Marine Aquarium 3 Comments & Appreciation

[feldon34]

This thread is for folks to post non-technical comments, appreciation, criticism, compliments, etc. This way we have one place for everyone's comments about the Aquarium in general, what you think about the new Background, the Settings panel, etc.

If you experience a bug or have some specific feedback on Marine Aquarium 3, please start a NEW thread in this forum.

If you want to suggest features for future versions of Marine Aquarium, you can either post those here or use the existing marathon Marine Aquarium Wishlist thread in the main Marine Aquarium forum.


If you have pictures or video of your cat or other pet (or kids) watching Marine Aquarium, there's a place to post about it!

[sccannon]

This is Excellent!!! It's wonderful to see the fish swimming across both dual screens!! Thanks Jim!!

[tomek]

I would like to run it in a custom resolution so I can see the full width (with letterboxing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterbox). Is that possible?

[jimkraz]

So far so good, no problems on my rig, works as smooth as a babies bum, love it Jim, will be in the Q when the final comes out, will try it out on my laptop tomorrow. Well done, it can only get better. Jim

[Jim Sachs]

tomek - I haven't put the anamorphic factor back in yet. For now, you'll just have to hit F and stretch the window to any shape you want.

[Isabeau]

Thanks very much, i'll put it to the test!

Isabeau

[Surferminn]

I have some comments, but first, I want to just sit back and enjoy it for a while. Sigh.....

edit -- Thanks.

[Electronic Punk]

Officially coming out of the woodwork.

[Ex_Brit]

Amazing achievement.

[DaleArden]

Looks and works just great . Jim , you can pencil ATi Radeon Xpress 200M into your list of graphics that have been tested ( I'm getting an average 63fps full screen , 100+ in a window ) . I will report any and all bugs that I find , but nothing yet . The difference in fish behaviour and relative swimming speed is the first thing I notice , but the new bubble stream is beautiful too . A big .

My intro - I've never posted b4 but have lurked for a while . Got MA2 as a gift and am now very happy to be in on the beta . My other favourites are Dream Aquarium and Aquazone Open Water Amazon River . Okay , I'm a DA gal , but that's okay right ?

[Kizayaen]

Holy crap. AWESOME. The video quality was already incredible in version 2.6 but now it is absolutely not to be believed.

That said, a (small!) list of enhancements:

1) The colour of some of the fish seems a bit washed out - in particular, the flame angelfish, one of my favourite reef fish of all time. When watching these things in RL, the colours are so bright they can be literally painful to the eyes. (Especially when noticing the contrast between the very dark blue pattern on the tail, and the deep red-orange around the "outsides" of the body.) I noticed the same in the old version 2.6, but well, I wasn't invited to be part of the beta test in that one.

2) I LOVE the great increase to the number of fish you can have at a time - now is there any chance that we can get a wider selection? We've got a great number of showpiece fish that would make any home reef owner proud, but it'd be INCREDIBLY awesome if I could drop a small school of blue-green chromis in the background of a reef communit tank too, and maybe some bottom-dwelling blennies and gobies. As well, when you have a reef tank with volitan lion fish (THANK YOU! I love volitans!) it'd be awesome to be able to fit out a full predator tank with perhaps some smaller moray eels (snowflake moray, zebra moray) and the like. I don't know how hard it is to individually define completely seperate behaviour and movement patterns for different fish (i.e. schooling, bottom-swimming, coral-lurking) but if any of this is doable, it'd turn a computer into a viable option to actually having a REAL reef.

That said, along similar lines...

3) The starfish rocks. I love the starfish. More inverts? Please? There's so much to love! Snails, shrimp, crabs... =D

I'd like to re-emphasize that basically all three of these are wet dream wish-list type requests, and that you already had in version 2.6 the best aquarium simulation screensaver I've ever seen... and version 3 blows it away. Truly outstanding work, and I hope you're very proud of yourself. You deserve it. Can't wait until there's a release version up to purchase.

[Edit]
Running a steady 111fps on two monitors, 1280x1024@32bpp each, with six fish and a starfish active.
Video chipset is Radeon x1300 Pro.

[Edit 2]
I should clarify that you do already have a ton of interesting inverts, like the tridacna clams in the middle of the aquarium; I'm just hoping for more stuff which, like the starfish, can move around at least a bit.

[F34R]

Very nice work ! I'm really glad I decided to support 2.6 because it has been my all time fav screen saver, and this makes it all worth the money, and time we waited.

[Jim Sachs]

DaleArden - Welcome to the Forum.

Kizayaen - Just about everything you ask for is planned. The fish are currently using the old models, but after the major bugs are worked out, they will be switched to new-style models and behavior. Mouths and gills will work for all fish (not just the lionfish). Darting, chasing, pecking and schooling behavior is planned. The invertabrates will be available in low-cost "creature packs".

[Kizayaen]

Jim, I think I'm in love.

[cpharada]

The 3.0 works beautifully with minor stuttering flaws on iMac using VMWare virtual setting in Windows Vista.
The playlist file loaded on my desktop when I first opened the screensaver file.

The Canon guitar song is a great touch as well.

Jim,
Let me know when a Mac version needs beta testing.
I'd love the opportunity.
Carl

[Dale]

Beautiful. Just started testing, so more later.

[I do miss the capability to put a "logo" somewhere, but what the heck...]

[DaleArden]

Ty Jim for the welcome . Always nice to be appreciated .

[ROBinLA]

Great job Jim. I just sat and stared at the 3d effect of the cave passing left to right and back again and being able to see "inside" as the walls change perspective. Looking forward to the new fish models and behavior. Great work though. You should be proud.

[bolkar]

Amazing job Jim,
I was dazzled with 2.6 when I first saw it, but this one is breath taking.
I am running it on my 30" 2560x1600 screen, with 30 fish at 111fps (I have a Nvidia 8800 Ultra).

Since I have been following the development of version 3 quietly, I am aware of the extensive list of items you would be adding. Therefore; I am basing my comments to this beta version;

- The textures look a bit blurry on my screen. Especially the stretched alpha channels for the background items. I know I am using it at a very high resolution, but with bigger screens are getting more and more common, I think it makes sense to have higher res textures, both for the fish and the background items. After all, I already saw a QuadHD TV on sale this week with a resolution of 3840x2160. I assume with the development cycle of version 3, we would be using this for many many years, if not a decade. So, high res textures makes sense for todays and tomorrows higher res displays.

-The limit for the number of fish (which is 30) could be a bit more flexible. I mean with my resolution and fps, it is clear that the number of fish is not a resource issue.

-I believe it would be great, if there is a way to control the size of the background corals and such (not individually, but all together). I can imagine running version 3 on my 60" TV with corals taking 20% of the screen height at the bottom, instead of taking 60%. That way, I can include more fish (someone said a hundred?). Also related with this item, I think it would be great to be able to select fish size too. I see these 2 options as 2 sliders (just like the buble sound) where you set the overal size. That will give great customization opportunity for the Serene freaks like myself

-Also, do you plan on making fish size vary? I mean something like +-10%, it will help when you have more than 1 of the same fish type. Are we going to have baby fish? Will they grow over time? I know I am asking too much.

Thanks again for the hard work.
Bolkar
-

[Jim Sachs]

Dale - The crystal (for displaying logos or the clock/calendar) is coming soon.

DaleArden - No problem. Say hi to Flash Gordon for me.