Is there a screensaver with cards being dealt?

Poker deal shows exactly that. Part of the night pack in Screensavers by Zaweba, it slides and spins playing cards onto a dark felt table in different layouts, and older cards slowly fade into the cloth. You choose the deal speed, the felt colour and the design on the card backs.

Card screensavers are an old favourite, but most were simple. This one has the feel of a dealer at work: cards arrive with a spin, settle into place and then sink away as the next hand is dealt.

Cards drawn in code

Every card is drawn by Zaweba's own code, faces and backs alike. Nothing is copied from a real deck or a casino's design. That keeps the screensaver original, and it means the cards stay crisp on any screen size, from a laptop to a large television.

The layouts change from deal to deal, so the table never looks quite the same.

Felt and card backs

Felt colour can be green, blue, red or black. Green is the classic card table. Blue and red are a bit more modern. Black is the darkest and suits the night pack's idea of a mostly dark screen with a few bright moving things.

Card back gives you four designs, red lattice, blue rosette, green sunburst, and black and gold, plus an option to use a different one each deal. Matching the card back to the felt looks smart; mixing them gives more colour. Black and gold on black felt is particularly handsome.

The option for a different back each deal is a nice middle ground if you can't decide. Every new hand arrives in a fresh design, and the table looks like an evening where somebody keeps opening new packs.

Deal speed

Deal speed sets how quickly cards arrive. A slow deal is relaxing, almost meditative, and suits a screen you glance at now and then. A quick deal feels livelier. Either way, the fading of older cards into the felt keeps the table from filling up.

Laying the table on your PC

Open Screensavers by Zaweba and select Poker deal. Adjust the felt, card backs and speed while the live preview plays beside the settings. Press Preview full screen to watch a few hands at full size, then press Use this screensaver. It's built into your Windows profile without administrator rights, and Windows' Screen Saver Settings opens so you can choose it and set the wait time.

You can change the felt or the card backs any time. The screensaver reads its settings each time it starts, so there's nothing to rebuild.

Where it works well

Poker deal makes a good idle screen for a games room, a card club's computer or a home bar. On several monitors, choose one on each monitor, one across them all for a long table, or only the main monitor with the others black. In a rotation, it sits nicely with Stout pour, the night pack's comedy screensaver of a pint being poured and drunk; tick both and use Install several for a screensaver that picks one at random each time.

It's free software under the EULA, runs offline and has no adverts, so it's safe to leave running on a shared machine.