My New Aquarium Screensaver - give it a try!

By spiralmonkey
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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Experienced

aberflasm

Posted
Posted (edited)

I'm was not able to update via jakesangels method. So I uninstalled DA and re-installed the update from your site. Glad to see the exit keys & no exit via mouse! :) Also I tried checking for update with new version and it said it was already updated so it seems to have fixed itself.

Edited by aberflasm
Veteran

MrCobra

Posted
Posted

#1 - Definitely a better bubble sound

#2 - When turning off the bubbles, have the sound turn off as well

#3 - Fish sometimes swim through the fork in the tree

#4 - For feeding, maybe have the food drop at random spots

#5 - Higher res textures at some point

#6 - Eye, fin, and gill movement at some point

#7 - When zooming, textures are pixelated and chopped looking in certain places

#8 - Better and more naturalized lighting

#9 - Possibly an addition to the adding/removal of fish by showing the count and adding/removing

the specified # of fish instead of 1 at a time

#10 - Option for splitting the current tank on to the 2nd monitor

#11 - When updating, have the installer detect and remove the previous version first

#12 - Keep up the good work. Looking forward to a release.

Contributor

Outlaw21

Posted
Posted (edited)

I am getting the following error on 2 different computers, it happens wheneve I move mouse or hit a key thus exiting the screensaver.

post-24225-1136205625.jpg

REVISED: Found it doesn't do this on my desktop if I switch to OpenGL. However it looks like my laptops graphics card does not support OpenGL.

Edited by Outlaw21
Proficient

feverfive

Posted
Posted

Thought I'd give this a try, so I installed it. It does display beautifully on my external widecreen monitor (when I preview it). HOWEVER, I can't get it to stay set to come on. I went into Display Properties>Screen Saver & select it from the drop-down menu, but after I hit "Apply" & "OK", and wait for the time interval (I tried 10 minutes), it doesn't come on. When I go back into Display Properties, the Screen Saver box says (None)....I've done this several times & even uninstalled & reinstalled the screensaver. Wondering why I can't this set to stay as my screen saver....

This is on a fully updated XP SP2 notebook w/ a (rather pedestrian) 128MB ATI Radeon X300 Mobility video card...

Enthusiast

Mat7h3w

Posted
Posted

Wow.....

Simply outstanding!! When this comes out I fully plan to buy a copy of this screensaver. I've used and tried a lot of other aquarium screensavers in the past, but this is by far the best. It actually sounds like real water and bubbles. The plants actually move with the water and aren't some static background image. The fish move in and out and around all sorts of things, and you can feed them!! That's awesome! Keep up the great work. I can't wait to see this thing come out in it's final form.

- running Windows XP Pro SP 2 w/ DirectX 9.0c and had a completely easy and smooth install and operation of the aquarium...

Community Regular

Autumnmist

Posted
Posted (edited)

Wow. I'm impressed; definitely the best performance I've seen from an aquarium screensaver by far.

A few things:

1) When 2+ fish are overlapping and the background-fish tries to swim forward, it will appear as if it is swimming *through* the foreground-fish's body.

2) I forgot shortcut keys way too easily... Can you maybe implement some sort of "dock" so that you can press a key to bring it up and it will show you all the options available? (maybe like "T" for tray and then it'll show you little icons for adding fish, removing them, feeding, changing settings, etc.

3) The cardinal tetras (blue and red striped ones) look a little funny because their swimming movement (the rippling along the body) is too much--they don't have a very obvious ripple... maybe you should try to tone down the ripple-appearance accordingly for different sizes of fish. Also, everything is so close to realism that the lack of fin/gill movement is a little disconcerting.

4) More types of fish!

5) As others have advocated: random/user-definable feeding locations.

6) Sound (turn off when no bubbles; change bubble sound)

7) Some sort of shadowing to the backside of the fish... without it there's a little lack of complete 3d

I love the underwater light reflections.

Edited by Autumnmist
Rookie

spiralmonkey

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I'm having a problem with it. It wont stay as the default screen saver. The default keeps switching back to none.

for people who are experiencing this problem, rename the file "C:/WINDOWS/Dream Aquarium.scr" to "DreamAquarium.scr" (take out the space). I'm really not sure why the spaced version doesn't work on some machines. I suppose i will have to change this.

I also had the question "Does the screensaver continue to run after the monitor has gone into power-save mode?"

Then answer is "No", when the monitor shuts down, Dream Aquarium automatically closes. Obviously there's no point in rendering the aquarium when the monitor is off.

cheers,

alan

Grand Master

insurektion

Posted
Posted

any chance of beta fish?

also it looks great now, but my 6600gt could easily handle textures that are double the quality of these, so if you can, and have a chance could you make some or get some high qual textures. also the fins to move properly ive found (or not at all). otherwise great start, definatly could make a load of cash off this if it gets spread around enough.

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