SereneScreen F.A.Q.

Freezing problems have been known to occur on the iMac DV. Marine Aquarium does not cause this problem, it happens to many 3D products. It appears to be a problem in the Rage128VR chipset. Apple is researching the problem.

To copy and paste the keycode, do the following:

1. Hold down the mouse button and pass the cursor over the keycode. This will highlight the code. Be sure not to grab any extra characters or leave any out.

2. Press the Command Key (Open Apple) and the "C" key at the same time. This will COPY the keycode.

3. Start Marine Aquarium.

4. The first time you run Marine Aquarium the registration window will appear. Copy and paste your keycode into the registration space to avoid any possible input errors (Some characters can be easily mixed up i.e. the letter O and zero, capital I and the number one, etc.) and press enter. The registration window may not appear if you have not quit (not just closed) the System Preferences application.

5. Put the cursor in the registration window and click the mouse button once Press Command Key and "V" at the same time. This will PASTE the keycode. Be sure to eliminate any spaces before or after the code so you can have a clean paste.

6. Press the Enter key. The program should start right up.

To use the CD version of the program, the computer you are installing to needs to have a CD-ROM drive. See System Requirements. When first activated the program looks for the CD to unlock the full version of the program. This is true of the free updates we offer on our site as well. Networking or linking computers will not work for this purpose, but a portable CD-ROM drive will suffice.

The "Marine Aquarium 2.6.saver" file should be placed into the Hard Drive/Library/Screen Savers folder. This error occurs when you try to place Marine Aquarium into one of the other ~Library/Screen Savers folders on your system.

Uninstalling Marine Aquarium is as simple as dragging the Marine Aquarium 2.6.saver file and Marine Aquarium 2.6 application into the trash. If you would like a more thorough uninstall procedure, carefully follow the instructions below:

1. From the Finder, go to File and select "Find"

2. Search in "Local disks" and type "com.prolific" into the text field of (not the quotes, just what is inside them).

3. Click the Search button.

4. Drag each file that you find into the Trash and empty it. Empty the trash by holding down the mouse button on the trash in the dock for a few seconds until the "Empty Trash" menu pops up.

5. Close the Search Results window.

6. From the Finder, go to File and select "Find" again.

7. Search in "Local disks" and type "Marine Aquarium" into the text field of (not the quotes, just what is inside them).

8. Click the Search button.

9. Drag each file you find into the trash and empty it.

10. This will clean your system of any Marine Aquarium data.

All of the options below are found in the Marine Aquarium preferences under the "Settings" tab. To bring up the menu, press the spacebar on your keyboard while Marine Aquarium 2.6 is running.

• Limit Frame Rate (FPS) - Forces the frame rate (animation speed) of the Marine Aquarium to the frequency you select. If Marine Aquarium is jerking, or running slowly, you may need to reduce the frame rate below the default 62 by using the slider bar.


• Shimmer - Controls some of the animation procedure regarding light. Should be reduced or turned off if the animation is slow or jerky. The highest setting causes the reflections off the fish bodies to be calculated every frame, the middle setting causes them to be split across frames, and the lowest value causes them to be calculated only once.


• Show FPS - Displays Frames Per Second (animation speed) in the Marine Aquarium tank.


• Economize Video Memory - Controls some video memory requirements. It should be used when frame rates are well below 30 fps. Reduces hardware support for depth sorting (distance from the screen) and thereby reduces the amount of video memory required.

• Alternating - Switches back and forth between using the clock and not.
• Classic - Shows the normal Marine Aquarium coral arrangement with no clock.
• Clock - Shows the Marine Aquarium crystal clock and all of its features.

• Lights sliders - Manual settings for the lighting, Foreground and Background, when Automatic lighting is off.


• Length of Day slider - Determines the length, from light to dark, of the lighting cycle when Automatic lighting is on. Can be set from 3 minutes to 30 minutes.

• Column - Activates/Deactivates bubble column. Bubble sound will still be present and is controlled by the sound settings below.


• Volume slider - Controls bubble volume.


• Always on - Bubble sound will always be heard when the Aquarium is running.


• When active - Bubble sound will only be heard when the Aquarium window is visible. Helpful when Goldfish Aquarium is in Windowed mode (see "F" hotkey above.)


• Off - Turns off bubble sound entirely.

All of the options below are found in the Marine Aquarium 2.6 menu under the "Clock" tab. To bring up the menu, press the spacebar on your keyboard while Marine Aquarium 2.6 is running.

Analog Clock

• Show Day/Date/Time - Places a date stamp in the stones at the bottom-right of the Aquarium.


• Show Seconds - Adds a moving second hand to the Analog clock.


• Show Second Marks - Adds second marks to the Analog clock face.

Calendar

• Show Time - Adds a small digital clock under the month title. If this option is unchecked the next two options will not work.


• Show Seconds - Adds a seconds counter to the end of the clock above.


• Show AM PM - Adds an AM or PM time indicator to the clock above.


• First Day of the Week Dropdown Menu - Changes the first day of the week to the day you select.

Day - Date - Time

• Show Seconds - Adds a seconds counter to the end of the clock.


• Show AM PM - Adds an AM or PM time indicator to the clock.

Misc

• 24 Hours - Changes all digital clocks to 24 hour (Military) time format.


• Default Clock Dropdown Menu - This list lets you choose which Default Clock will be shown when the "Cycle Clocks" option below is unchecked.


• Cycle Clocks - Marine Aquarium cycles through all Clocks. Cycle time is determined by the slider bar setting below.


• Delay Slider - The time, in seconds, it takes for the Clocks to change.

Set Time button - Opens the Windows Date and Time Properties so you can set the time and date for your system.

Slow or frozen graphics are most often caused by low video resources. The best way to improve performance is to complete ALL of the following steps:

1. First switch your color resolution from millions to thousands of colors.

2. If your display colors are already set to thousands of colors then check the "Economize video memory" checkbox in Marine Aquarium preferences. If you are trying to drive multiple monitors from one video card then both steps may be necessary.

3. Go to Marine Aquarium Preferences menu and reduce the "Shimmer" setting.

4. Also, turn off the bubble column and reduce the number of fish.

After finishing all of these steps, take each setting back to default to see where the problem is solved.

Freezing problems have been known to occur on the iMac DV. Our program does not cause this problem, it happens to many 3D products. It appears to be a problem in the Rage128VR chipset. Apple is researching the problem.

If none of the above fixes work for you, please email us at service@serenscreen.com and include the Frames Per Second that Marine Aquarium is running at (This can be found by pressing the "S" key while the program is running.) and an Apple System Report (ASP):

ASP for OS10.2 and higher
1. Choose the Apple Menu, "About this Mac" item.
2. Click on the "More Info..." button in the window that pops up. The Apple System Profiler will launch.
3. From the "File" menu chose the "Save..." item.
4. Name the file and Save it.
5. Compress it with stuffit or some other common compression tool.
6. E-mail it to us with a description of your problem.

This can happen if your Energy Saver options are set to put the computer or display to sleep at the same time Marine Aquarium is set to activate. To check this, do the following:

1. Click on the Apple Menu and select your System Preferences.

2. When the System Preferences window comes up, click on the "Energy Saver" icon.

3. Check to be sure that the "Put computer to sleep..." and "Use separate time to put monitor..." options are set beyond the time that you have Marine Aquarium active. In other words, if you have Marine Aquarium set to come on in five minutes, the Energy Saver settings will have to be longer than five. We recommend at least fifteen minutes between the two settings.

Pressing the "F" key will switch Marine Aquarium to full screen mode.

The multiple monitor function on Marine Aquarium only works with the screen saver mode not the application. You can change the multiple monitor settings by going to System Preferences/Desktop & Screen Savers (Screen Effects in OS10.2 Jaguar) and clicking on the OPTIONS button.

A single image at the higher resolutions would be about 7 megabytes (for example 1920bits x 1200bits x3). Our whole program, with fish and code and art is about 4 megabytes. About 95% of our current users do not have such an amazing display. So sadly, as of yet, we're sorry to say that the product will begin to show its resolution on such high-end equipment.