screen saver display problem on Windows 7 home premium edition

General Discussions
1

hi
I have created a screensaver for windows based on JPG images. The image transition effect I used is Fade. I did/created this project on Windows 7 home premium edition. When I install the screensaver on Windows 7 home premium edition, it tells me that without aero glass feature, the performance may be deficient if the Aero 3-D windowing is off. When the screensaver is activated by the Windows timer, if the aero 3d windowing feature is on, the images that are shown on the screen saver display, Flicker/pulsate with a very rapid frequency. The images are poorly displayed. If instead using JPG images as source for the screensaver I use a flash/SWF file this doesn’t happen. Also, it doesn’t happen using images but turning off the AERo 3-D windowing feature.
On Windows XP professional, when installing the screensaver, I get the message that without the Aero 3-D feature, the performance may be poor, but it still installs and runs well when activated by the timer.
It would be good to have this running on all the major operating systems, under common default configurations.
If you want to check it out/test it under the same conditions, you can download the screensaver from here:
File Name: Install Bob Luckin’s Artwork Screensaver-Win.zip
File Size: 12 MB
Download Link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ttexle

I have purchased the professional license under the name International Centers for Spiritual Living.
You can check your records…
thanks for your attention
Fernando

2

Fernando, thank you for your report.

First question is: do the systems in question meet the system requirements?
http://iscreensaver.com/requirements.shtml

This sounds to me like either you have a graphics card that doesn’t meet the requirements, or the wrong OpenGL drivers. Either of these issues will often cause the problems you are describing.

Please review the system requirements and then read this for more information:
http://iscreensaver.com/help/notes/update_opengl_drivers/update_opengl_drivers.shtml

If you need to support old/slow PCs that don’t meet the requirements, then you might want to consider making a “LowFidelity” (LoFi) version that uses smaller images:

http://iscreensaver.com/help/notes/image_size/image_size.shtml

or make a second version that uses the old version 3.5 software:
http://iscreensaver.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=27

3

thank you for your reply. The computer system used to create the screensaver appears to meet the system requirements. I just bought the laptop last week. It is a ASus high-performance computer.
Image Size is 480x480 pixels. I don’t think this is the problem. It is nothing but a basic image slideshow.
how can I get your old version of the software ? Version 3.5. Because I purchased version 4 last week, am I entitled
to get this old version?
thank you for your attention.
Fernando

4

Unfortunately, laptops are still being sold with the GMA 950 chips, and often with poor drivers in addition, so even a brand new computer may not meet the requirements.

Please check the graphics chip model and driver and let us know what you have? Instructions for this can be found here:
http://iscreensaver.com/help/notes/update_opengl_drivers/update_opengl_drivers.shtml

On Windows 7:
Right-click the desktop, and choose “Screen resolution” from the popup menu.
Click “Advanced settings” under Resolution.
Read the window name - it will usually say something like “XYZ monitor and NVIDIA GeForce 6600”.
The first part is the make and model of the monitor. (Ignore this.)
The second part “NVIDIA GeForce 6600” is the make and model of the video card. (Remember this.)

As for version 3.5, please email the support address and we can help you out, though we’d like to see you using 4.0 if possible of course.

5

hi, thanks for your reply. Please understand, I cannot ask or expect my clients (buyers of screensavers) to be handling complicated operations. Most of them are passed 60 years old. Optimally, the simplest installation of screensaver is, the better. If the version 3.5 ensures functionality in a wider range of system variables, I wouldn’t mind to use it.
Also, I can’t expect my clients to have the latest more capable computer technology. As I said before, this is just a simple screensaver based on an image slideshow.
I’ve tried a couple of programs to create screensavers for Windows, they both produced a fully functional screensaver that could operate on Windows XP and Windows 7 home premium edition. Unfortunately, they couldn’t handle creating screensavers for Mac.
Below is information about my graphics card:

Generic PnP Monitor and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 Properties
Color Management
Adapter Adapter Type
CatalystfTM) Control Center
Monitor
Troubleshoot
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470
Properties
Adapter Information
Chip Type: ATI display adapter (0x68E0) DAC Type: Internal DAC(400MHz) Adapter String: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 Biosinformation: BR34368.001
Total Available Graphics Memory: 2742 MB
Dedicated Video Memory: 1024 MB
System Video Memory: 0 MB
Shared System Memory: 1713 MB

6

Fernando,

The ATI Radeons are excellent graphics cards, so there should be no problem.

I’ve tried your saver on three of our machines (running win7, winVista, and XP) two of which using Radeon cards – in all cases the saver works fine.

A. Did this laptop come with Win7 Home Premium, or did you upgrade it yourself? Often, when you upgrading to Vista or Win7 yourself, people forget to update the drivers. I would guess that perhaps your driver is out of date?

According to the radeon site, the driver you should have is
Catalyst Suite 10.5 (which includes ATI Radeon Driver 8.732)

B. Please do this:

To get the driver info, do this:

  1. Right-click Desktop, choose “Screen Resolution”

  2. Click “Advanced Settings”

  3. Look at Adapter type: – what does it say ???

  4. Click Properties button.

  5. Click Drivers tab: what does it say under:
    Driver Provider: ???
    Driver Version: ???

  6. Finally, try clicking the “Update Driver” button. (This will get the latest one that Microsoft knows about, which may or may not be the latest driver.) If you update the driver, what is the new version #???

  7. After updating, does the screensaver start working?

  8. Try downloading the newest driver directly from the AMD site:
    See http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=win7/windows-7-32bit

Does the 8.732 driver work then?

7

[per email] Customer reports that his laptop shipped with a good graphics card (Radeon HD 5470) but the driver was several versions out of date : Catalyst Version 9.1 / Driver version 8.683

After updating to the latest driver (Catalyst 10.5 / Driver 8.732) customer reports the flickering problem has gone away.

8

Update – iScreensaver Designer version 4.0.0.293 (Released 17-Jun-2010 has much improved OpenGL driver support – Please test this version first if you are having OpenGL-related issues.

See http://iscreensaver.com/releaseNotes

If you still have problems, then refer to these instructions:

http://iscreensaver.com/help/notes/update_opengl_drivers/update_opengl_drivers.shtml