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nVidia demos
http://www.runestorm.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=67510		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Tyster [ Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:38 pm ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
So, I noticed several technology demos on the nVidia website available for download. The Cascade one is just beautiful. It can generate a cock structure with random geometry and random textures floatin in mid-air. You can move the camera around, create waterfalls, which are very beautiful with the refractions, the wet ground effects, and the water volume handling. Well, a picture is worth 1k words...
[br][img width=800 height=500]../../files/public/1225323478_244_FT0_temp_.jpg[/img][br]
Author:  SX [ Wed Oct 29, 2008 5:54 pm ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
Had it for a while, that was F***ing awesome.
Author:  DK [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:45 am ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
Can you turn it into a screensaver...?
Author:  Chavez [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:30 am ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
Looks awesome. However, I'm on a laptop currently because I'm at work. So I downloaded a relatively light one, 'Lightning' for GeForce2 Ti. It looks pretty darn good for such an old card :O
Author:  Tyster [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 5:02 am ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
DK wrote:
Can you turn it into a screensaver...?

Doesn't look like I can.
Author:  Bjossi [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:53 am ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
Maybe a video capture + program that converts that to a screensaver file could do the trick.
Author:  Tyster [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 9:17 am ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
I like your thinking.
http://www.analogx.com/CONTENTS/downloa ... /xpvss.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

I'll have to try this out sometime, but a high-res video of any appreciable length would take up a good 100-200MB. not too bad for a hard drive that isn't too full, though. Still, I think the OpenGL fireflies or Hyperspace screen savers are the prettiest, even though they chug up so much processing power.
Author:  Bjossi [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:27 am ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
Rarely a problem since the screensaver appears when the computer hasn't been used for X minutes. Unless some heavy apps are running in the background the hardware could use all resources to power the screensaver.
Author:  Tyster [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 12:00 pm ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
Well, it's not that I have a better use for the processing power, just that it's a lot of processing power being used when it is not being appreciated 99% of the time. CPUs wear out after a while, even more so when overclocked, so time spent under heavy load to produce eye candy I never see when I'm away from the computer is less time that processor has to do useful things before it dies, right? Aside from that, a 90 Watt CPU would chug 125 Watts under full load producing unappreciated eye candy while a mostly idle CPU uses only a couple Watts, so there's also the energy savings (even though I don't directly pay for it). I just have no screen saver and have the screen power down after 5 minutes. Good 'nuff for me, but I do still like to play around with some of the pretty screen savers now and then.

Speaking of which, the reason screensavers ever came into existance in the past was to prevent the CRT monitors from getting an image burnt into the luminescent layer, right? So, there would be no real need for a screen saver with an LCD screen, unless you are around to enjoy it.
Author:  Bjossi [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 2:01 pm ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
I think you are making a nuclear explosion out of a dynamite here. Processors wear out yes, and they use up decent power when doing plenty of maths and stuff, but does this really become noticeable? For instance I used a 2.8 GHz P4 for years and years, heavy screensavers and gaming, but it didn't die until it overheated to over 100°C when the cooling fan gave up.

Plus, the power usage probably doesn't make itself too well known when the sum of energy usage is made on the monthly bills. At least I haven't seen anything catastrophic after making my A64 do protein folding for hours and hours every single day for months.
Author:  Tyster [ Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:10 pm ]
Post subject:  nVidia demos
I think you're right about the low cost of the screensaver, Bjossi. Just for fun, I did some math and I think it does make a noticable difference. Given the price of electricity for where I live (Michigan), the price for a single watt of electricity being used all day, every day, is $0.0839 per month. If we asume that we are using a computation-heavy screensaver that uses the CPU and video card heavily, then let's say we are using 120W of power (most dual core CPUs are around 90 Watts, if I recall right). If we also assume that this screensaver is active for 30 minutes per day from leaving your computer 3 times a day to go do something else (900 minutes per month), then the screensaver is on for 2.1% of all day, every day. This means that the computer is draining (120[W] * 0.021[2.1%] * 0.0839[$/month]) = 21 cents per month. However, my monitor consumes 2 Amps of electricity, which puts it at 240Watts (@120V). This would bring the monthly cost of the screensaver to 53 cents. As a side not, if a computer is on 24/7 and we can assume it uses an average of 300W per day (crunching, idling, screen on/off, sound on/off for parts of the day), then the cost comes to $25 per month.

So, the next time an environmentalist burns up 100 gallons of gas to fly/driver somewhere to tell you to consume less electricity, you can ask that person (most likely a politician) if he/she encouraged enough conservation to be equivalent to paying your computer's electric bill for a year-and-a-half.

**If you believe that the claims I am making are 100% applicable, then you will find this to be an amusing read.
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