Poker deal: cards on felt as your screensaver

Cards sliding and spinning across green baize have a quiet rhythm that suits an idle screen surprisingly well. Poker deal in Screensavers by Zaweba shows playing cards dealt onto a dark felt table, in a different layout each time. Older cards fade gently into the cloth, so the table never becomes cluttered and there's always room for the next hand.

The cards are drawn in code by the app, faces and backs alike, rather than taken from pictures. It belongs to the night pack, with its dark table and a few bright moving things.

How the deal looks

Each card slides and spins onto the table, the way a dealer might flick it across. The layouts change from deal to deal, so you see different arrangements rather than the same five cards in a row every time. As new cards land, the older ones fade into the felt. That fading is what makes it work as a screensaver: you get a steady flow of movement with no build-up of mess.

It's a good fit for anyone who plays cards, for a games room PC, or simply for someone who likes the look of a card table. The movement is calm, and the felt keeps most of the screen dark.

Deal speed and felt colour

Deal speed sets how quickly cards come out. A slow deal is relaxed, one card landing at a time, with time to see each. A fast deal feels more like a busy table. For a screen you sit near all day, a slower deal is easier company.

Felt colour has four choices: green, blue, red and black. Green is the classic card table. Blue is cooler and looks modern. Red is warm and bold. Black is the darkest and most dramatic, and suits a dim room or an OLED screen where you want as much black as possible.

Card backs

Card back decides the design on the back of each card. You can have a red lattice, a blue rosette, a green sunburst or black and gold, or choose different each deal, which changes the design with each new hand.

Matching the back to the felt is a nice touch. A red lattice on green felt is traditional. A blue rosette on black felt is striking. Black and gold on red felt looks rich. Different each deal adds variety if you'd rather not choose.

Dealing it onto your desktop

Try the settings in the manager, where the live preview follows each change. Then press Preview full screen to see the table at real size; moving the mouse or pressing a key closes it. When you're happy, Use this screensaver builds it into your profile, with no administrator rights needed, and opens Windows' Screen Saver Settings so you can pick the wait time and whether a password is asked for when you return.

Settings are read each time the screensaver starts. If you fancy a change of felt next week, change it in the manager and the next deal uses it.

With more than one monitor, choose a table on each screen, one wide table stretched across all of them, or the main monitor only with the others black. A table on each screen gives two separate games going at once.

Small tips

Choose the felt colour for the room before anything else, since it fills most of the screen. If cards seem to come too thick and fast, lower the deal speed. And if you want a set of evening screensavers with the same relaxed feel, tick Poker deal alongside Stout pour and Paisley layers in Install several, which builds one screensaver that picks one at random each time it starts. Reset to defaults returns the deal speed, felt and card back to how they started.