1. Select "Sound" from the Control Panel.
2. Select the "Recording" tab.
3. Right click on the background of the tab and choose "show disabled devices".
4. Select the "Stereo Mix" or similar recording device and click "Properties".
5. Within the "General Properties" tab, select "Use this device (enable)".

1. Open the Global Preferences.txt file (for Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\ Application Data\SoundSpectrum\SoftSkies\, for Windows Vista and Windows 7: C:\Users\USER_NAME\ AppData\Roaming\SoundSpectrum\SoftSkies\, and for Mac OS: home/Library/Preferences/ SoundSpectrum/SoftSkies/).
2. Change the Screenshot.Dir preference to specify a different screen shot folder. For example, on Windows XP, you can change:
   Screenshot.Dir = "C:\\Documents and Settings\\USER_NAME\\Desktop"
   to, for example:
   Screenshot.Dir = "C:\\Documents and Settings\\USER_NAME\\My Documents"

1. Start the SoftSkies Standalone and select the desired sound source (see "How do I select an audio input source in SoftSkies Standalone?" above). If available, a source named "stereo mix" (or something similarly named, depending on your drivers and hardware) can be effective for visualizing your system’s audio output.
2. Open the SoftSkies preference files for both Standalone and Screen Saver (for Windows XP, this file is located in C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\ Application Data\SoundSpectrum\SoftSkies\, for Windows Vista and Windows 7 in C:\Users\USER_NAME\ AppData\Roaming\SoundSpectrum\SoftSkies\, and for Mac OS in home/Library/Preferences/SoundSpectrum/SoftSkies/).
3. Find and copy the value of Audio.InputSource from your Standalone to your Screen Saver preferences file (this tells the SoftSkies Screen Saver to use to the same audio input source as you had set in the SoftSkies Standalone).

1. Now, open the file entitled Preferences (Screen Saver).txt or Preferences (V-Bar).txt (note, these files are created when you first run the SoftSkies Screen Saver and/or the SoftSkies V-Bar).
2. Look for a preference setting that begins with Pset and if none exists, add the text entry below as the very last line in the file (note, if you are adding this as a new preference, please know that it may be in a different location within the file if you return to make additional edits at a later time):
   
   Pset="Natural"
   
   
3. In addition to "Natural" you can also use the following presets: Random, Living Images, Pastels, Vivid, Colorcalm, Colorful, My Skies, Fruit, and Unreal.

1. Disable background tasks (ex, virus scanners, file sharing apps, system monitoring)
2. Reduce the full screen resolution — Press M to switch SoftSkies’s full screen resolution mode. Or, use the SoftSkies graphical controls to select different full screen resolutions. Note, however, that Windows Media Player uses your current system display device resolution only (and cannot be changed).
3. Disable audio extensions and add-ons — Most media players (and some third parties) offer audio post-processing which can alter the sound of your music. Unfortunately, this can have a negative performance impact on your system, causing SoftSkies to run slowly or stutter. Try disabling sound equalizers, audio filters, DSPs, etc.
4. Disable CPU power-saving features — For example, on Mac OS X, setting "Processor Performance" to "Reduced" in the Energy Saver system preference panel slows down the CPU (in an attempt to reduce power consumption).
5. Try using SoftSkies Standalone — SoftSkies Standalone (bundled with SoftSkies Platinum) doesn’t have the overhead associated with running through a media player so it runs significantly smoother than running SoftSkies in a media player.
6. Experiment with advanced CPU settings — Some users have reported that performance or smoothness of frame rate improves when hyperthreading (HT) is disabled (on Intel-based machines) or when process affinity is set to a specific CPU (on multiprocessor machines).

Creating your own images for use with the "Formations" feature is simple. The images should be 128x128 pixels and be in PNG format. When the images are transformed into clouds, they will lose some of their original form and detail, so although any grayscale image will work, the best results are seen with pure black & white images.

Once you have created your Formations image, it can be added to an existing Formations category or to an entirely new category. You can find the folders containing the Formations inside of your SoftSkies engine folder. On Mac OS X, this is found in the user folder "Library/Application Support/SoundSpectrum/SoftSkies/Home/Formations". Under Windows, this can be found in "Program Files\SoundSpectrum\SoftSkies\Home\Formations". To add a new Formations category, simple create a new folder.

Users with proficiency in PhotoShop or other image editing software can create their own photos for use with Living Images.

To create a photo for use with Living Images, you'll need to add a transparency layer, also known as an alpha channel, to an image so that the image is transparent in areas where clouds should be displayed. This means that you should edit an image to make all areas of exposed sky transparent. In Photoshop, the "background eraser" tool is especially helpful for background removal.

The resulting image should be saved as a PNG file with the alpha channel enabled. The image should be placed in the "User Images" subdirectory of the "Living Images" folder. On Mac OS X, this is found in the user folder "Library/Application Support/SoundSpectrum/SoftSkies/Home/Living Images". Under Windows, this can be found in "Program Files\SoundSpectrum\SoftSkies\Home\Living Images". Once you add your custom images to the "User Images" folder, a "User Images" item will appear in the SoftSkies Living Images menu.