XP -- ROCK SOLID!
 

Some of you might remember that when I first entered this forum, I was running the Aquarium on a Win98se machine and experiencing lock-ups after several minutes. Those lock-ups never really went away -- though I was able to extend it out to "several hours" before a lockup by reducing the number of fish from seven to four.

I just want to say that since I upgraded to WinXP (actually it wasn't an upgrade; I reformatted my Win98se machine and did a clean install of XP Pro), I haven't had a single lockup. Nor has XP crashed -- even once.

This is obviously more of a function of the NT kernel that's behind XP rather than anything that was ever wrong with Jim's screensaver. Although his screensaver was the only one that would lock on me under Win98se, I still think it was Win98se's fault and not the screensaver's.

We all know that Win98se was pretty fragile. I'm happy to report that XP IS ROCK SOLID!!

I found that I can even overclock my system to speeds that would give me blue screens under Win98, but run completely steady under XP. (Of course I'm watching my CPU temp when I do this, but so far no problems.)

YESSS!! :)

Now if someone would just develop XP drivers for 3D glasses...

Jim, you didn't have any success with the Asus drivers BeefJerky recommended on an Asus card? He says he's running them perfectly on his XP.


By the way, those morons at PC World wrote in their review of Microsoft Plus XP that SereneScreen Aquarium is "not compatible with XP." I fired off a note requesting a correction in their web article and the printed edition. It has been a week and when I get home, I'm going to send them a more demanding e-mail. Wonder if you can sue PC World for lost sales.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,67167,00.asp

"Microsoft licensed this screen saver from SereneScreen, whose Windows 98/Me version does not work in Windows XP."

Heh. Something to add to PC World's ever-growing list of corrections.

I don't have 3D glasses, but I thought the new Detonator 3 drivers for nVidia cards already support the glasses. See here:
http://www.3dspotlight.com/articles/...rs/index.shtml

If anyone using these drivers has actually gotten 3D glasses working with Win2000/XP, please let me know how you did it.

I have to use 3D glasses in developing the 3D background, but the development time is increased because of the inability of Win2000 (which is what Microsoft forces me to use as a dev environment) to run 3D glasses. So every few minutes, I have to shut down the computer, switch jumpers on the hard drives, then restart in Win98.

I've tried every driver I can find, but the 3D Forums are loaded with messages about the lack of Win2000/XP support. There was a rumor that ASUS had developed a Win2000 driver which only worked with it's own brand of nVidia cards, so I went out and got one. The Stereo tab actually does show up in Display Properties on that one but the glasses still don't work.

3d glasses???
 

I have also the problem with my h3d lcd shutterglasses, as they use the wicked 3d driver, and it simply won't work. I've tried the pro version of the drivers, and now I've spent $15, and still nothing work :(

On the i-glasses site tere's a small utility that can enable your glasses, BUT it has no depth control, and the 3d effect is mininum, but that's better than nothing.

I'll try those detonator drivers and I'll let you know if I manage to make it work. In the meanwhile, if somebody finds a nice driver for 3d glasses, let me know

XP won't sleep?
 

Hi all, I'm running the XP Plus Pack version. It's mondo cool, but for some reason my Dell laptop won't go to sleep after 10 minutes like it used to. If I change the screen-saver to 'none', it sleeps ok. Is there a fix? Any help would be great. Thanks!

The registered version of the Aquarium can be set to be "EnergyStar-friendly". It will let your monitor/screen go to sleep.

Jim,

all I did to get them working was just to activate the Detonator-Coolbits (which activate some tweaks) and set "VSync always on" You may only find this option under the "more 3d" tab of your nvidia card if coolbits are activated. Then I just set stereo mode on and *zapp* it worked.

My system:

Win2000
Athlon TB 1,4 GHz
512MB DDR Ram
MSI K7 MASTER S
ASUS V8200 Deluxe with Asus 19.60 Drivers

hey, multivitamin, please give some detailed info about that :)

how did you manage to enable the 3d glasses? what's that thing you're talking about? a tweak utility or what? and did you install the nvidia 3d drivers on xp? (because I tried even manually, and the 3d control panel just isn't there)

:hmad:

Like I said: I installed the Asus 19.60 Drivers that came with my Asus V8200 Deluxe. Then I used the registry file I attached. It activates some tweaking options within your display properties. Then I went to display properties -> advanced -> Geforce 3 -> additional Properties -> Direct 3D Settings ->"more 3d" button. If the coolbits are registered correctly there is a selection field where you are able to set VSync mode. I set this to VSync always on, then got into the Asus Advanced Tab (I do not know if it actually says Advanced in English, because I got a German driver!) There I set up stereo mode and started the Aquarium! And it worked! "Full" 3D. The only thing I had to adjust has been the embossing level foe my 3d glasses!

If I may drool for a second....yow, an 8200 Deluxe. That's the card that I want. And the bundled software package is really generous. I want one!

Glad to hear that the 3D glasses are useful too.

multivitamin -

You keep referring to "setting stereo mode to ON". Apparently, you are seeing buttons in your Display Properties sheet that I am not. Nowhere is stereo mode mentioned. The Coolbits registry modification you attached added a "Vsync" field to "More 3D", but that's all it did.

Anyway, I talked to the president of X-Gaming, which is the company that handles the Cybervision (and now also the Revelator) glasses. He says that Win2000/XP drivers are about a week away.

If you use the Asus 19.60 Drivers with a Asus Card you will get a small ASUS tray icon after rebooting. If you click on it and select "advanced" there will popup a windows which has 3 tabs:

- Direct3D
- OpenGL
- TaskBar Utility

click on the Direct3D Tab and select activate 3d-mode

that's it!

This advanced menu can also be reached by going this way:

display properties -> settings -> advanced -> advanced (right 2 times advanced :) )

if this tab does not exist id would suggest to set the display dirvers to "vga adapter" then reboot, then remove the drivers with your software menu, then another reboot and then finally install the ASUS 19.60 driver again! But this will only work with a Asus card!!!!

Nope, there's no taskbar icon. This is probably a result of anvctrl.dll causing an error when the machine starts up. It tries to read memroy location 0. No matter how I install the ASUS drivers, it always turns out the same way. I'll just wait for the Revelator WinXP drivers.

This might help: Asus just released the 21.81 XP Drivers with Asus modifications (3D Glasses support for example) I did not have the time to test them, but I will as soon as possible and post the result right here.

Ok, I just installed and tested the new driver version. It is stable and works fine with my system. The Glasses are also working perfect.

Those are the ones I've been trying to use.

Re: XP rocks and the aquarium
 

I agree totally....The aquarium is totally compatible with Win XP and is grogous I might add. I ran serene screen with the RC 1 of XP without any problems and have had it running on the os of Win XP since Oct. 25 when it was released..I don't know how anyone could make that statement..This aquarium is the best going...Keep up the good work ,Jim and I do hope the 1.0 is available to us very very soon..I am looking forward to seeing the new scenery.........a fateful fan

Don't forget that the new scenery is not in 1.0