[SOLVED] Screen saver stops working after playing game

[empirebeige]

I use an OLED TV as a monitor, and to avoid burn-in, I've set Windows 10 to run a screen saver after 2 minutes of inactivity. The problem is that the screen saver doesn't always come on. I've noticed this happening after playing a game. I wait several minutes and nothing happens. I need to restart the computer to get the screen saver to work again.

Any idea what might be preventing the screen saver from launching? Looks like the screen saver settings haven't been updated for a while in Windows 10, even though with OLEDs this feature has become useful again.

I have Windows 10 Home Edition, version 1909. Just did an update yesterday.

 

[Colif]

most people don't realise screensavers are a thing, and still in win 10. And you right, feature is sort of a dinosaur, it is more or less same from XP days... almost, you had more choices in the past (lol, I used to collect screensavers, that was a long time ago).

it seems that some games can turn the feature off while they play but may forget to turn it back on after. Witcher 3 is one such game. I found a fix for it in win 7 but I cannot guarantee it works in win 10

https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/55257-screensaver-turned-off-after-leaving-pc-game.html

 

[empirebeige]

Thanks for the tip. Though I tried it and I don't think it works. Maybe it doesn't apply to Windows 10. Indeed it seems like the screen saver function has been ignored by pretty much everyone, game developers included.

Do you know any good 3rd party screen savers that don't depend on the built-in Windows feature? I wouldn't mind having the screen saver turn on even during a game. It would be better than to leave a static image on screen for too long.

 

[Colif]

no real screensaver launchers that have been released in last 10 years. Windows did it so well people just made screensavers to integrate into it.

You could try a music visualiser like what used to work with winamp - I miss that llama

Or you can try Electric Sheep - https://electricsheep.org/ - I had that a few years back.