====== glStarfield OpenGL accelerated screensaver ======

Last night I was looking at my screensaver list, wondering which one I should choose. And, as I always do when attempting to choose a screensaver, I pondered once again on that beautiful example of Microsoft development philosophy, the Starfield screensaver. Once upon a time, when it was included with Windows 3.1, this was a nice, average screensaver, which looked and ran OK for the hardware and software of it's day. However, times have changed. The screensaver is still included in my copy of Windows 2000, but it appears that no one has even looked at the code since it was first released. Surprisingly, no matter what kind of hardware you run it on, this screensaver still seems as though it were chugging along, not on an AMD Athlon 1.2GHz, but on an 8MHz 286. On top of this, the graphics still conform to 16 color standards: stars appear blocky when they get close, to simulate the stars getting brighter while compensating for the fact that there weren't any shades of gray to draw upon in those days.

Well, last night I decided I'd had enough of this. So I wrote my own. This one runs very, very smooth, and I even added some lighting so the stars start out dark and get brighter. Anyway, the source code is included. Do whatever you like with it, but please be advised that THERE IS NO WARRANTY WHATSOEVER.

===== Current Status =====

The screensaver runs. There is no password support, and no settings dialog. Since I'm only able to test this on a few systems, I don't know for a fact that it will work on every hardware and software combination. This software isn't being developed any more, but maybe it's interesting to someone who wants to look at the source code.

===== Downloads =====

==== 1.01 ====

The lighting issue was really beginning to bother me, and so it's been fixed. There are also some other minor cleanups in the code which have no noticeable effects. This version also includes a setup program, vastly simplifying installation.

[[http://www.flamewars.org/projects/glStarfield-640x480-1.01.exe|glStarfield v1.01 640x480]] for Windows 95/98/2000/XP\\
[[http://www.flamewars.org/projects/glStarfield-800x600-1.01.exe|glStarfield v1.01 800x600]] for Windows 95/98/2000/XP\\
[[http://www.flamewars.org/projects/glStarfield-1280x1024-1.01.exe|glStarfield v1.01 1280x1024]] for Windows 95/98/2000/XP

==== 1.0b ====

Version 1.0b fixes a couple of problems with the previous release. Specifically, it didn't run on Windows XP (I'm not positive if this is fixed, as I haven't been able to test it, but hopefully...), and there was an issue with the star distance distribution becoming clustered over time.

[[http://www.flamewars.org/projects/glStarfield-1.0b.zip|glStarfield v1.0b]] for Windows 95/98/2000/XP

==== 1.0b ====

Read the Readme included with the package for installation instructions.

[[http://www.flamewars.org/projects/glStarfield-1.0.zip|glStarfield v1.0]] for Windows 95/98/2000/XP