4 ms·

A design flaw in the Windows 3D Pipes screen saver pointed out by a customer

guidorice 2y ago
> Instead, use the black screen screen saver on your server. It uses no CPU. It also doesn't have all the memory leaks as the 3d pipes screen saver.
- firtoz 2y ago
  Even better: defrag for a screen saver: https://youtu.be/kPv1gQ5Rs8A?t=27 https://youtu.be/kPv1gQ5Rs8A?t=27
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    As a kid my favorite screensaver was the Virex module for After Dark which would show a cool animation of it scanning your files for viruses icon by icon
    - boilerupnc 2y ago
      Johnny Castaway [0] for the win! Loved this adaptive screensaver. There was something always mesmerizing about it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Castaway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Castaway
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Cool back in those days but in the age of ssd defrag is pointless. Even if you make your files contiguous the wear leveling algorithm still puts all the blocks all over the place. It only causes more wear.
    - creshal 2y ago
      The defrag tool in windows is smart enough to do a TRIM on SSDs instead, at least since Windows 8 I think.
roselan 2y ago
On my very first job at the turn of the century, I remember I was by a client seating in front of a server, looking at a black screen waiting for something to happen, highly doubting the claim of the client. "It only works when you guys are here". Yeah, right. Already 3 coworkers had to deal with this but couldn't find anything, this was more than strange. So I asked them to yell as soon as something happen. 15 minutes later my wandering thoughts were interrupted by Pipes materializing itself into existence. Oh. And for that day I was the hero.
willvarfar 2y ago
I just knew before I clicked that this would be a Raymond Chen article :) Raymond is the old-school engineering end of Microsoft. He was used to represent the old school in a seminal blog post by Joel Spolsky https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost... When finding that link I saw it was 20 years old! 20 years ago Raymond was the 'old school' celebrity programmer at Microsoft. And Raymond is still blogging now 20 years later :)
avidphantasm 2y ago
My primary memory of this screensaver was while working as a desktop support work-study in college. Our NT 4 servers (PDC and its backup) ran the 3D pipe screen saver. I pointed out to the admin that it was using a software OpenGL renderer and so likely wasting CPU cycles. They then switched to the Star Field or maybe the blank screensaver (can’t remember now).
- rini17 2y ago
  It affected early CD burners too. Which did not have large buffers nor underrun protection. They would write garbage when data stream was interrupted because any other software used system resources. Win95 was not exactly known to manage them smoothly.
Caius-Cosades 2y ago
I wish they had kept the 3D pipe screensaver. It servers absolutely no purpose whatsoever, it's objectively a complete and utter waste of time and development resources to include it, but I still miss it.
- neverartful 2y ago
  I believe that from Microsoft's perspective, it most certainly had a purpose. The purpose was marketing/advertising the OpenGL/3D capabilities of NT.
  - Stratoscope 2y ago
    True! https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20240611-00/?p=109881 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20240611-00/?p=10...
- johnea 2y ago
  Xscreensaver still has a 3D pipes. Just stop running that archaic corporate OS...
veltas 2y ago
A number of these old 3D screensavers are identical to examples in the old OpenGL red book, the version that's now available for free online. I wonder if they were just copied from the book?
- mcraiha 2y ago
  Maybe it is time for decompilation effort?
  - EMIRELADERO 2y ago
    No need. https://github.com/tongzx/nt5src/tree/daad8a087a4e75422ec96b7911f1df4669989611/Source/XPSP1/NT/multimedia/opengl/scrsave/pipes https://github.com/tongzx/nt5src/tree/daad8a087a4e75422ec96b...
    - phendrenad2 2y ago
      That's illegally-leaked source code.
      - EMIRELADERO 2y ago
        So? That shouldn't stop you if you're curious. It doesn't harm anybody (or any entity at all, even)

> Instead, use the black screen screen saver on your server. It uses no CPU. It also doesn't have all the memory leaks as the 3d pipes screen saver.

firtoz 2y ago
Even better: defrag for a screen saver: https://youtu.be/kPv1gQ5Rs8A?t=27 https://youtu.be/kPv1gQ5Rs8A?t=27
- kalleboo 2y ago
  As a kid my favorite screensaver was the Virex module for After Dark which would show a cool animation of it scanning your files for viruses icon by icon
  - boilerupnc 2y ago
    Johnny Castaway [0] for the win! Loved this adaptive screensaver. There was something always mesmerizing about it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Castaway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Castaway
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Cool back in those days but in the age of ssd defrag is pointless. Even if you make your files contiguous the wear leveling algorithm still puts all the blocks all over the place. It only causes more wear.
  - creshal 2y ago
    The defrag tool in windows is smart enough to do a TRIM on SSDs instead, at least since Windows 8 I think.

roselan 2y ago

On my very first job at the turn of the century, I remember I was by a client seating in front of a server, looking at a black screen waiting for something to happen, highly doubting the claim of the client. "It only works when you guys are here". Yeah, right. Already 3 coworkers had to deal with this but couldn't find anything, this was more than strange. So I asked them to yell as soon as something happen. 15 minutes later my wandering thoughts were interrupted by Pipes materializing itself into existence. Oh. And for that day I was the hero.

willvarfar 2y ago

I just knew before I clicked that this would be a Raymond Chen article :) Raymond is the old-school engineering end of Microsoft. He was used to represent the old school in a seminal blog post by Joel Spolsky https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost... When finding that link I saw it was 20 years old! 20 years ago Raymond was the 'old school' celebrity programmer at Microsoft. And Raymond is still blogging now 20 years later :)

avidphantasm 2y ago

My primary memory of this screensaver was while working as a desktop support work-study in college. Our NT 4 servers (PDC and its backup) ran the 3D pipe screen saver. I pointed out to the admin that it was using a software OpenGL renderer and so likely wasting CPU cycles. They then switched to the Star Field or maybe the blank screensaver (can’t remember now).

rini17 2y ago
It affected early CD burners too. Which did not have large buffers nor underrun protection. They would write garbage when data stream was interrupted because any other software used system resources. Win95 was not exactly known to manage them smoothly.

Caius-Cosades 2y ago

I wish they had kept the 3D pipe screensaver. It servers absolutely no purpose whatsoever, it's objectively a complete and utter waste of time and development resources to include it, but I still miss it.

neverartful 2y ago
I believe that from Microsoft's perspective, it most certainly had a purpose. The purpose was marketing/advertising the OpenGL/3D capabilities of NT.
- Stratoscope 2y ago
  True! https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20240611-00/?p=109881 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20240611-00/?p=10...
johnea 2y ago
Xscreensaver still has a 3D pipes. Just stop running that archaic corporate OS...

veltas 2y ago

A number of these old 3D screensavers are identical to examples in the old OpenGL red book, the version that's now available for free online. I wonder if they were just copied from the book?

mcraiha 2y ago
Maybe it is time for decompilation effort?
- EMIRELADERO 2y ago
  No need. https://github.com/tongzx/nt5src/tree/daad8a087a4e75422ec96b7911f1df4669989611/Source/XPSP1/NT/multimedia/opengl/scrsave/pipes https://github.com/tongzx/nt5src/tree/daad8a087a4e75422ec96b...
  - phendrenad2 2y ago
    That's illegally-leaked source code.
    - EMIRELADERO 2y ago
      So? That shouldn't stop you if you're curious. It doesn't harm anybody (or any entity at all, even)