Comments on: Best Mac screensavers

Question: Best Mac screensavers

GardnerDB — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:27:16 -0800

Best (free/cheap) Mac screensavers? No Electric Sheep.

Flurry is fun but I'm tired of it. I also downloaded Offshoots, Fields, VisionSynth, Scattered Flurries, Lotsawater, Euphoria, and Lotsaglass.

Got any other free/cheap suggestions? I love Electric Sheep but I can't get it to work properly on my Mac.

I like to use Backlight so that I can use screensavers as my desktop wallpaper.

By: matteo

matteo — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:37:24 -0800

I still think the flying toasters are cute

By: advil

advil — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:46:01 -0800

There's always xscreensaver, which runs on OS X (10.4 or later). It's a little overwhelming. There are a lot of good ones, but also a lot of them aren't so pretty, and I actually have gone back to flurry.

By: stereo

stereo — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 17:58:24 -0800

Does your Electric Sheep not load, saying it is downloading the first sheep? Just let it run for a couple of hours (!) or see if you can still find that torrent of starter sheeps.

By: mkb

mkb — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 18:17:10 -0800

I use BSOD from xscreensaver on such a short timeout that my machine "crashes" anytime somebody comes over to talk to me at my desk.

By: panic

panic — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 18:26:25 -0800

If you have the Developer Tools installed, you could try making your own with Quartz Composer (in /Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools). It's a simple, visual, drag-and-drop interface to the advanced graphics functionality in your Mac.

By: milarepa

milarepa — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 18:45:05 -0800

red pill is good

By: bshort

bshort — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 18:46:29 -0800

I made this one that I really like, although it's not very fancy.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 18:51:57 -0800

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/icons_screensavers/defconglobescreensaver.html

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:11:10 -0800

The best by far: Fenêtres Volantes.

By: filmgeek

filmgeek — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:14:05 -0800

I'm going to go with a kernel panic. .

But...If you just want beautiful...

Soundstream is excellent.
Defcon Globe if you liked WarGames.
Fenetres Volantes is really cool
Helios is also breathtaking.

By: blastrid

blastrid — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:21:38 -0800

Ooh there's some new ones to me up there...
I've only got one:
Polar Clock

By: niles

niles — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:35:54 -0800

Ignis Fatui (Windows and Mac)

Throw it on full random for an incredible screen saver. I have it on about at least 3 machines.

By: junesix

junesix — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:41:56 -0800

Phil Ryu lists his top 10 plus some extras in comments. Lotsasnow would look nice as a motion desktop background.
Unusual screensavers at Plasq.
Personally, I like Futurismo Zugakousaku's really weird quartz composer animations as screensavers the best. Fish and Fish Crowd are especially cool and always gets a double-take when people see it.

By: booth

booth — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:52:29 -0800

I like EuclideanGarden, a cool tree-growing screensaver.

By: jalexei

jalexei — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:03:21 -0800

If you like lotsawater, update it with an image of your own. Rather than having my desktop look submerged, I took an overhead shot of my kitchen sink filled with random stuff - never fails to draw a crowd.

By: ulotrichous

ulotrichous — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:06:19 -0800

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Hotel Gadget (formerly known as Hotel Magritte).

By: GardnerDB

GardnerDB — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:16:20 -0800

Ignis Fatui, Fenetres Volantes and Soundstream are fantastic. Keep the suggestions coming everybody!

By: O9scar

O9scar — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:46:09 -0800

I guess I'm kind of old school, but I love the Really Slick collection, particularly Solarwinds, which I never tire of.

By: Cat Pie Hurts

Cat Pie Hurts — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:48:15 -0800

If you're still using a PPC, then you'll want Fluid
.

They've been promising an Intel version, but I don't think it's going to happen.

By: melorama

melorama — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:54:19 -0800

My favorite screensaver is Pong Saver, from the good folks over at Rogue Amoeba (makers of Audio Hijack Pro).

The cutest thing about it is that the "score" is actually the current time in hours and minutes. I 've been thinking of putting my old 12" Powerbook to use and create a DIY Pong Clock using this screensaver.

By: caaaaaam

caaaaaam — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 22:54:05 -0800

It's very minimal, but I have been using Fliqlo for a long time and enjoy the retro alarm clock look.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 22:56:01 -0800

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Hotel Gadget (formerly known as Hotel Magritte).

Well...two comments above yours was a mention of Futurismo Zugakousaku, the maker of that screensaver as well as the one I use: Full Color Bossa

By: plokent

plokent — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 04:03:35 -0800

Holding Pattern Coach Class

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 07:43:17 -0800

Looking at the source, plokent's link was supposed to go here.

By: dorian

dorian — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 07:58:59 -0800

electropaint is THE dog's balls. sgi created a true 3d classic; now available on mac, lunix (stonerview) and pc. however, I've no idea if the osx/ppc version will work on osx/intel. still, it's worth a try as it's magnificent.

By: shanevsevil

shanevsevil — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 09:25:28 -0800

Seconding Fenêtres Volantes

By: HotPatatta

HotPatatta — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 10:12:07 -0800

These screensavers are great. Solarwinds rocks. Give us more more more!!

By: chairface

chairface — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:38:49 -0800

Fractal clock is surprisingly cool. You have to let it warm up for about 30 seconds for the show to really get interesting.

Electric sheep should work fine on the mac. You might want to look into manually downloading some starter movies which is what I did for a while.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 13:24:40 -0800

breveCreatures

By: DJWeezy

DJWeezy — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:12:46 -0800

seconding soundstream