MatrixScreensaver

The digital rain
from The Matrix

Mirrored katakana falls in glowing green columns across every monitor you own, with a bright white head, a fading trail, three layers of depth and the look of an old CRT.

Download MatrixRain.scr How to install View on GitHub

Free · Windows 10/11 · about 30 MB · all versions

Three monitors, each with its own rain.

What you get

Built from scratch with Python and OpenGL.

Multi-monitor and DPI-aware

Every display runs its own rain, fitted to its size, position and scaling. Plug or unplug a screen while it runs.

The film's look

Mirrored half-width katakana plus digits, a near-white head, a fading green trail and glyphs that mutate.

Depth and glow

Three parallax layers (a dim far one, a middle one and a big out-of-focus near one) with real bloom.

CRT feel

Scanlines with animated interlacing, a vignette and a subtle flicker.

Wake up, Neo…

Now and then a message types itself out over the rain.

Fast and tunable

Runs on the GPU (about 700 FPS uncapped on an RTX 3060) with an automatic software fallback, plus six colours and a settings window.

Download and install

It takes about a minute. No installer, no account.

  1. Download MatrixRain.scr

    Click the button above, or grab it from the latest release page (the file is under Assets).

  2. Right-click the file and choose Install

    Windows opens the Screen Saver Settings window with it already selected. If Windows asks for administrator permission, accept: it copies the file where screensavers live.

  3. Click Apply and OK

    Set how many minutes of inactivity you want in Wait. Use Preview to try it right away; any key or mouse movement exits.

  4. Optional: click Settings… to tune it

    Six colours (film green, classic, amber, red, blue, white), glow, scanlines, fall speed, density, glyph size, and more. You can even point it at a custom font.

Windows says "protected your PC"? The file is not code-signed (that needs a paid certificate), so SmartScreen or your antivirus may warn about it, as it does with many small tools. Click More info → Run anyway. If the right-click menu has no Install, right-click → Properties → tick Unblock → OK first. You can read every line of the source on GitHub and build it yourself.
Can't find the Screen Saver Settings window?

Press the Windows key and type screen saver, then open Change screen saver. On Windows 11 it is also under Settings → Personalization → Lock screen → Screen saver. Pick Matrix Screensaver from the drop-down list.

Install by hand (copy the file)

Copy MatrixRain.scr to C:\Windows\System32 (administrator permission needed). It then appears in the screen saver drop-down list.

Run it from source instead 
git clone https://github.com/madkoding/matrix-screensaver.git
cd matrix-screensaver
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python matrix_saver.py /s

Needs Python 3.10+ on Windows. To build your own MatrixRain.scr run .\build.ps1 (see the README).

Uninstall

Open the screen saver window again and choose another screen saver (or None). To remove the file, delete MatrixRain.scr from the folder you copied it to (usually C:\Windows\System32). Your settings are in %APPDATA%\MatrixRain; delete that folder to reset them.

Requirements

SystemWindows 10 or 11
GraphicsAny GPU with OpenGL 3.3 or newer. Without it, a slower software renderer takes over automatically.
FontsUses the MS Gothic and Courier New fonts that ship with Windows.