The 3D screensavers of Fred Cass, known as VRMan, kept running on modern Windows.
Late-1990s 3D screensavers
In the late 1990s, Fred Cass, who has gone by VRMan since the 1980s, wrote some of the first screensavers to put home 3D graphics cards to work. His 3D Christmas screensaver was billed as downloaded more than 4 million times.
This archive keeps his original files, shows how to run them on Windows 10 and 11, and adds something new: vrChristmas 2026, rebuilt from scratch for modern PCs and your browser.
This website was built to honor VRMan3D's work in 3D screensavers and keep it available for future generations to enjoy.
The original releases, unchanged. On Windows 10 and 11 each one also needs D3DRM.DLL in the same folder. Setup takes about two minutes.
A decorated tree with presents under a night sky. Ornaments, sleighs and strings of lights fly in through the snow and settle onto the branches, a toy train circles below, and the camera glides between them.
Up to 999 objects tugged around by up to 10 gravitrons, then through a wormhole into the next universe, to a techno soundtrack.
Radio-controlled planes fly an airshow over green hills with smoke trails, bombs and missiles. Fly one yourself with the keyboard.
Fireworks physics, launch tubes you can fire yourself, aerial and ground cameras, a cheering crowd and patriotic music.
Also needed on Windows 10 and 11: D3DRM.DLL (d3drm.zip, 174 KB). Checksums for every file: SHA256SUMS.txt.
VRMan's old website listed more programs than we had. These were saved by the Internet Archive and are shared here exactly as downloaded.
Freeware: a raging river with Christian fish swimming upstream, with music. VRMan wrote it in DarkBasicPro, PureBasic and C++ for DirectX 9. Its archived info page lists Windows 95 through 2003. The file is the original Windows installer.
VRManChristianFishScreensaver.msi 11.4 MB
SHA-256: 065a21b7e9a9ddc74ab2c7cf0072843c5f2298599f50c4e11a49d2f1640833e7
It scanned clean with Windows Defender. We could not get the original to draw on Windows 11, so we made a browser rebuild from its own models, textures and music. If you get the original working, please tell us how.
Still missing: 3D Swim (an aquarium), 3D SnowDesk, XmasDesk, a car screensaver, the full TidalForcesXL, and anything else VRMan sold. The Wayback Machine did not save those downloads. Know where a copy is?
"may be one of the coolest screen savers ever."
ZDNet, on 3D Tidal Forces
"The world famous VRMan Christmas Virtual Reality Screensaver - downloaded over 4 million times!"
TopShareware, on 3DChristmas
「3D Tidal Forces」は…見続けていると不思議な感覚に包まれていくスクリーンセーバー。
"A screensaver that, the longer you watch it, wraps you in a strange feeling."
窓の杜 (Mado no Mori, Impress Watch), Japan
"My two sons Joseph (8) and James (5) love the R/C Flight saver... when the screensaver starts they come running into the room to 'Shoot the rockets' and 'Drop the bombs'!"
Lanny Ritz, in a letter to VRMan
"After installing Tidal Forces I finally know what my 3D-graphics card is for ;)"
Stephan C. Schmidt
"This screensaver has become a family tradition since 1997."
Jay Winkel
Some of VRMan's work is still missing from this archive. If you have any of these on an old hard drive, a magazine cover CD or a backup disc, please get in touch.