Screensavers on or off, is it bad for the system for long periods of time?

[absj]

So I've noticed that I really only notice my screensaver for a few minutes then I'm either asleep or out of the room. Now when I am sleeping, the LCD goes into power management and the screen goes off. But the video card is still busily rendering all that screensaver goodness right?

The screensaver I'm using is pretty graphics intensive (heat + video card at high load) so I wondered if anyone else thought about this or had insight into whether I should just have a blank screensaver or disable it altogether rather than leaving it to run when I sleep or go out.

 

[absj]

or am i thinking about this the wrong way.. maybe once the monitor turns off, the screen saver does so too??

no ones replying! not that stupid of a question is it..

 

[PurdueRy]

I would just turn it off...buttttttttt it really doesn't matter if you leave it on. A screen saver(even yours) isn't going to tax a card so much that its going to die from overheating.

 

[Malak]

I'm pretty sure you don't ever have to worry about a screen saver hurting your video card. You don't need a screen saver though. They don't save your screen unless you have a reeeeeeeal old monitor.