In this material we want to present the most beautiful and pleasing to the eye screensavers for Windows 10, which can delight you with their originality and appearance in those moments when your PC is inactive for a long time.
At one time, screensavers were very popular and could be found on almost every Windows design website. Today the fashion for them has largely passed. This is due to the elementary lack of necessity, which disappeared a long time ago with the advent of modern monitors.
Therefore, this selection has rather aesthetic and nostalgic purposes: perhaps some of the users, like us, will be pleased to see/remember something beautiful, since some screensavers are a real work of art. By the way, despite the title, screensavers should work in any version of Windows, although we tested screensavers for Windows 10.
Alas, most, despite their advanced age by computer standards, will one way or another ask you to register, but all of them have trial versions that offer many features and for free.
How to change the screensaver in Windows 10?
First, let’s clarify one important point: in the “Personalization” interface in Windows 10, unlike previous versions of the OS, there is no section with screensavers itself, which is why it may even seem that this function has been cut out from the system. But that's not true.
Using the built-in taskbar search, start typing "screensaver" or "change screensaver" and you will see the following result:
Clicking on it will open a window that is familiar from previous versions of Windows, where you can enable, change the Windows 10 screen saver or change its settings:
One more detail: we marked the link with an arrow in the screenshot above. You may need to walk through it to increase the time after which the system automatically turns off the display. The default is 10 minutes.
If for some reason you may need a screen saver for a long time, then the interval for turning off the display will have to be increased, fortunately this can be done in just a couple of clicks:
Mechanical Clock – screensaver with a mechanical clock
We will start our short review with one very famous screensaver, which you could well see on various working devices in computer stores. This is Mechanical Clock - a clock screensaver with amazing attention to detail, simulating a clock mechanism that always displays the exact time.
This screen saver, like most screensavers for Windows 10 in our review, is far from new, but the highly detailed, literally magical picture still looks attractive to this day.
An unusual effect is created by the smooth movement of all, even the most distant elements in this mechanism.
The sound part also did not disappoint: in addition to the usual “tick-tock”, the live clock strikes every 60 minutes. This, as well as the effect volume level, can be adjusted in the parameters.
By the way, this, like some other screensavers in the review, can also be used as animated wallpaper on the Windows desktop.
Christmas Evening – New Year's screensaver
Christmas Evening is a very cute screensaver for Windows 10 on the theme of Christmas and New Year. The picture shows us a cozy corner where in the center of the table there is a miniature clock, stylized as a snow-covered house, which is surrounded by gifts, New Year's toys, candles and other decorations.
On the street, which is visible through the windows of the room, it is snowing, there is a decorated fir tree with blinking garlands, and passers-by are walking, wrapped in warm scarves. Since the graphics of this screensaver are very good, there is even a slider in the settings to weaken it, which will be useful for the weakest Windows 10 computers.
In turn, the audio series contains well-known New Year and Christmas themes, accompanied by the neat sound of a ticking clock. This screen saver can also be used for your desktop.
Helios Screensaver - soap bubbles in Windows
If you don’t need fancy, “heavy” screensavers like those above and below, then pay attention to a screen saver called Helios. It is free, weighs less than 300 kb, and is similar in style to the animations built into previous versions of Windows. It just looks a little more interesting.
When launched, elegant soap bubbles begin to form smoothly against a dark background, with many beautiful particles. Some, changing shape and size, slowly flow into others and vice versa, and the camera sometimes looks deep into this action.
Helios slows down and speeds up, unobtrusively changing the perspective and viewing angle. The effect of iridescent color on the bubbles themselves looks very unusual, making the screensaver more attractive.
Note that Helios, unlike other participants in the review, must be manually placed in the Windows\System32 folder. This is where screensavers are stored in Windows 10. Helios may also noticeably freeze if you do not have the graphics drivers installed/updated.
Marine Aquarium – aquarium screensaver for Windows 10
One of the most attractive types of computer screensavers is, of course, live aquariums with swimming fish. They are represented in our selection by the third version of Marine Aquarium - one of the most famous virtual 3D aquariums.
In the free version (enter “testfish” in the window that appears), alas, only six types of fish are available to the user. More than twenty more will open only after paid registration. In addition to the usual inhabitants of the aquarium, starfish and a moray eel living in the cave will also be available there.
The aquarium camera is not static: it smoothly moves left and right, in addition, it can be moved using the corresponding keys on the keyboard. In the settings you can adjust the music volume, bubbles, frame rate, total number and specific fish, as well as background colors. Here's the video of the intro:
In addition, you can select a playlist of your music, and replace the developer’s logo with a digital or analog clock.
Dream Aquarium – another live aquarium with swimming fish
Another stunningly beautiful aquarium screensaver for your screen. This virtual world also offers several different landscapes to choose from. By default they alternate, but you can choose one if you wish.
Settings are opened by pressing Enter directly in the splash screen itself. Here you can add and remove aquarium inhabitants. There are 26 fish to choose from, plus the ability to create your own fish with a unique coloring, and there's also a cute fiddler crab.
The remaining settings allow you to adjust the aquarium lighting, air bubbles and fish feeding. A noteworthy option is that it attaches the camera to the general view of the aquarium or dynamically moves it behind the fish. I was amused by the ability to set your own image as the background of the screensaver. So we made the title picture for this text.
Icy Christmas Screensaver – ice on the computer screen
Another type of screensaver is different in that it adds all sorts of effects to your desktop when nothing happens to it for a long time. There are many such screensavers, but, unfortunately, since most of them were made quite a long time ago, some are simply incompatible with Windows 10.
Fortunately, this does not apply to Icy Christmas, which freezes your screen. An ice crust gradually begins to appear from each corner, which slowly covers the entire space. Despite its simplicity, the screensaver has a lot of parameters: the appearance of the ice can be customized in detail, it is even possible to specify the direction of the light rays.
By default, the Windows 10 screen saver works with the desktop, but in the settings you can instead set an image or a set of images (for example, photos) that will be covered with ice while the computer is idle.
Watery Desktop 3D – rain on your desktop
This screensaver also affects your desktop in Windows 10, only it does not freeze, but floods it with rain or even submerges it under water. The effects - raindrops and waves, we note, are made very high quality. Obviously, for this reason, the options even have the ability to weaken their visual performance.
Initially, the screensaver launches a random action, but you can choose something specific. You can choose from light or heavy rain, three types of waves and storm. You can also adjust the strength of the water vibrations themselves. We repeat, everything looks very realistic, take a look for yourself:
The Lost Watch – watch under water
The Lost Watch is one of the most beautiful screensavers in our review, not only in terms of graphics, but also in general the idea itself. Here is the cutest pocket watch with a chain that ended up under water. Droplets of water fall from above, and tree leaves slowly float by.
The watch, despite its original location, always shows the exact time. They even have a working second hand. The current date and day of the week are also displayed.
In the settings, you can specify the volume level, lower the quality of graphics for not the most powerful computers, select your own composition for background music and set a screensaver on the Windows 10 desktop. A particularly interesting option: you can add a miniature pendant under the clock, where the photo you have chosen will be displayed.
In the settings, in addition to the standard options for volume level and graphics quality, it is possible to select the type of fireplace. There is a choice of stone, traditional brick and a special Victorian style fireplace (pictured above). Of course, you can put your own music and use it on your desktop.
Photo! 3D Album – unusual slideshows
The final participant in our review is not even a screensaver, but a full-fledged creative application, the result of which, among other things, can be used as a screensaver. Photo! 3D Album offers several virtual locations - galleries, parks, beaches, where stands can display various paintings in neat frames.
These pictures can be images from your computer, be it any drawings or photographs. At your discretion, you can fit them into the free frames that are hung around the locations. For convenience, there are options that “adjust” the picture so that it looks better in the frame.
Once everything is ready, you can launch any of the virtual worlds to which you added your images. Agree, this is many times more interesting than a regular slide show.
By default, the program “walks” there itself, looking at your illustrations, but by pressing F1 you will transfer control into your hands. This will almost resemble a computer game, where WSAD is used for movement, Shift for acceleration, etc. If you use Photo! 3D Album as a screensaver, then in its parameters you will see several additional options.
Conclusion
As we already noted at the beginning, traditional screensavers are practically a thing of the past today, since they do not have specific functions, and on modern portable devices, when the user is inactive, it is more reasonable to simply turn off the screen rather than waste the battery on a screensaver, especially if the latter itself also consumes a lot of resources.
On desktop PCs, where screen savers came to us, there are no such restrictions. However, screensavers still disappear, which is clearly seen in Windows 10, where screensaver settings are not even included in the main personalization options.
On the other hand, during the popularity of screensavers, several such good and creative works were made that users cannot forget about them to this day. We showed ten such memorable screen savers in this material. We hope you enjoyed it.
