Plane9's major features compared to most other visualizer out there are

• Supports multiple monitors
• Screensaver that reacts to music
• A graphical editor where everything can be adjusted
• A editor where completely new scenes can be created and shared with the world
• The scene concept where one scene act as a screensaver/visualizer in itself
• It detects when the monitor goes into standby and pauses/shuts down to save power

• A computer that has a OpenGL 2.0 capable graphics card
• .Net 2.0

Spotify doesn't have any visualizer API however the screensaver can react to any sound that is created by your computer so indirectly it will work with spotify or any other sound generating program (Vista and Windows 7 only)

Yes

Yes, it's also using multiple monitors that it looks the best.

This is a limitation in Windows OpenGL. You can only get 3d effects from the monitor outputs of a single graphics card any extra physical cards needs to be blanked.

Windows media center 64 bit requires all visualizers to be true 64 bit programs. Plane9 is compatible with a 64 bit os but it isn't a real 64 bit program. Rewriting it as a true 64 bit program isn't planed for the foreseeable future

In, at least, Windows 7 you can left click on StartMenu->Programs->Plane9. Then right click on "Run Plane9 Screensaver" and choose properties. Click in the shortcuts field. Hold down for example Ctrl+Shift+S. Click ok. Now when you press Ctrl+Shift+S the screensaver should start

• Update your graphics card drivers to the latest
• Disable all postprocessing scenes
• Disable all foreground scenes so you only use standalone and background scenes
• If your on multiple monitors try to set 1 or more of them to "Blank this monitor" in the configuration window
• Select other scenes. For example MetaIce requires a fast graphics card while Electro should run fast on most machines
• If your using a Intel graphics card you might be affected by intels 'protection'. In short they disable hardware acceleration for screensavers. You could try to rename the "Plane9.scr" file in c:\windows to "Plane9.sCr". Then select another screensaver in the screensaver selection box and then choose Plane9 again

The visualizer periodically check if any new version has been released. No information other than your current version number is sent when doing this.

Plane9 also periodically sends anonymous usage information to help me improve the program. Nothing is sent that can personally identify you or your machine. The data that is sent over is

• A random installid that identifies your installation but not you or your machine
• The type of graphics card you have
• How many times, how long and how fast your machine runs the different scenes/editor/config/screensaver
• How many monitors there are and the size of your desktop
• How much memory your machine has

A few example of what the data is used for and why it really helps me if you allowed it to be sent

• If a specific scene is viewed a lot I will make more of that type of scene
• If for example the windows media player plugin isn't used much I will focus on working on other parts of the visualizer
• If a specific graphis card is used a lot I can do specific compatibility tests on just that card
• If I see that a specific scene is very slow, but liked, I could optimize that specific scene
• If most users have multiple monitors I will try to improve multi monitor support even further
• If most users have support for OpenGL 3.0+ I could build more scene that utilize this or change over so the whole visualizer requires it

If you want to disable both or any one of these checks you can do so at any time by going to Config->About

The current aggregated statistics can be seen on the Plane9 statistics page

Make sure you maximise the volume in the playing application and use windows master volume to change sound volume (Can usualy be found on the bottom right of you desktop)

Yes by pressing F9. The editor also have a screenshot icon on the icon bar. The taken screenshots can be found by going to StartMenu->All programs->Plane9->Plane9 User Data->Screenshots

Fraps has been reported to work. KKapture should also work. Lastly there is a unsupported built in system to record movies.

• Install Lagarith Lossless Video Codec
• Start the screensaver using "Plane9.exe -r movie.avi scenefile.p9s". Screensize is fixed and can't be changed.
• Using memcoder you can then encode that avi movie to for example a flv using "mencoder.exe movie.avi -o movie.flv -of lavf -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=flv:vbitrate=512:mbd=2:mv0:trell:v4mv:cbp:last_pred=3 -aspect 4:3"
• Using "mencoder.exe -forceidx -oac copy -ovc x264 -x264encopts preset=slow:crf=19 -o scene.out.avi scene.in.avi" you can create a HQ video for uploading to youtube.