Get it here: http://electricsheep.googlecode.com/files/electricsheep-2.7b27.exe
Download and double click to install. You can run it either by waiting for your screensaver to come on, or double clicking on the desktop icon, then clicking the "Run" button.
There are new algorithms to pick which sheep to play, settable in the config file. We haven't decided the defaults yet. Please experiment and let us know what you think. For example try setting AutoMedianLevel to true, PlayCountDecayZ to 50, NormalInterval to 60, and RandomMedianLevel to true. Or some subset of these.
If you have trouble, see the help page.
System Requirements: Windows XP or better. The screensaver may require the latest graphics drivers to run properly. If it doesn't run after installation, check your computer manufacturer's website. If it crashes instantly even with the latest drivers, then try turning on Direct Draw mode in the advanced settings.
If it's still not working, get the diagnostic program GPU-Z and send us the output from it and DxDiag and your log file (on XP look in C:\Document and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ElectricSheep, or on Vista C:\ProgramData\ElectricSheep).
See comments below for how to set a proxy.

My sheep are running very slow
thnks
If you press F4 what does it
Easiest Way to Find Config
I too have noticed some of my sheep moving slowly. I think it is when I have background processes running (AV scans, Defrag scans, iTunes being iTunes, etc.) Try killing all background processes and see if that makes the sheep move faster.
Also, what "Display Mode" are you running? I have to use Normal at work or else the frame rate is horribly slow. But that is due to my hardware, not ES. Once I tried setting the Display Mode to Cubic, and ES automatically changed it to Normal because it was moving so slow.
Wow - this thread is dead
development is going fine, we
Just messin with ya
Need more info on config settings
the new settings should be in
2.7b27 released
changelog:
new config file settings: http://electricsheep.wikispaces.com/Config+File+Settings to reduce repetition etc.
for readonly instances, reread the flock and the playcounts file and recompute median ranks.
do not exit on alt-tab.
mouse move does not exit when in fullscreen when run as app (still exits during screensaving).
better status reporting.
expoential backoff downloading if no new sheep.
splash logo shown if there are no sheep must move after an hour.
dev wiki (http://electricsheep.wikispaces.com/Development) updated with build instructions for VS2010 express.
windows gui cosmetics
thanks cd81!
Hi Spot. Many many thanks
I chose:
["RandomMedianLevel"]=true,
["AutoMedianLevel"]=true,
because I wanted some variety. I would normally set the median level high to avoid skipping (there are more edges to choose from) and because I don't want to see newly downloaded sheep so much that I get sick of them, but since I have 800 sheep AutoMedianLevel would put it pretty low. HOWEVER, I thought I'd add RandomMedianLevel to mix things up. A a result, I know that the average median level it chooses will be significantly higher than the AutoMedianLevel that it chooses.
["PlayCountDecayZ"]=60,
["PlayEvenly"]=100,
["PlayCountDecayY"]=2000,
I thought about these in terms of half-lives. If I have 800 sheep, that means that the average sheep will be played 2.5 times before the decay factor of 60% is imposed. By a rough estimate, steady state will be achieved when the average sheep has about 2.5/.4=6.25 plays. I want to keep the 6.25 number really low because I get sick of seeing new sheep repeated too frequently.
What does PlayEvenly do? Do these settings make sense, or am I missing something important?
Including a constant
You could either do it as:
NewPlayCount := OldPlayCount * PlayCountDecayZ - PlayCountConstant
OR
NewPlayCount := OldPlayCount * ( PlayCountDecayZ - PlayCountConstant )
Personally, I think that people would find the latter one more intuitive, even though it isn't the standard format for linear transformations.
I think that doing it this way would add a lot. Without a low PlayCountDecayZ, the playcounts get quite high so that new sheep are played until you are sick of them. However, whenever PlayCountDecayZ is applied, gap between the most played animations and the least playd animations narrows by (100-PlayCountDecayZ)%. As a result, the animations with the more advantageous incoming edges still get played more frequently. Including a constant term in the transformation would allow us to decrease playcounts without narrowing the playcount gap between the most played animations and the least played animations.
Thanks again for the wonderful software....
I don't understand your
Including a constant
Sure, it doesn't do anything to the animations that I have already downloaded. My concern is rather that when new animations appear, they have playcounts that are much lower than the already downloaded animations. (As background, my perspective is as someone for whom the screensaver has been running for a while, so that playcounts are quite high.) As a result, when new animations are downloaded, they get played over and over again until I recognize them immediately and am sick of them. I want to see more of my beloved older sheep! If we lower the playcounts of the existing animations by subtracting a constant, this solves the problem.
To summarize, my basic reply is that adding a constant to all of the playcounts doesn't do anything to effect the ordering between the existing animations. However, because new animations come in with a playcount of 0, it will greatly affect where they fit in the ordering.
Another solution to preventing the very heavy repetition of the new sheep for people who run the screensaver a lot is what you included in this release. Rather than subtracting a constant, you multiply playcounts by a number less than 1. I prefer subtracting a constant because suppose I have an two animation. One of them, because of the structure of edges, has run 100 times. The other doesn't have as favorable edges and hasn't been in my library as long, so it has only run 40 times. The second one, (let's call it the runt) must be played 60 time before parity is achieved. I like that, because I want to see it many times to make up for the number of times I've seen the other one, which I'm probably tired of. If we multiply the playcounts by a number less than one, say .5, then the gap between the runt and the other one (alpha sheep, perhaps? :-) ) narrows from 60 to 30. I don't want the gap to decay like this, because parity will be achieved with far fewer plays of the runt. I'd much rather that we simply subtracted 30 playcounts from both of them, so that the playcounts become 10 for the runt and 70 for the alpha (gap is still 60). That way the runt will need to be played heavily AND the new sheep will also get played heavily. However, the alpha, whom I'm sick of, won't get played as heavily.
> "In the 2nd, replacing a constant by the difference between two constants changes nothing."
Sorry, my hands were on autopilot. I meant
NewPlayCount := PlayCountDecayZ * ( OldPlayCount - PlayCountConstant )
It's isomorphic to the first version, but I think it might be more intuitive for people to see that "PlayCountConstant" should be between 0 and the average number of times each animation gets played between the PlayCountDecay equation being applied.
For simplicity, you can always constrain the PlayCounts to be positive. I.e.
NewPlayCount := Max(PlayCountDecayZ * ( OldPlayCount - PlayCountConstant ), 0)
That seems like a good way to avoid bugs.
Also, to keep the system stable, people would probably want to set PlayCountDecayZ strictly less than 1 if PlayCountConstant was positive, so that any weirdness decays over time.
Anyone who messes with config files had better be both smart and careful, but if they do these two things, this should compensate for any errors that they make.
Sorting
the new algorithms aren't
For example try setting AutoMedianLevel to true, PlayCountDecayZ to 50, NormalInterval to 60, and RandomMedianLevel to true. Or some subset of these.
PlayCountDecayZ 0-100 The
Can You explain this a bit more? - I find it confusing.. This isn't decay.. is it? - It's multiplication? O.o
It's a percent, which means
50 = 50/100 = 1/2 means the playcounts are divided by 2.
Do I understand it?
example; if the playcount is 120 - and the Z value = 80,
The new playcount will be 80 percent of 120? (96)
Which means it's not the actual rate of decay, but the number that remains, or rather, the inverse number of decay..?
Inverse, as it is that what remains, not what is removed. 20 percent is removed, yet the number is 80. (combined 100).
your example is correct.
eat drink and sheep...
thank you :)
b26 released
1) Fixed renderer problems (black screen after device reset)
2) Fixed log bug causing crash (now renderer will correctly revert from linear/bicubic to normal if needed)
3) Fixed spinCache widget not working
4) Added DX redistributables (this should fix the problem some windows 7 users had)
5) Fixed tiny leak at exit in DirectX mode
Horrorified
hello, sorry i have no idea
if you can explain i would be happy to talk about what's upsetting you. first of all, who are you?
Much lower framerate
This lower framerate is only on my work desktop PC. My laptop seems to be running great on b26 (55-70 fps).
Specs:- nVidia GeForce FX 5200 dual screen (but only displaying ES on Single screen).
- ForceWare ver: 175.19, (I had issues at home with the latest nVidia drivers)
- Graphics RAM: 256 MB,
- DX ver: 9.0c
Any suggestions?Could you perform an
DX9 piecewise cubic
I am going to do a reboot and retest - then I'll do an uninstall and clean b25 install and see where we are then.
Ok what we think happened is
You are so right
My home PC - with a nVidia 7600 - is doing cubic at 60+ fps without problem. "It's gotta be the shoes."
Thanks for your help on this. I'm just off my nut.
Einy
Rendering
1080p
You are seeing fewer frames
Thumbs up
Windows Client v2.7b25, dual monitor
Downloading Disabled Read Only Mode
how did you run it when it
Repeating SHEEP
If you click "run" after
how are you running it when you press F2 and seeing this message?
Won't start whatsoever :(
Please install the latest DX
Please install the latest DX ???
Link leads to latest 2/5/2010
Fixed!
no worries i just added it
btw the disk space widget is indeed broken, thanks for the report, it will also be fixed in the next release. in the meantime you can edit the config file directly.
Disk space widget...
it works but it's not labeled
Crashing without directdraw
If I don't select DirectDrawMode, it crashes with what appears to be a jump through a null pointer.
Graphics card is a Nvidia GeForce 9300 GE
The driver is current: 196.21
OS is Windows XP pro, sp3.
I have the dr watson log and the user.dmp if that will help
More details
please try isntalling the