Drempels

Drempels, aside from being the German word for "speed bump", is also an amazing program for Win32 computers written by Ryan Geiss, and available for free download from his website. The more mundane function of the program is as a screensaver, but it shines when used for its other purpose. Run in its desktop mode, Drempels uses the FourCC function of DirectX to replace the desktop's background with moving textures. The algorithms in the program stretch, shift, zoom in and out, and otherwise warp the textures to acheive an effect that is nothing short of amazing.

When viewed by a user not suffering from underlying vertigo, Drempels is mesmerizing. The smooth interplay of the shifting textures, seamlessly faded from one to the next randomly can hypnotize you into staring at your screen for hours. There are some ways to optimize use of the program:

• Use seamless tiles - available free from many HTML authoring websites, some listed at the Drempels site
• Use an image processing utility such as Photoshop to broaden the output levels of the image as much as possible and to intensify the colors by increasing color saturation
• Use the configuration utility included to decrease the movement rate and framerate so that the background motion is slow, but not jumpy
• Increase the resolution, and use high quality mode if your processor can keep up.
• If running a Windows with an NT kernel (NT4, 2000, or Windows XP), make a batch file using the start command and setting the priority with the /low switch to decrease processor use when competing with other processes. (e.g: start /low drempels.exe)
• Tweak the settings to work well with your hardware
• Collect a zillion textures (I now have over 6,000 textures), dump them into the program directory, and enjoy the show
• Don't blame me for your loss in productivity

The site also has links to a support forum and a comments forum. If you can't get it working, there will probably be someone who has already solved the problem. Anyone interested should try this program, you will not be disappointed.

http://www.geisswerks.com/drempels/