Fireflies Screensaver (aka Eye Candy)

Fireflies Screensaver

This is a little project I started to practice my OpenGL skillz. My inspiration was Ambient Flocks, which I liked so much I decided to try to clone it for Linux. Since I did this mostly from memory (I only saw it in action once about a year ago), I'm not sure how well I did, but I'm happy with my final product anyway. So happy in fact, that I decided to port it to Windows. Go figure. Note: Fireflies uses OpenGL for 3d acceleration. For some reason, my system didn't have a GL driver installled with it, so it ran ass-slow until I downloaded one. If you are experiencing ass-slowness, you can try downloading a driver for your video card (I just searched Google for "MyVideoCardName driver").

News!

Thu Dec 8 2005: After a long hiatus, I made a small update. Version 2.07 has a Xinerama bugfix for dual-headed displays (Linux only), and a new .spec for Fedora Core 4.
Sat Feb 28 2004: Fireflies takes its place as King of Eye Candy! I just found out that this page is #1 when you Google for "eye candy screensavers". Thanks to Richard Herrero for the tip.
Fri Nov 7, 2003: Doh! I never actually made the links to the Windows version of 2.06. They're available now. Sorry about the (LONG) delay.
Sat Jun 21, 2003: Fireflies has been ported to Mac OS X! Thanks to Stephane Sudre for doing the port.
Sat Jun 21, 2003: Version 2.06 uploaded. The Windows GUI had a bug that messed up your probabilities. Thanks to Stephane Sudre for finding this.
Sun Jun 1, 2003: RPMs for 2.05, thanks to James Livingston.
Wed May 21, 2003: Well I finally got off my ass and uploaded fireflies-2.05, complete with Windows binaries. Sorry about that folks.
Wed Apr 23, 2003: Whoops, I broke something. 2.04 is fixed again.
Mon Apr 21, 2003: Updated Windows packages.
Wed Apr 16, 2003: It's been a while, but I finally updated Fireflies. Not much has changed - basically I added packaged for Debian and Redhat, and added a few bugfixes. Check out the ChangeLog.
Sun Mar 23, 2003: Fireflies has achieved world fame! It was recently mentioned in a Japanese Magazine apparently by the name of Impress. If you can't read Japanese, here's a nice translation courtesy of SysTran (nice meaning hilariously garbled).
Sat Mar 8, 2003: Whoops, I broke xscreensaver support. Fireflies 2.02 fixes it (only applies to the Linux version).
Fri Mar 7, 2003: Fireflies 2.01 is out. See the ChangeLog for details. In particular, I tested it for the long run (9 hours), so it should keep working even if running for a while.
Sat Feb 22, 2003: Fireflies 2.0 (codename superfirefliesthataresoprettytheywillthreatenyoursanity (name courtesy Dan Weakley)) is out! See the ChangeLog for details. You'll probably also want to read the README for info about the modes.

I want it I want it!

Okay, calm down there. There are many flavors. If you use Windows, you'll probably want to download the Windows Screensaver. Some of you may prefer the old version (1.x), but I refuse to make changes to that, so if you have suggestions for it, you know where to put them. However, the new version (2.x), is at least thrice as cool. Check the ChangeLog to see what's new.

If you use Linux, try Googling for Fireflies and either the name of your distro (redhat, mandrake) or your package format (rpm, deb). I apologize for not providing up-to-date packages, but you can probably find a package that way.

Fireflies 2

This is the newer version, the one that I'll be updating and such. It's much better, trust me. Windows self-installers courtesy of NSIS.

Windows Screensaver installer: fireflies-scr-2.06.exe. Download and run it (it will automatically extract to C:\Windows). Go to your Display Properties, and select fireflies as your screen saver. You can even configure it! (that was a pain in the ass, so enjoy it).
Windows Standalone program: fireflies-sdl-2.06.zip. Requires SDL. (Just download and unzip the win32 version, and copy the SDL.dll to your C:\Windows\System\ directory).
Linux Debian (woody/sid) package: fireflies_2.05-1_i386.deb
Linux RedHat 9 package: fireflies-2.05-1.i386.rpm
Mac OS X Port: Stephane Sudre's website

Fireflies 1

This is the old version. I don't know why I have it here. Don't get it.

Old Windows Standalone Program: fireflies-sdl-1.zip

Source code (compiles on Linux or Windows/MinGW)

fireflies-2.07.tar.gz
fireflies-2.06.tar.gz
fireflies-2.05.tar.gz
fireflies-2.04.tar.gz
fireflies-2.03.tar.gz
fireflies-2.02.tar.gz
fireflies-2.01.tar.gz
fireflies-2.0.tar.gz
fireflies-1.02.tar.gz
Linux RedHat 9 SRPM package: fireflies-2.05-1.src.rpm

Screenshots

No one downloads eye candy without getting a little taste first. So here it is. Each screenshot is about 100K.

screenshot-1.jpg
screenshot-2.jpg
screenshot-3.jpg
screenshot-4.jpg
Here's what the old version looked like for the curious: screenshot-1.0.jpg (although you'd have to see them both in motion to appreciate the differences)

Huh?

If you're confused as to how to work the settings, read the README file.

Contact

Please send questions, comments, suggestions, thoughts, ideas, praise, love letters, death threats, etc to Mattperry (guy@remove-before-sending.fscked.org).

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