Jason Dunn
06-15-2006, 03:00 PM
<a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce1.jpg"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce1small.jpg" /></a><br /><br />G-Force Platinum is a one-trick pony, but it's such a pretty, shiny pony I can't help but really like it. ;-) G-Force comes from SoundSpectrum Inc., the people who brought us Geiss and Milkdrop, two very popular plugins from my Winamp-era days. G-Force is a visualization tool for Windows XP, and I sought it out because the default visualizations included with Windows Media Player 10 (and Media Center Edition 2005 by default) are lame. They're so incredibly lame, it's shocking how bad they really are. <br /><br />They weren't even cool when they first came out, but I guess when you're giving away a free media player you can't license a cool visualization. But I digress…I wanted an impressive visualization tool to display on my 26" LCD TV connected to my MCE 2005 machine that pumps out the tunes while I work on my main computer. I wanted something to create stunning images, and my search led me to G-Force.<!><br /><br />G-Force Platinum has a lot of different functions and features, too many to go into. Suffice it to say that most people are simply going to install it, activate it under Windows Media Player 10, and leave it at that. There's a visualization sidebar that I can't imagine using on a regular basis, and more tweaks and options than I can shake a stick at. The functionality of visualizations depends heavily on the functionality of Windows Media Player 10, and by all accounts, WMP10 is severely lacking in the ways it allows visualizations to function. For instance, under MCE2005 when G-Force Platinum is running, switching to a new visualization setting requires G-Force to restart, which shows the logo again. I contacted SoundSpectrum, and apparently this a limitation of WMP10 that they can't do anything about - but I think they could have the logo fade faster, and not display the warning text at the bottom. I'd prefer to be able to switch visualizations without seeing a big splash logo every time.<br /><br />Visualizations, just like most supermodels, are all about looks. So here are some screenshots of G-Force Platinum I took one day while listening to some tunes. Click each image for a full-sized 1280 x 768 version.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce2.jpg"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce2small.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce3.jpg"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce3small.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce4.jpg"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce4small.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce5.jpg"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce5small.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce6.jpg"><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/gforce6small.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Visualizations are performance hungry, but I'm able to use G-Force Platinum on a AMD Athlon 3500+ with a 256 MB GeForce 6600 (not a powerful card by any means), displaying the visualisations at 1280 x 768 and 32 bit colour, while still hitting a buttery-smooth 32 frames per second. Not bad at all!<br /><br />G-Force Platinum costs $30 USD, which is a little pricey for something that just looks pretty – lucky for you, they're offering Digital Media Thoughts readers a <a href="http://www.soundspectrum.com/g-force/purchase_platinum.html?code=DMTXBKHWEM&src=DMT&link=purchase">15% discount coupon</a> [Affiliate], dropping the price to $25.50. Whether or not you think it's worth the money depends on how much you like pretty visualizations. I know I sure do!<br /><br /><i>Jason Dunn owns and operates <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media Inc.</a>, a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and he loves pretty swirly things put to music.</i>