to enjoy some 'artificial' snow once a while. I use WinXP Home, after install and being lead to the 'expire page'. I am still having the Full Version so I know I have activated the 'register version'. Compare to the rest, I still prefer the Marine Life3D as is like having a 'mini aquarium' on screen and graphics are more 'colorful' too. (no complain for this one though). :) May everyone have a wonderful 'New' Year to start for 2008. Cheers!

Just wanted to add a follow up comment to my earlier post # 47. I wanted to offer a way to link to another screensaver manager. I don't know how to post a useable link. I posted something that could be copied and pasted. Much to my surprise my post was published here with a useable link... unfortunately the link did not work. Not sure how that got there but it wasn't me. Just google screensaver commander and you can find it. Thank you GAOTD staff. I know you mean well.

-link fixed: http://www.bdvnotepad.com/sscom_en.htm

I know this as useful as rila's comment, but... Rila it said Winter screen saver, Winter generally hangs around till March.

I posted some screenshots on BladedThoth's forum:
http://forum.bladedthoth.com/viewtopic.php?p=259#259
On my computer, I had problems running Winter 3D at other than the desktop resolution. While this could be a problem with the ultra-buggy ATI Catalyst 7.12 drivers for my HD 2600 XT, Santa's Home 3D screenshots were also rendered using Catalyst 7.12, and did not have these problems.

#35, radiospotz, I post high-resolution screenshots from most of the 3D screensavers offered here on BladedThoth's forum. Unless they're old, most look better at higher resolutions. Wallpapers should indicate their dimensions and are frequently available in multiple resolutions, you should download the resolution which most closely matches your display resolution.

#49, RosnSC, the Mars screensaver was from Rixane Interactive.

Will not be downloading todays screensaver as I had too much trouble with last weeks offering from the same company.

Paul, thank you for the link to the awesome shots of Finland. Will definitely be using some of them as desktop pics as I change mine every couple of weeks. Even living in a wintery area of Canada, I still enjoy looking at the winter scenes!

#1, if you were looking out MY window during those months, you would gladly opt for today's screensaver...lol; I have no nice view, no matter what time of year it is. Also we don't get snow where I live, so a nice snowy winter-y scenery is nice to look at...:)

#3, your last paragraph...it's like that around here at ANY time of year at that hour, though I only enjoy it from the comfort of the inside of my home; I am the only one in my household who is still up at that hour, and I am not going to be sitting outside my home at 2:00 am - too many 'boogie men' runnin' loose at that hour...lol.

#30...Huh??

#31, I had to chuckle at your first sentence. The way my storm door latch has been doing lately, it would be my luck that would happen to me, and I would be 'up a creek without a paddle' trying to get someone up to let me back in...lol.

To the GOTD staff, thanks for the screensaver; I enjoy nice screensavers. I haven't downloaded it yet, but if it's as good/nice as the rest put out by AstroGemini (except for the Mars one - my family and I didn't particularly care for that one), we will enjoy it on our main computer.

I want to say thank you to Paul for providing the Finland links. Absolutely gorgeous. We don't see snow like that in Texas. Even the Canadian Rockies didn't look like this when we were there. So, these were great for me.

This is a nice screensaver. I like it and will definitely keep it. I voted thumbs up. My only complaint about Astro Gemini products is their screensaver manager. I feel if a program is going to install something extra the user should have the right to decide if they want this extra program to be installed. If they don't want it an option to opt out would be nice. After all I'm installing a screensaver not a screensaver manager. If a user does want the manager installed they should be able to choose the install folder. I use a program called Screensaver Cammander to manage my screensavers. It's free, it can handle every screensaver on your computer. You can set it to start your screensaver in any order or start them randomly. You can also see info about each screensaver. This one takes up 9.91MB after install. I don't know how to post a useable link but you can learn more about Screensaver Commander and download it at http://www.bdvnotepad.com/sscom_en.htm Thank you GAOTD for another great offering. Thank you Astro Gemini. I appreciate your efforts. You have made some strides with your manager. Just let users decide if they want it and where they want it to be installed.

I have downloaded and installed this screensaver and had no problems, and it shows up as fully registred. I enjoyed the snow falling and the scenes. No, I don't need a screensaver, as I just have my monitors turn off after a pre-determined amount of time, but I enjoy the beauty of the winter and Christmas screensavers.

It's snowing like crazy at this moment as I look out my window (SLC Utah, USA), however in July when it's 102 I may watch the winter screensavers again to "mentally" cool off. I may watch the Christmas one too, just to enjoy the Christmas feeling again.

No jerkyness - but then again I'm not using a P3 or Atari -lol jk ;o) - maybe time to upgrade your system or video card?

Thanks GAOD & Apollo

High quality 3d graphics? Yeah right.

Thanks GoTD team, but it's nothing special...

Downloaded, installed, uninstalled. Not a particularly interesting screensaver in any respect.

I got all of Astrogemini's screensavers for free anyway through Zango. However, I did not have to install any of that spyware crap that you normally need. Why? I used VMware Server, downloaded the Zango client thingy and the screensavers I wanted, RAR'd them all and uploaded the *.scr files onto a free file host. I then downloaded just the *.scr files and had the screensavers, free of charge, without infecting my computer. Thank you VMware.

As someone said already, this one loads MUCH faster than their 3D Christmas saver from last week, something that I didn't care much for in the other one, so that's definitely a plus for this one. Movement is still a little jerky at the "use desktop settings" setting (I'm still using the old ATI Radeon 9200 that came preinstalled in my PC when I bought it, so I'm sure that's why), but like with the other saver, that's easily remedied by choosing a different screen resolution. Yes, I could buy a new graphics card, but WHY, when the only thing having issues is the screensaver, which is basically non-essential fluff software. Very pretty screensaver, though, great for me who loves snow, but hasn't actually SEEN it in a few years, since the year that we apparently offended the snow gods by buying a real snow shovel after many years of dealing with the snow without one. :D

After having a run of several screensavers with clunky graphics and others that didn't work at all on my machine, this has been two good screensavers in a row from Astro-Gemini. Very nice. Thanks guys! :)

great. i was able to see this for ..... 60 sec.
after this i had to buy.
hmm expired sinds November 6, 2006 lol

#3 Your a ****.. if you don't like it.. dont download it.. but keep your
stupid comments to your self.. It's free.. Instead of coming to gaotd to
complain about something they are giving you free, you can go back to the doodlebops home page..

This screensaver is barely ok as a freebie, but I dont dont rate it good enough to purchase. The graphics are outdated. Not close to looking realistic. The volkswagon graphic looks like it wasnt finished. The smoke comes out ot the chimneys much to fast. I did run it at maximum resolution, and it did run smoothly on my 2 year old computer. This particular screensaver is the worst one I have downloaded so far. 3PlaneSoft which has been offered here before in my opinion, has better screensavers. I have Fireplace, Mechanical Clock, and Ancient 3D Castle. My favorite is the Ancient Castle. Hope they offer that again so others can appreciate better graphics and music. I personally dont care for screensavers, but my wife and kids do. My wife's favorite is the Ancient Castle also.

THIS IS SO COOL... THANKS GAOTD.. SCREENSAVER SUNDAY ROCKS!!!!!! THIS IS THE BEST ONE YET!!

Oh, and thank you GOTD!

I may not always like or use or benefit from all the giveaways, but I'll never comment or vote something down just because I have no use for it.

I have never seen so much kvetching over free registered software than on here, especially today.

#1 - Not so great when it's rainy, or you can't see out a window.

#2 - Thank you for a nice post clearly written after checking it out for yourself.

#3 - Another post of complaining just to complain.

#5 - Based on the price of buying them seperately at $20 on average, and the number included on the disc - So yes, a legitimate claim (a dodgy claim would be charging extra just because they are all on one disc). Heck, I don't see why Microsoft can claim Office 2007 Pro is worth more than $79... LOL.

#6 - The same screensaver will work for you, just set the Snow option to "somebody dropped a giant box of soap flakes out of a plane". *GRIN*

#7 - I didn't find it to be too bad, maybe because you set it at it's lowest settings it looked that way (try turning the settings *UP*). Graphics do tend to be different from video card to card, and different monitors vs. flat panels.

#11, 14 - McAfee's Site Advisor has a lot of failures in this respect. Take it with a grain of salt.

#13 - Some of their screensavers are good, some not so. At least give it a try.

#15 - Sounds great... My system is old, old, old, and it runs it acceptably.

#17 - I'm digging for my Dungeon Siege discs now to reinstall!

#23 - Winter hasn't ended... and in a few months, the lower hemisphere gets it's share of snow!

#24,25 - They are talking about several dozens of screensavers, not $900 for one screen saver.

#25 - Perhaps next screensaver could be a warm tropical beach with a waterfall... Let's hope!

#26 - Yes, Yes, YES! Thank you!

#28 - Actually, eskimos do need refrigerators and freezers...

probably not the right for a question, but I will risk and ask. I have a 24" dell monitor, (although I have been shopping the 30" lately), and most screen savers/wallpapers look like crud on my screen. The resolution is the pits, and often look cartoonish as a result of it. Is there a way to know what quality a wallpaper is or sreensaver is before loading them? I am tired of loading them just to become disappointed. I keep my monitor at 1280x1040 all the time for best viewing. Anyway, if someone can share there wisdom, please do. I just get baffeled when I hear people rave about a wallpaper and then when I load it on my pc , it looks like junk. Surely most of you have better than average monitors that someone might have noticed they are terrible on plus screen sizes.
thanks for any responses.

Thank You, GOTD!

Christmas ended 6 days ago??? To whomever said that...it doesn't say its a Christmas screensaver. It does say its a winter screensaver. Do you think winter ends when Christmas ends? I also live in Edmonton, Alberta and for me we don't have enough snow. I will take snow any day over the heat. Thanks GAOD. Sorry you can't please everyone and sorry when they don't like it they complain and trash everything and everybody. If you don't want it...don't download it....geeze.

Nice one!!!
I don't understand You people. This screensaver is totally acceptable.
It's fast (much faster than Santa's screensaver some days ago) and and relatively nice.
I like the way how AstroGemini handles their screensavers (I mean the Screesaves Manager).
I would never give money for a screensaver, but it's FREE.
In Europe we almost allways have white christmas, but regardless of it I can enjoy this one.

#3 While you're outside at two in the morning don't forget to lock the door and leave the keys inside :0) I had problems with it detecting the previous install manager, once I deleted it the program installed just fine. Not a bad saver at all unless like #3 you're running an old 98 system with 64 MB's of RAM. Not the greastest graphics, but smooth and many different angles and options to choose from. A keeper for sure (Especially when summer comes). And #23, this isn't a Xmas saver DUH. Thanks GAOTD and Astrogemini

What a delightful way to needlessly burn off the world's energy reserves....

Everyone leave your car running while you're not using it,
and you'll get the point of what I'm saying.

in a VERY immediate and real fashion

This giveaway is available !!!!
Thank you GOTD. VERY NICE I love it! Didn't have any problems downloading it. After you activate it it will show "Winter 3D Screensaver was available as a giveaway on November 6, 2006, this giveaway is not available any more" just close that window and click on the unziped Setup icon, it will work for you. I went to settings and changed my graphics to 90% that helped the washed out look. Thank you for all the free giveaways. Your the best!

lIKE SELLING A FRIDGE TO THE ESKIMOS IN THE WINTER.

Oh well, another "Screensaver Sunday"! GAOTD, how about posting desktop themes? I seldom use screensavers, but I like to change my desktop theme about once a month or so.

This is a beautiful DX9 screensaver. There are a great many camera paths, with good lighting effects, and nice wind effects. The smoke effects are good, but probably rises too fast. The music is good, although there are some audio glitches on my system. You'll probably need audiophile-quality speakers or headphones to hear the deepest notes. There are "halos" around the street lights, the light from inside one of the houses passes through the windows, creating lit columns through the air, and illuminates the ground. You can see the interior of one of the houses through the windows. The trees are quite good. The automobile and snowman models are blocky, but the textures are good.

As usual, a bunch of useless comments from screensaver-haters. Why do you bother to post? Your comments contribute absolutely nothing. And if you're so dumb that you don't realize that screensavers can be run as standalone animations, and that if run as screensavers they can still have power management applied, then you're too dumb to be allowed near computers.

As for the people complaining about "jerkiness", bad images, bad effects, lack of 3D, etc., there seem to be a lot of people who have PC XT's with CGA video cards and outdated drivers, and complain about all 3D software. My cheap, crappy ATI video card, with the world's worst drivers, runs this at 50 FPS (constant) at 2048x1536, with no visual glitches. Maybe this looks bad at 320x240 or whatever some people are running this at.

Where I live, it only gets down to freezing a couple of days a year, and snow is exceptionally rare, so no, I can't just look out my window. Of course this is an artist's rendering, of course it's not photo-realistic. You won't find photo-realistic realtime 3D on any platform, and it probably won't be available in my lifetime (the compute required to render a 3D scene that matches a high-resolution photograph is phenomenal).

As for the people who get excited over McAfee's crapware, to be honest, I don't think you should be using computers. In the first place, everything that McAfee produces is crap. In the second place, if you use that crap, you should at least make an effort to understand what its useless warnings mean. In the third place, its complaining because the Astro Gemini site has a page which has links to other screensaver sites, and McAfee doesn't like one of those sites, so in their infinite stupidity, they flag the Astro Gemini site. If you want to use a tool which rates websites, get a real one, such as TrendProtect.

Later in the day, I'll post some moderately high-resolution screenshots on BladedThoth's forum.

OK well living in Northern Alberta, Canada, Where its winter MOST of the time anyway, the last thing I want to see on my screen (or anywhere else for that matter) is more snow! Now, a few palm trees, a nice WARM looking beach, maybe a few little monkeys playing (or some such tropical 'ish' animal), that would be nice. But more snow and cold, no thanks. and as for $900.00 for a whole CD of screen savers???? I agree with Frank (#5)

Very nice indeed....realistic...almost like being there...those that are complaining bout the graphics must have a "dinosaur" graphic card....time to upgrade...there was one small issue however...i did get an error message once it was installed and i tried to "preview"..i had error message regarding "manager.exe" file...so i'm not really sure if it's properly installed...i was able to preview it np....i will try a reboot and see if it's okay...but it really is nice...very nice...but not 120.00 nice and i have no idea who would evaluate that has a 900 value..like come on...! that's nuts... for free...it's absolutly beautiful..thanks gaotd!!!

Uh, people Christmas ended 6 days ago. You are a little late offereing a Christmas screensaver on Dec. 30!

Here is a link to view and download higher definitions of those Finland Pics. Cheers all.
http://www.4shared.com/dir/5012276/7cea0383/sharing.html

Ted, please read my comment #12

Activation is not working.
When i try to activate i'm being redirected to a page where it says this :
-----------------------
This giveaway is not available
Winter 3D Screensaver was available as a giveaway on November 6, 2006, this giveaway is not available any more. You can download the trial version of this software at http://www.astrogemini.com/win....

Don't miss a good giveaway again, subscribe now!
-----------------------
The link to the activation page that's not working is :

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/winter-3d-screensaver/?activate


Giveawayoftheday, Pls fix this bug or else i only get the trial version !!!!!!

I love it!

#16 Thank you Sappho. Arent they a delight. I had no idea Finland could be so beautiful either. Being an Aussie an all. I have larger pixel files on my PC and as a slideshow they are just soothing. Kantele music would be good. Post a download before offer finishes?
Anyway heres the link again fro some latecomers. I cant take any credit for them though. An unknown source.
http://profile.imageshack.us/user/summerland
Thanks Gaotd. Sorry to hijack but im a regular. I wont do it again? See you tomorrow.