.99K still locks up

[Coelacanth]

With every new release, I keep hoping that the aquarium will run on my primary system...but no such luck so far.

.99K locks up on it, just like all of the other releases. (I think I had posted here sometime previously that .99J didn't lock up. Well, it did. It just took longer than previous versions. Same with .99K -- instead of locking up in 4-7 minutes like previous versions, .99K locks up after several hours.)

I have three PCs. The aquarium runs fine on two of them -- a W2K and a Win98SE machine. But on my primary machine (another Win98SE machine), it locks. This machine's specs are:

GeForce 256 SDR
256MB RAM
Pentium III 933 on an ASUS CUSL2 mobo
NIC card
MX300 sound card (doesn't matter if bubble sound is enabled or not)
IBM 75GXP HDD
Kenwood 72X CD-ROM
DirectX 8.0A
NVidia drivers (tried everything from 6.18 to 7.58. All lock.)
Screen resolution and color depth don't matter. It locks up regardless of what I choose.

The video card isn't overheating. I can run every other screensaver I have, including everything from www.reallyslick.com, indefinitely. The thing can cycle Quake III Arena for hours.

The lock-ups happen even if I just have Explorer and Systray running and nothing else.

I *can* run the aquarium indefinitely on my other systems, though I really just want to run it on my primary system only. But the other systems, which have Celerons, TNT2 cards and 128MB RAM, work fine.

I just can't figure out what the problem is.

Coelacanth,

Just to see - try running just 6 fish on it and turn 1 off. That's what I had to do to solve that same issue. I think that will give you the extra buffer needed so that your specific card can operate within its resource capability.

Rick

[Dave Snotear]

Coelacanth,
Although I'm using a Geforce II Ultra now,I did have a Geforce 256 SDR that I was using for about 5 months with the aquarium on it.All fish and effects except sound ran at 1280X1024 for days with no problems.Keep trying with different video drivers.I currently am running Win9X 1200 version with no problems.

Dave

Not only the SVGA driver affects the stability of the system when you are running SS but also the OS you are using. You said that you have tried many many versions of the driver I thus consider it to be the other problem.

I don't think Jim have anything to do with SS for this case or the case like this, the random error (I call it...). Someone may consider it as the memory leakage.

You may update the service pack for that OS (Win98SE I don't know if it has any service pack or not...) and see whether it would be better or not.

Or... "try" (I really mean that... ^_^! ) going back a bit to the older version of Win98, may be Win98 + Service pack, or going forward to WinME.

[Coelacanth]

Rick:
Thanks a bunch, I tried 6 fish and it went all last night without locking up. I don't know why I didn't think of doing that before!

Bummer I can't get all seven fish, but settling for six isn't all that bad. I figure I'll get a GeForce 3 card sometime this summer anyway , so that will probably take care of the problem.

And, hey Jim: For owners of new cards like the GeForce 3, how about at least providing the option to keep adding more animals, as long as the video card and CPU can handle them? I figure a GeForce 3 should be able to handle WAY more than seven fish, assuming it's paired with a relatively modern CPU.

OK, I know that with that feature you might get into the relatively "unrealistic" realm of depicting an overcrowded tank. Three points about that:

1. If you want to talk about what's realistic in reference to what most hobbyists actually do, overcrowded tanks are probably the MOST realistic. (Unfortunately.)

2. The tank is designed like a reef tank. But if you're trying to depict a "realistic" reef tank, you already have fish in there that don't fit into a reef tank at all. Regal angel, french angel, triggerfish, forceps fish, and some would argue even blue damselfish don't play well in a reef tank. Most of these fish would decimate the corals depicted in the background, and the blue damsel is just too ornery and territorial to be a good neighbor in such a tank.

3. If you're still opposed to providing the option of adding more fish, then how about using the extra power of the GeForce 3 to depict pulsing Xenia, grazing nudibranchs, bristleworms that come out when the lights go dim, and so on. That would be really cool.

Anyway, I'm getting off track here. Thanks for the replies and I'm glad my problem is now fixed!

[Jav400]

Coelacanth,

There may be a possibility of adding a few more fish ( maybe 2-3) according to Jim, when the tank goes to a larger format and the camera panning is instituted. Also don't forget that there will be several invertebrates available sometime in the future that will be in the tank at the same time as the fish. By the time Jim has everything finished we will have quite a few more choices than right now.

[Coelacanth]

Thank for the reply, Jav. It is nice to know that improvements are on the way. My point, however, was that, assuming that the aquarium program is written in such a way as to take advantage of them, new video cards like those with the GeForce3 chip should be able to handle more animals (fish or otherwise) *without* having to employ workarounds like panning. If the thing can push more polygons a second (and the GeForce3 can push a boatload of 'em), then the more polygons you should be able to have on the screen at any one time and still maintain a good frame rate.

[feldon34]

Panning is not a workaround. It is a choice.

More fish at the present size of the tank and present size of the fish is extremely unrealistic and would look silly. In a real tank, the fish would be killing/eating each other anyway.

Would you prefer smaller coral and more, smaller fish? I think if you took a poll of this forum, you'd have an overwhelming majority voting no to making the fish smaller. I already wish they were bigger!!

Jim would like to add more coral and a few more fish at once, but not at the expense of smaller graphics. So he wants to widen the tank to double the width of the current display.

As a side effect, Jim may crank up the # of fish to 10. Also, having a wider tank gives him more room to put the Octopus and Eel coves and other places for fish to hide or hang out.

Jim is not "working around" anything. He could put all 18 fish on the screen right now.

I guess the "look how cool my 3D card is, it can display 25 fish" brigade is fairly well-represented here.

[Coelacanth]

Morgan...I am NOT part of the "look how cool my 3D card is, it can display 25 fish (even though that many fish -- at least large ones -- would indeed look silly) brigade", and I resent the condescending remark.

Perhaps I didn't state it clearly enough the first time around, though I thought I did, but all I was asking for was a simple option to increase the number of ANIMALS -- repeat, ANIMALS, NOT NECESSARILY FULL-SIZED FISH -- on screen at any one time. The logic being that a GeForce3 could display more than 7 fish very well (and I have a 21-inch monitor, so I *wouldn't* mind having slightly smaller fish), but more than that, it could also display other things such as waving soft coral, pulsing Xenia, small creatures such as snails and even bristleworms, and other details as an option for people that have these cards.

It was just what I thought would be a logical suggestion. I am NOT suggesting a ridiculous overcrowding of the tank. I am NOT suggesting that panning wouldn't be a cool OPTION. And I am certainly NOT suggesting that I want these features only so I can say to people, "My card can move more fish around the screen than yours can." That is NOT the point. The point is to make a detailed aquarium which as many REALISTIC moving things as possible. It just seemed to me that a chip like the GeForce3 could facilitate that goal quite well -- and these could be "power" options within the screensaver. Silly? I think not.

[Digital Lungfish]

Ok, both of you take a chill pill and go to your respective corners for a moment.

"all I was asking for was a simple option to increase the number of ANIMALS -- repeat, ANIMALS, NOT NECESSARILY FULL-SIZED FISH -- on screen at any one time."

Coelacanth, Jim has already stated in the past that the fish limit might not include the invertebrates and/or certain schooling fish which means that you ARE likely to see more in the tank than we do now.

"a GeForce3 could display more than 7 fish very well (and I have a 21-inch monitor, so I *wouldn't* mind having slightly smaller fish), but more than that, it could also display other things such as waving soft coral, pulsing Xenia, small creatures such as snails and even bristleworms, and other details as an option for people that have these cards."

With regards to why Jim is not adding in all of these additional features supported by the high end GeForce2 and GeForce3 cards, it's a fair bet that it has to do with a couple of things.

First of all, Jim has always wanted to keep the file size down to a minimum so that the program can be zipped up and placed on any 3.5 easily. Therefore, everything that gets added to the program adds to the file size.

The second reason being that he doesn't want anyone to miss out on what the aquarium has to offer regardless of what graphics card they have. Right now the aquarium can be viewed in whole by pretty much anyone that meets his base graphics card requirements and those of us with higher end GeForce cards like me (GeForce2 Pro DDR) can enjoy it as well in higher resolutions with AA or FSAA, not to mention the rather high frame rates that we get as well.

So to be perfectly honest, Jim has done a great job of balancing out our wants with his plans and what's realistic when all that is taken into consideration. What some people just don't seem to understand or fully grasp is how incredible the aquarium IS going to be when Jim drops in things like:

- 3D background
- invertebrates
- schooling fish
- specialty fish
- individual AI for each type of fish
- and the list goes on...

Needless to say, we've only seen the icing on the cake. Jim still has a LOT in store for us and he's trying to make as many people happy as possible (himself, his publisher, and us) and that's one VERY tall order for one man. In any case, the best thing for us to do at this point is to sit back and enjoy the ride, it only gets better from here.

- DL

[hooters]

I Personally think we should all be grateful for what Jim has given us - it's already more then any-other saver of it's type offers.and in the end will surely be something truly breathtaking.
instead of we want (More more More)
it might do us all well to sit back and enjoy the beauty we have here for a while .and I'm sure we will all in be more then satisfied in the end

[Coelacanth]

I think people are completely misunderstanding my suggestions and the intention of my posts.

Let me break this down again:

"Coelacanth, Jim has already stated in the past that the fish limit might not include the invertebrates and/or certain schooling fish which means that you ARE likely to see more in the tank than we do now."

That's great, and I knew that already. I'm just saying that cards like the GeForce3 should facilitate that even more and offer Jim even more freedom with respect to achieving that goal.

"First of all, Jim has always wanted to keep the file size down to a minimum so that the program can be zipped up and placed on any 3.5 easily. Therefore, everything that gets added to the program adds to the file size."

That is, of course, true. Additional features will add to the file size. It's amazing what Jim has done in a mere 1MB (about 670K zipped). I would argue that the need to fit the program on a floppy is negigible in this day of prevalent CD-RWs, Zip disks, SuperDisks, network connections, and the like. I never use my floppy drive for anything anymore. It's just there.

Sure, more features means more bytes. So what? Jim's program is still quite small compared to most, and I don't see why it necessarily has to fit on a floppy. We're downloading this thing from the Net, aren't we? And of course we're not supposed to transfer it to another party (or even to another PC) and violate the license agreement...so I don't see the big need for fitting it onto a floppy.

"The second reason being that he doesn't want anyone to miss out on what the aquarium has to offer regardless of what graphics card they have. Right now the aquarium can be viewed in whole by pretty much anyone that meets his base graphics card requirements and those of us with higher end GeForce cards like me (GeForce2 Pro DDR) can enjoy it as well in higher resolutions with AA or FSAA, not to mention the rather high frame rates that we get as well."

My suggestions were NOT intended to leave anyone out of the fun. Nobody has to miss out. Why would anyone have to miss out? There would simply be *additional* benefits if one has a powerful video card like the GeForce3. People with lesser cards could still get a great-looking aquarium, but they couldn't crank up all of the high-end features. Ever played any 3D games? Same situation there. Heck, some current games include so many high-end options that if they were all turned on, even a GeForce3 would see single-digit frame rates. Is this a problem? Not in my view. More options for the people that can (or will in the future) be able to run them, but still a great experience for those who have lesser systems.

"So to be perfectly honest, Jim has done a great job of balancing out our wants with his plans and what's realistic when all that is taken into consideration."

I'll agree with that. He has made a great screensaver, and I wouldn't be here posting suggestions about it otherwise.

"What some people just don't seem to understand or fully grasp is how incredible the aquarium IS going to be when Jim drops in things like..."

Exactly the sort of things I was suggesting that the GeForce3 could handle in spades.

"Needless to say, we've only seen the icing on the cake. Jim still has a LOT in store for us and he's trying to make as many people happy as possible (himself, his publisher, and us) and that's one VERY tall order for one man. In any case, the best thing for us to do at this point is to sit back and enjoy the ride, it only gets better from here."

I am enjoying it, definitely. That's why I paid for the thing, and it's why I'm here posting about it. But if by saying that "the best thing for us to do at this point is to sit back and enjoy the ride," you mean that we all should stifle our suggestions for improvement, or our constructive criticisms of certain features, or quit voicing our wishes (however feasible or unfeasible they might turn out to be), and instead just shut up, sit back, and wait, then there is really not much need for this forum at all, or the wishlist, is there?

It's not a matter of being unsatisfied with the current work or "ungrateful" for it, as hooter suggested, and always wanting "more, more, more." I *am* satisfied with the current work. Otherwise I would not have bought it. Otherwise I would not be here posting about it. But it's only natural for people to imagine what could be done in the future, and express those wishes.

Cards like the GeForce3 will give people like Jim unprecedented freedom to do new, exciting things. Why do you think mags like Maximum PC and PC Gamer are so jazzed about it? I'm just suggesting things that could make our "ride" even more enjoyable.

-- Coel

[Jav400]

Coelacanth,

No one is suggesting that you not use the forum, you are correct in stating that is it's intended purpose. But remember that what you are offering is a suggestion for consideration by Jim, and due to your recent joining of this forum, some of your suggestions have already been asked, answered and settled by Jim many months ago.

I am sure that Jim appreciates all responsible suggestions given here on the forum, and gives due consideration to any new ones that he sees, but he has stated on more than one occassion many things that his aquarium will have as options and many things that it will not, and one of those is the ability to overcrowd the tank, irregardless of the capabilities of your video card. He will set the limit of fish in the tank to an amount that would be healthy and beneficial to the inhabitants.

[Jim Sachs]

Your comments and suggestions are welcome here.

I know it's very diffucult for new members to search EZBoard for previous topics so I just want to re-state a few points.

First, I am not a programmer. I am an artist who happens to have picked up a little programming ability. I'm sure that each video card out there has different features, but I could never learn them all. To use them requires DX8, and I have not had the best of luck with the DX8 version on Win9x yet.

The program must fit on a floppy. Each time I make a programming change (between 20 and 50 times a day), I have to put the program on a floppy to test it on all my different machines. Most of my sales are to foreign countries, and the vast majority of those machines only have floppy drives. As always, users are allowed to copy the Aquarium to all of their computers, not just ones with Internet connections. In fact, I insist that they try it on the target computers to make sure it works before purchasing a Key Code.

One of the major reasons for the 7-fish limit is the fact that the fish get in each other's way. Even 7 is pushing it, and there are already situations where the objects pass through each other. There will be at least 3 invertebrates in addition to the 7-fish limit, and the schooling fish will probably count as 1.

The list of requested features is extremely long, and right now I'm just concentrating on one item at a time.

[FishyBusiness]

Coelacanth,

I welcome you to the forum and hope you stay to help Jim's Aquarium and other Serene Screens achieve perfection. We are all here to help each other out and at the same time help Jim's aquarium.

I have read this thread thoughly and I DO understand your point. I have thought about this before and I have no shortage of power with MY particular computer to increase features in the aquarium. I thought about having more fish and more intensive graphics. These thoughts have led me to think about some of the problems associated with these kinds of features.

One of the first problems is the obvious one that you already pointed out. Not everyone has a fast computer with a great video card. I do understand what you mean by having the features that take advantage of such advanced hardware turn on and off depending on what the individual computer can accomplish.

This brings me to another point. Most of the people that own computers are not computer-literate. I know this from personal experience. Having someone turn features on and off is quite a hard task. I know this sounds absurd but it is true. I have to show people how to install programs, make new folders, and uninstall programs. I taught someone how to turn some of the fish off in the aquarium. I even had to show someone how to cut and paste. These are the majority of people that will be buying Jim's aquarium. Look at all of the Tech support that games have. When a new game come out, people always have problems with hardware and software configuations. So much so that they email the company that made it looking for solutions. If they can't get it to work on their particular computer, they curse the program and uninstall it. I have done this. I bought a game and was never able to get it to work on my Banshee. Jim is a one-man army. So he could not handle the flood of emails that would come with such a complex program with lots of features to turn on and off.

I would like to recapp on the first point. I have a little bit of money and I would never pay $400.00-$600.00 USD for a video card. I have a GeForce2 GTS 32mb and it was bought for me on my birthday by my girlfriend. She paid $300.00 USD for it. I would have a hard time paying that much for a video card. Most of the people buying Jim's aquarium are not gamers and the GeForce line of cards are aimed at the gamer.

Then we come to the file size. I was watching TechTV and they said that 1% of the people online are on network connections. 99% of the people online are still using modems. That in itself would not stop people with modems from downloading. I had no problem with downloading 5mb on my 56K connection. Jim has already stated in the post above that most of his sales are in countries other than U.S.A. A lot of these countries are still using 28.8K connections and have no money for CD-RW's, Zip Drives, and other means of storage. Like he said most of them have floppies and that's it. In the future, the aquarium will be for sale in stores. If all someone has is a floppy, then they will be able to rn the program on their computer.

I have asked that features like the ones you are requesting and had to come to understand that a program has to be made for a very wide variety of computers. Naturally, I said,"Well, make the features adjustable." Then people started to point out how most of the poeple with computers are computer-illiterate. Because of my experiences with people, I had to concurr. One guy I know with a Voodoo 5500, just installs the drivers and that's it. He makes no adjustments of any kind because he does not understand them. He also doesn't have the will or time to understand them. The regulars in this forum and myself would have no problem with adjusting features of the aquarium. It is the rest of the world that may or may not have a problem with it.

At any rate, don't let my post or the posts from anyone else deter you from post your suggestions and/or comments. One time, Feldon23 and I went round and round about the cause of flawed software programming and I'm still here. I am sure that Jim, myself, and the regulars enjoy seeing new people come in here and posting their comments.

Take care. I DO understand and don't take offense to anything in my post. The post is not here to offend anyone. It's here to give some more information.

[feldon34]

First of all, the 'chill pill' comment doesn't work for me. Sorry, if that sounds arrogant, but I don' respond well to that. There are thousands of constructive ways to make a point and ask me to clarify/justify what I said.

Coelacanth, we value ALL opinions here (except 'the Aquarium sucks' which we delete on sight). I'm sorry if it sounded like I was shooting your ideas down.

As for more creatures in the tank, I'm not sure how this exploded into a huge discussion. Maybe I should put more information out there so this doesn't happen.

The current background is a flat photo. This will be GONE 2 months from now, replaced with a 3D background with any moving elements Jim can manage to squeeze in there. It's all a matter of programming and aesthetics.

We had a huge voting process 4 months ago with hundreds of votes about whether Jim should try to do a simple backdrop for old video cards, making it backwards compatible OR to go forward and put a nice complex moving background which might need a stronger card. Even at the expense of turning off 1-2 fish in favor of this more complex background.

We voted for #2 OVERWHELMINGLY.

So you will get your 7 fish and any moving background elements Jim can make happen. The background will have at least as much 3D geometry as 2 fish.

And at least one invertebrate will not count towards fish count, such as a shrimp or starfish. So 7 fish, nice backdrop, and 1+ invertebrates.

pulsing Xenia, grazing nudibranchs, bristleworms

Not sure about the Xenia, but Nudibranchs are Jim's planned-confirmed wishlist for himself. So sometime between now and October 2001.

Beyond that, I doubt Jim has even decided how much to put on the screen.

Coelacanth, please stick around!

[hooters]

(ungratefull)
i dont even think i directed the post to u it was an in general post
to enjoy what we have and what will come is all
have a good day and i sure hope this topic goes away .
PS if u took it as to u personally and somehow came up with that i was implying ur not gratefull and ur comments are not welcome - then u took it all the wrong way

[Digital Lungfish]

As you can see Coelacanth, we all understood you just fine. We always encourage suggestions and hold nothing against anyone for expressing interest in new ideas. You never know, Jim might just find one that he really likes and toss it in if he has the time.

However, we do get some cases where certain users feel very strongly about their ideas (like yourself) and REALLY want to see them included in the screensaver just because it makes so much sense to them.

The thing is, no matter how much someone wants to see their idea(s) brought to life for whatever the reason, Jim still has the final say and he already has a lot of other factors involved that he must take into consideration first. So the best thing to do is to offer up your suggestions and ideas as usual because we all want to know what they are and be able to discuss them, just don't have high expectations.

"But if by saying that "the best thing for us to do at this point is to sit back and enjoy the ride," you mean that we all should stifle our suggestions for improvement, or our constructive criticisms of certain features, or quit voicing our wishes (however feasible or unfeasible they might turn out to be), and instead just shut up, sit back, and wait, then there is really not much need for this forum at all, or the wishlist, is there?"

Trust me on this one Coelacanth, if that were the case (which it's not), then those are the exact words I would use. Anyone that knows me knows that I say exactly what I mean and nothing inbetween, otherwise I would be wasting people's time. So no need for you to misread my posted comments.

"Ever played any 3D games?"

I've been working in the game industry for over 10 years now, so I guess that means I've played or worked on a few here and there.

Anyway, keep posting the ideas, we'd love to hear them and dicuss them. If anything, it definately helps to pass the time away while we're waiting for Jim to post the next new version.

- DL

P.S.
Remember, we're all here for the same reason, so lets have fun while we're at it!

[Digital Lungfish]

Sorry you took it the wrong way Morgan, it certainly wasn't meant to be taken in that way. That's why I tossed in the at the end of the sentence, it was just a light hearted comment and nothing more.

In any case, you are right Morgan, this did get a little bit out of control and I'm sure none of us wanted that.

- DL

[Coelacanth]

Thanks for the replies, all.

My apologies, I think I facilitated part of the "getting out of control" facet of this thread. Didn't mean to. (Note to self: Never post after a stressful day at work and/or when you're ticked off at another post.)

Anyway, some replies to your comments, in order of their appearance in the thread. I'll just post them all here instead of making separate replies:

Jav400: "No one is suggesting that you not use the forum"

I know. I didn't infer that from anyone's posts. I was the one that questioned the purpose of the wish list if it is not to wish for things -- and of this forum (in part), if it is not to suggest things.

Jav400: "[Jim] has stated on more than one occassion many things that his aquarium will have as options and many things that it will not, and one of those is the ability to overcrowd the tank, irregardless [sic] of the capabilities of your video card. He will set the limit of fish in the tank to an amount that would be healthy and beneficial to the inhabitants."

That's fine. Again, perhaps I did not make that clear in the beginning, but I too do NOT wish for an overcrowded tank or one that is not "beneficial" to the "inhabitants." That was not the purpose for my suggestions. My suggestion was more about adding more animals -- or to break it down to even more basic terms, more "animated things," whatever those may be. There is a wide, wide number of such things that the aquarium currently does NOT animate, such as moving anemones, tentacles moving on the sea apple, nudibranchs, snails, hermit crabs, more choices in lighting (actinic/power compact/halide) and corresponding changes in animations due to different lighting chosen, coral polyps extending sweeper tentacles or expanding and contracting, even possibly Banggai Cardinal fry produced by a mating pair. And some of you have wished for lionfish and possibly even leafy sea dragons in the aquarium. Considering the very high number of polygons most likely required to make these fish look even the least bit realistic, I would say that cards like the GeForce3 should help in that endeavor, right?

Look, I know that a lot of people (especially those in some overseas countries) won't EVER be getting GeForce 3's or similar cards. I might not even get one. But Jim appears to have the skills to be able to push the envelope so that people with these cards can get an amazing aquarium, while people without them would certainly not feel very left out, having a great aquarium also, albeit without possibly being able to choose every high-end option.

Jim: "I am not a programmer. I am an artist who happens to have picked up a little programming ability."

I think you're selling yourself way short, Jim! If you're not a programmer, then I'm not a computer geek. You have tons of programming skill, as far as I can see.

Just the fact that the screensaver weighs in at only 1MB, yet does what it does, testifies to that fact. And I understand about the overseas folks that don't have CD-ROM drives or Net connections. I admit I didn't really consider them, thinking instead that the program was ONLY available to people with Net connections, as a download.

And why not network up all of your machines and then post revisions onto a share instead of doing the floppy disk "sneakernet" each time!

FishyBusiness: "Most of the people that own computers are not computer-literate. I know this from personal experience. Having someone turn features on and off is quite a hard task. I know this sounds absurd but it is true."

Oh, believe me, FB, I know how true it is. I've worked in technical support for the last dozen years. When you get people that can't understand why none of their computer devices will turn on, and you go up to their desk only to find that sure enough, the surge protector IS plugged in and switched on...but it's plugged into ITSELF, well then you pretty much know where things stand.

But at the same time, by that logic, MS Word is WAAAYYYYY too complicated for these people to ever grasp, and therefore it should never have been developed. And games? Have you seen the array of setup options available in nearly all of today's games? They are mind-boggling. Yet games are what drive more PC sales than anything else.

There is a compromise. Make configuration "schemes" like MODEST SYSTEM, MEDIUM SYSTEM, FAST SYSTEM, and THE WORKS. Put them on big, easy to click, understandable buttons. And include an ADVANCED button which would lead to a screenful of options for the tweak-happy propellerheads.

Feldon23: "As for more creatures in the tank, I'm not sure how this exploded into a huge discussion. Maybe I should put more information out there so this doesn't happen."

Sorry, but why do that? Isn't the purpose of the forum, again, to *encourage* discussion? Sure, some things that are said may be things that other people have already discussed, in different ways, more or less. So what? If things really do get redundant, then point the person to the previous thread (which may be hard to do considering the pathetic search engine of EZBoard...) But I doubt that any of this is really *entirely* repeating things that have already been said. I bet there are at least a *few* new ideas, and new angles to old ideas, present in threads like this one. Just some food for thought.

Feldon23: "We voted for #2 OVERWHELMINGLY."

Cool. That's what I would have voted for, obviously. Sounds like a good choice.

Hooters: "PS if u took it as to u personally and somehow came up with that i was implying ur not gratefull and ur comments are not welcome - then u took it all the wrong way."

Fair enough.

Digital Lungfish: "However, we do get some cases where certain users feel very strongly about their ideas (like yourself) and REALLY want to see them included in the screensaver just because it makes so much sense to them."

I think you misunderstand again. I'm just dreaming, that's all. Imagining what might be done. Do I really care that much one way or another if Jim takes advantage of the GeForce 3 or not? Not really. Heck, I don't even have one yet and not even sure when or if I'll buy one, though I'll probably end up with something along those lines eventually. I ain't losing any sleep over it, that's for sure, and I'm not going to throw any tantrum if none of it comes to pass. I just toss stuff up, and I might argue my point one way or another for a while, but in the end I'm just dreaming, nothing more.

Digital Lungfish: "no need for you to misread my posted comments."

Wasn't misreading them. I knew you probably weren't really saying that. Just making a point about the purpose of the forum, that's all.

Digital Lungish: "I've been working in the game industry for over 10 years now, so I guess that means I've played or worked on a few here and there."

The question wasn't directed to you specifically. Rhetorical.

So anyway, bottom line: I'm just suggesting features I think would be cool. Take them or leave them, I don't really care, despite my long-winded posts (hey, I type *really* fast). I'm just thinking of the myriad possibilities of expanding upon a simulated marine environment using new video technologies, that's all, nothing more.

Cheers,
Coel