The Psychedelic Screen Saver - Version 4.0 Copyright (C) 1995-1998 All Rights Reserved http://www.synthesoft.com This file contains the following information: OVERVIEW ..............: What is The Psychedelic Screen Saver? CD/SPECTRUM PRO........: What is it and why do you mention it? RELEASE NOTES..........: What should I know about version 4.0? SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ...: What do I need in order to run it? INSTALLATION ..........: How do I install it? / How do I get rid of it? REGISTRATION ..........: Where can I find info on how to register it? QUESTIONS/SUPPORT .....: Where can I get help with problems? UPDATES................: When is the next version due? OVERVIEW The Psychedelic Screen Saver generates an endless variety of mesmerizing patterns. As the patterns materialize on your screen, the colors will shift, undulate, and generally speaking, look cool. Whether you're into abstract art, mathematics, or just have a history of mental illness, you'll love this screen saver. Version 4.0 of The Psychedelic Screen Saver has been designed to work in conjunction with CD/Spectrum Pro in order to provide stunning visual effects that synchronize with the sounds from an audio device (like the CD player in your computer). With many of the module controls you can now associate a sound frequency, a range of effect, and a sensitivity. Fluctuations in the amplitude of the frequency will oscillate the control values within the range of effect. CD/SPECTRUM PRO CD/Spectrum Pro is a 32 bit shareware CD-Audio Player with a Graphical Spectrum Analyzer for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. It can be used in conjunction with The Psychedelic Screen Saver in order to allow the patterns and the colors generated by the screen saver to be synchronized with sound. CD/Spectrum Pro has almost every feature you can find on any software CD player. It supports programmed mode, intro mode, optional taskbar icon operation, auto-play, auto-exit, auto-eject, artist/track/title database, etc. It also recognizes CDP files which can save you from typing in all the track/title information for your CDs. The spectrum analyzer graphically depicts the frequency spectra of the CD music in real time. CD/Spectrum Pro is not a part of The Psychedelic Screen Saver, it is a separate product and must be registered. However, if you register both CD/Spectrum Pro and The Psychedelic Screen Saver at the same time you can do it at a reduced price. See the file "OrderFrm.TXT" for complete information on registration. PSYCH V4.0 RELEASE NOTES * Installing The Psychedelic Screen Saver v4.0 will overwrite prior versions of The Psychedelic Screen Saver. If you've installed a previous version (2.5 or higher) you may want to backup your settings prior to installing version 4.0. While Psych v4.0 is compatible with your existing saved settings, it will convert them to a format that is incompatible with previous versions of The Psychedelic Screen Saver. * The Psychedelic Screen Saver v4.0 is free to users who have registered version 3.x and is available to users who have registered a previous version of The Psychedelic Screen Saver as a $10 upgrade. This fee licenses you for Psych 4.x but not for CD Spectrum Pro. * Registering Psych v4.0 gives you a license to use all updates of The Psychedelic Screen Saver prior to version 5.0 and *ALL* previous versions. * You must have a sound card installed (and properly configured) in your system in order for Psych 4.0 to sync with sound. * CD Spectrum Pro 3.4 must be running in order for Psych v4.0 to sync with sound. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Suggested: * The Psychedelic Screen Saver v4.0 runs quite nicely on a 80486 DX2-66 system. However, if it is being used in conjunction with CD Spectrum Pro then you'll probably want at least Pentium 90 (or better ) * Microsoft Windows NT or Windows 95 * We recommend (but don’t require) a 256 color display card. While the screen savers will work just fine in high/true color modes, you will only get the palette animation effects in 256 color video modes. More info... In order to get some of the effects that they use, the screen savers use a palletized video mode. This means that colors are referenced by index rather than by RGB value. By using a palletized video mode, the screen savers can change the RGB value that corresponds to a particular palette index and the result is that all of the colors on the screen that use that index are immediately updated. Neither high or true color modes use a palette, so it is not possible to achieve the effects without manually updating the entire display. Since updating the entire display is far too slow, we didn't code the screen savers to do it. If you have Microsoft’s DirectX extensions installed then you can use the "Video Mode" panel inside the Psychedelic Screen Saver configuration dialog to set the video mode that the screen saver will run in. The screen saver can only provide this feature if the DirectX extensions are installed on your system. You can find out if you have the extensions installed by selecting the "Video Mode" panel. If there is a message telling you that they are not installed then you can download them from Microsoft’s web site at: http://www.microsoft.com/directx/ INSTALLATION / REMOVAL To install the Psychedelic Screen Saver, run the setup program (INSTALL.EXE) and then follow the directions. If you later decide that you would like to remove the software from your system, run the un-install program (UNINSTALL.EXE) that's in the directory you installed to. REGISTRATION Registration is easy! Just press the "REGISTER" button in the Psychedelic Screen Saver configuration dialog and follow the instructions. If you'd rather avoid the registration wizard, you can find all the information needed to register in the file "ORDERFRM.TXT" in the directory where you installed Psych. Please refer to LICENSE.TXT for complete information on the license agreement. QUESTIONS/SUPPORT If you have access to the World Wide Web, please take a look on our web site (http://www.synthesoft.com) where we maintain a "Frequently Asked Questions" page. The FAQ provides answers to the vast majority of the questions we get via email. If you can't find the information you need there, send us email at: psych@synthesoft.com. UPDATES We post updates to the software on our web site fairly often. When we're feeling particularly creative we may post updates as many as 2 or 3 times a month. You can visit our web site at: http://www.synthesoft.com