LDView Screen Saver

[Eric Albrecht]

I just got a new computer and had to install all my software again. I am running all the same versions including operating system (Windows 7 Professional 64-bit). I have the same 4.2.0.1 64-bit beta version of LDView that I had before, but I can't seem to get the screen saver to work. I made a copy called LDView.scr and put it in the System32 directory. It shows up on my list of screen savers, but when it actually runs I just get a blank black screen. LDView works fine when run manually. Any ideas?

On a related matter, I'm sure it is a low priority but it would be really cool if the screen saver supported multiple screens.

[Travis Cobbs]

There is a bug in the beta. I think if you copy LDView64.exe to LDView.exe (in the LDView directory), it will work.

[Eric Albrecht]

I actually tried that. First I renamed LDView64 to LDView in the main directory. Then I duplicated it and renamed it LDView.scr and put it in System32. I also tried System. It shows up in the screen saver list, but I still just get a black screen. Should I use the older 32 bit version as the screen saver?

[Travis Cobbs]

Did you use the installer? I just uninstalled my existing LDView, then installed using LDView64-4200B1.exe, and it worked fine, without copying any files at all. I'm running on Windows 8.1, but I wouldn't have expected that to "fix" anything that might have been broken in earlier Windows, since the LDView screensaver functionality was created long before Windows 8. I did check the box during installation to install LDView as a screensaver.

Also, when you bring up the settings for the "LDView 3D LEGO Models" screensaver, does it show <LDraw Dir>\models\car.dat as the model it's supposed to display?

[Eric Albrecht]

I started with the latest All-in-One installer at LDraw.org. This installed the 32-bit version. Then I downloaded and ran the 64-bit beta installer. After your post, I just ran it again with the same result. I renamed LDView64 as LDView and renamed the 32-bit version LDView32. Right now my directory has 3 exe files: LDView (4.2.0.1), LDView64 (4.2.0.1) and LDView32 (4.1.0.14). They all run fine. Only the screensaver doesn't work.

I am not trying to display car.dat. I changed it to another model in my own directory (which opens fine manually in LDView).

Note that I did not install LDView in the default location.

[Eric Albrecht]

I found the problem. I checked the registry entries and I found that the screen saver had no LDrawDir entry. Perhaps it assumes your LDraw directory is in the default location (which mine isn't). I duplicated the LDrawDir entry from the main program to the screen saver and now it works fine.