I had that service running, but no more. Not sure when I'll feel like testing whether that fixes this issue, though. (Screen lockups are kinda scary.)

What's working vs. not?  Specifically, do the Desktop Earth and Planktonic dreams work?

Same for me: Several different mpeg based dreams all caused the same problem, "Vintage Dream" on the other hand works fine. Since its finally springtime I cannot convince myself to try "Winter Snow". Are there any other fully procedural dreams out there?

This is true.  What specifically happens when trying to play video dreams?

pinkall's description of the problem is identical to my own, minus the sound stuttering issue, but I suspect that'd happen too based on the 'stuttery' behavior of the mouse cursor.

Something else I notice often when this happens is that it's a slow death.  Sometimes the screen will just blank out suddenly, but I've seen the PC *massively* lag (even the mouse cursor movement lags, and that almost never happens when a simple application is blowing up) and it gets progressively worse for a few seconds until a total screen lock up sets in.

Should we try checking for updated drivers?  Part of the reason I'm hesitant is reports of new problems with 'the latest' drivers.

Okay, I figured it out.  Strangely enough, it was a driver issue.  BUT it wasn't due to a WRONG driver - it turns out that NVIDIA's latest driver for my series of GPU (the GeForce 8800 GTS 320) is buggered up.  I actually found the answer when playing NeverWinter Nights 2 gave me bad textures/textures not loading/geometry issues.  The 196.75, 197.13, and 197.45 drivers all have texture-mapping bugs.  So I rolled back to the 196.21 and that fixed NWN2, so then I figured, "Hey!  What if...?", and it was.

Go bloody figure.  Where's the love, NVIDIA?

EDIT:  Bugger, bugger, bugger!  Now I get a DIFFERENT crash!  The screen turns freezes, or it turns black and THEN freezes!  Jesus bloody christ, I'm done with deskscapes.

Well I have the same problem. I installed the nvidia update for my 8800 gtx and descapes does not work.  Right now I have parts of two deskscapes visible on my desktop.  I'm also getting freezing with, at times flashing on my monitor.  I did roll back, but it did not solve the problem.

Bugger indeed.  Now it sounds completely identical to my symptoms using driver 195.62.  (Except for the 'done with Deskscapes' part, I'll wait for a hardware upgrade, driver patch (har), or just get by with non-video dreams for now.)  Apparently there's little reason to try updating since 197.45 is the latest still... especially with NWN2 issues in those latest drivers... bleh.

Checking now...

btw, if DeskScapes is supposed to use the GPU instead of your CPU, why would I be seeing 10-15% usage on one of my cores when running something like a waterfall-loop?  Shouldn't it be almost 0?

Which is no shock as the issue appears to be with the nvidia drivers.

We have reported it to them, but I cannot promise they will fix it.

So anyway.... the new card is here.... GTX 480.  (Apparently, I guess, I went for the current 'best' (?) card without 100% realizing it, ah well!)  DS is running nice so far after about 2 days.  Nvidia can take their old 8800 drivers and stick it!