What is the difference? Out of curiosity...

So here goes the inquiry:

What is the difference between:

a. Stardock DeskScapes or Dream: http://dream.wincustomize.com/ (Date of Creation: 2006)

b. Microcyb DreamRender: http://www.dreamrender.com/?m=about (Date of Creation: 2003)

From my point of view they both do the same work, producing animated wallpapers. Only thing is that DreamRender works in XP (and maybe won't be upgraded for Vista) and gives the user the ability to create any kind of dream (shapes, environments, textures, colors, particles, 2D, 3D, video, webcam).

Also both programs have the same .dream filetype extension. Does that create any conflict between them? I have DreamRender for a long time and just need to know for future reference.

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Well I guess the only way you can find out if they are compatible is to try one on Vista. I wouldn't hold your breath though.

As far as I understand, the dreams in DreamRender utilize the CPU heavily. The full version of Dreamscene will supposedly put all that work back on to the graphics card GPU and memory (or so they promise). That will make a big difference in performance right off the bat. Not to mention that Dreamscenes with Dreamscape will be able to do dynamic content. Anyone that tells you they are "the same thing" is somewhat misinformed. As for the ability of Dream Render to do textures, 2D, etc., it is just a matter of file/format conversion to convert all those to wmv, avi, mpeg, etc. for Dreamscenes/Dreammaker.
Now....as for MS "ripping off" the idea and format (*.dream) as I've heard some folks say......Maybe. Perhaps. Wouldn't shock me. Wouldn't be the first time MS did that. They look around and see what people want and incorporate it into their products. Welcome to Business World. I wouldn't say that Dream Render was exactly an original idea either. Animated desktops and screensaver-to-wallpaper programs have been around since Active Desktop was made available. Dream Render is a nice program with some VERY good to not-so-good "dreams", but at the expense of the CPU (as well as all the other animated wallpaper programs I've tried). Still....if you have the cycles to spare, it's probably one of the better animated wallpaper programs out there. A good alternative to folks who don't want or can't afford Ultimate....just have a good CPU and system memory on hand.

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Oh thank you for the info.

Well i didn't imply that they rip the file format, either way that is not illegal. I just was curious whether .dreams would work with both programs. Now i know they don't.

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