Ten Free Windows XP / Vista / 7 Screen Savers : Fireworks, Matrix, Time-Lapse, Solar Wind screensavers

There seem to be a huge number of Screen Savers out there for Windows PCs, free even, but here's a list of free screensavers that I use personally on my PC. They all have something special to them that keeps viewers entertained. I hope you will enjoy them.

Really Slick Screensavers is a suite of OpenGL based screensavers that feature excellent graphics usually based on reality, such as particle physics, herd behavior, tornado, and so on. What's more, they are all adjustable so if you have a relatively weak computer you can turn down the special effects.

There are an even dozen screensavers here, but of the dozen, I really like four of them:

Solar Winds -- mesmerizing particle effects, and completely adjustable

Skyrocket -- true fireworks simulation, completely with city, background, clouds, moon, starlight, and more (turn things off to improve frame rate)

Helios -- more attractor / repulsor particle physics, with some "implied" surfaces

Fieldlines -- simulate the EM field between multiple charged particles.

Remember, there are a dozen to choose from. Some of these will slow down even a good computer with a good graphics card, so if you got one that's acting like a slide show, please reduce its effects, or try a different one. These four I picked will generate good frame rates even on relatively slow computers.

Download all Really Slick Screensavers (12 of them) in one package

Pegtop is a Germany software company that created many small tools and a series of free screesavers. Some of these are rather plain, but I like three of them quite a bit.

Smoodoo -- short for "smooth voodoo", the graphics are a mixing of various colors. It's a little bit of spirograph, a little bit of finger painting and color mixing. You can use it as "visualization" for music as well.

Deflexion -- take a normal picture and watch it distorted into special shapes. You can even use your own picture and watch it distorted and animated. If your video isn't fast enough you can reduce the pixels pumped and get faster performance.

Famous -- the infamous Matrix (tm) effect, but you can define what sort of words you want it to spell out, and this one is ultra smooth. It can also be set to different colors, or random pick.

The other screen savers they offer are not that interesting.

Download the individual screensavers from Pegtop's website

Idletime Screensavers are a series of fullscreen photo screensavers that has continuous animation. It started with "Holding Pattern", where you look as if you are in a plane flying over America looking around the cabin as the ground moves outside. Later "Sunset 23" and "Cubicle Flood" are added. They all are good, but I like two of them:

Holding Pattern Coach Class -- the free version of Holding Pattern (the full version is "First Class"), this one features very good graphics as the world moves outside

Sunset 23 -- look down at Los Angeles from behind the Hollywood sign as a series of time-lapse photography, with controllable speed

Download Idletime Screensavers

Kelly Software is best known for one of the best Matrix (tm) theme screensaver available for free. Here are just SOME of the special features:

• multi-monitor support for up to 5 monitors
• web window, JPEG picture, or looped movies in sub-window(s)
• MP3 playback
• text file display
• and much more
  

Download Matrix_ks from Kelly Software

NOTE: The sample picture has 4 looped movies playing simultaneously at the bottom.

These are by no means the only free and good screen savers out there, but these are rather unique and I believe worthy of your attention.

If you find a good and free screensaver, post them in the comments. In the meanwhile, enjoy.