Spirofractal is a program that will generate an almost infinite variety of mathematical patterns and animations on your computer screen. You can control the program yourself, or you can sit back, turn the light off and watch Spirofractal instead of the T.V. You'll experience it at its best if you have at least a 17 inch monitor, and you watch it from further away than when you are working on your computer.
The help file comes with an extensive range of images that will show you how to create your own pictures, but to start off why not just let the program get on with it.!
Spirofractal is EXTREMELY computationally intensive, and will use up almost all the processor power it can get! If, like most people, you mainly use the screen saver, then be aware that Spirofractal will still use 100% of the available processor time until your computer is fast enough to compute and display twenty frames per second. Roughly speaking this is unlikely to be the case unless your computer exceeds the recommended requirements below, and even on a P400 Spirofractal will use around 60%-70% of available processor time). Spirofractal uses anything up to around 26 Megabytes of memory. If it can't get this much it will make do with 6 Megabytes, but in this case certain pattern types will run more slowly, and processor usage will increase!
Do not run the Spirofractal screen saver on file or network servers!
Minimum (just realistic) requirements: Pentium class computer with 256 color display and 32 Megabytes of RAM, running Windows 95 with Plus pack and Internet Explorer 4, or Windows 98. 3 Megabytes of disk space are required for installation of the program.
Recommended configuration: P233 or above running Windows 98, running with High or True Color display. 64 Megabytes of RAM or more!. In order to get the best out of my web pages you need IE5 or above. I do my best to make them work on IE4 and Netscape 4.6 or above, but IE5 has many fewer bugs and many more wonderful features than Netscape 4.x or older versions of IE. I haven't tried Netscape 6 except in Beta, and it utterly refused to display any web page I have ever created.
N.B. The Spirofractal program has not been tested on 486 or 386 computers, or indeed anything other than genuine Intel Pentium computers (from P100 through PII 400, but nothing faster). It is quite likely that it will fail on old computers, especially if they do not have a maths co-processor. Even if it does run it is likely to be so slowly that you will want to watch paint dry instead.
How well the screen saver performs will depend on a combination of factors: processor speed; graphics performance; and screen resolution. Roughly speaking a P133 is enough to run the screen saver on an 800*600 display desktop computer (graphics on portables are often slower and you will probably need a P200), and a P233 is enough at 1024*768. However a P400 is needed before all the different patterns work equally well, especially the 3D patterns.
Open the ZIP file with WinZip and click on install.exe. WinZip will extract the files to a temporary directory and run the install program, which will guide you through the installation process.
Installation now tries to make Spirofractal your screen saver. If you don't want to do this just press cancel. You can use the "Preview" button to try out Spirofractal before deciding whether to make it your screen saver or not. If your PC is slower than about a P400 you may find that 3D images are generated too slowly. You can improve the performance somewhat by disabling "real-time true color". You may as well do this anyway if you are running on a 256 color display. When a 3D image has been developed long enough Spirofractal will redisplay it (possibly changing the lighting first), in true color. If 3D does not work well on your computer then disable this type of image.
The "Processor Use" default setting will make patterns change gradually even on very fast PCs, and stop them changing color too fast. Increasing Processor Use will make fast PCs develop some patterns faster, but it is unlikely to make much difference for 3D images, unless your processor is over the 600MHz level. Reducing the speed right down will make patterns develop more slowly, and will reduce processor usage to about 25% most of the time (unless you have a very slow computer). Spirofractal v4 runs quite a bit faster than earlier versions, and you may wish to reduce this setting slightly if you are upgrading from Spirofractal v3.
In Spirofractal v4, you can also select roughly how long each pattern is displayed for, using the time per pattern scroll bar, which will vary the time between four and sixteen seconds. However the actual times will vary from this by a considerable margin: Spirofractal will allow a certain extra percentage of this time for patterns that take longer to draw well. You can also select a mood setting. The Gentler moods forbid or discourage options that generate particularly psychedelic patterns, or very sudden changes. The more lively moods encourage or enforce such options. However you will soon find that Spirofractal seems to have a mind of its own. If you find yourself wanting to take control of the program more, then you should use the full program rather than the screen saver.
If you are a registered user of Spirofractal, then you will need to re-register Spirofractal, using the file you were sent when you registered the program.
Spirofractal version 4 adds numerous special effects and several new configuration options. However, the biggest change is that as well as the built in pattern types, it can generate patterns based on "rule files", containing mathematical formulas and information about parameters. The program to create these files will be available fairly soon for a separate registration fee. I hope to release collections of such files from time to time, so there will always be something new to see in Spirofractal (assuming you got through the trillions of possibilities already built in!).
Spirofractal version 3 added 3D images, transition effects as one pattern is changing to the next, and new image effects. There are new types of animation, which you can now control from the main program. The Spirofractal program has options for saving files, including the ability to change your Windows 95 or Windows 98 logo screen!.
For full details of the changes open the Spirofractal help file after you have completed the installation.
Spirofractal is shareware, which I hope you will register if you like it enough. Please don't register it until you are happy that it works properly on your computer.
Please note that the options to do with saving files are restricted until you register the program.
Registration of the Spirofractal program or theme costs £7 (approximately $10 or $11 US). This registration entitles you to use both the Spirofractal desktop theme and the full Spirofractal program, and any future upgrades of it. If you don't register it the screen saver will stop displaying interesting full size patterns after about fifteen minutes (and will alternate between displaying less interesting patterns or interesting patterns but rather small). There is a freeware version of the screen saver available with less functionality. For more information see the register.htm. The screen saver configuration dialog allows you to access the registration information and register.htm.
The screen saver may not dismiss immediately when you move the mouse or press a key (though this is much less likely than with earlier versions). Depending on the type of image being displayed it may dismiss immediately, or only after several seconds . This problem is likely to be quite noticeable on slower machines. It is extremely unlikely that Spirofractal has actually stopped working, but if it has it can be terminated safely using Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up the task bar.
If you put your Windows 98 computer into sleep mode, then when it wakes up the screen saver may be started multiple times. This is nothing to do with Spirofractal so far as I know, and only happens very occasionally but when it does happen the only cure is to reboot (or to wait until Windows has got bored with firing up the Screen saver, which does eventually happen!). If your computer is anything like mine there's only about a two in three chance of sleep mode working anyway!
All files Copyright (c) 2000,2001 Alun Williams
This program incorporates code to save JPEG images written by the Independent JPEG Group.
I haven't made up the official long and boring licence agreement you won't read yet. Basically nothing is guaranteed and I accept no liability for anything that goes wrong when you install or use this program. I will do my best to help anyone who has problems and who asks me nicely, and will get extremely angry with anyone who threatens to sue me because they say it stopped their computer working or the screen saver gave them a migraine etc. If you install or use this program it is entirely at your own risk! I can probably afford a lawyer if you do try to sue, but there won't be any money left for you after I've paid him or her.
Please don't try to hack the Spirofractal program to avoid paying for it. If you do then you should probably value your time more highly, as it will probably take a while... If you must hack software then pick on someone already rich instead.