Do I want to run OpenGL or Direct3D? Also, list of switches?

JRock · Post by **JRock** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:06 pm

For Descent 3 (which I just bought (again since I sold my old copy) that I just got in the mail from eBay (woot!) I am curious if I should be using my videocard's OpenGL or Direct3D display setting.
It's an NVidia 8800GT.

Also, is there a list of Descent 3 command line switches anywhere? I'm pretty sure there's one that kills the start-up movies and another to add bump mapping (or is that always on in OpenGL or Direct3D?) and probably others.

Thanks!

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:32 pm

Bump Mapping (-bumped) requires Direct3D, otherwise either renderer works fine on modern hardware.

-nointro skips the intro movies

All command line options are listed under section 7 of the Descent 3 readme.

The only undocumented command line option is: -launched
It lets you create a shortcut directly to main.exe bypassing the D3 launcher entirely.

Note: there are some glitches in recent Nvidia drivers that can lead to menu screen/automap corruption in OpenGL, there are no known fixes for it either. So don't panic when between level loading screens and the main menus are not visible once you exit a game. The game has not crashed, just use the escape key and Q to quit and reload the game to get the menus back.

CDN_Merlin · Post by **CDN_Merlin** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:33 pm

-nointro -nomusic -nooutragelogo -framecap 999 -nopentium3 -nosparkles -nooutdoorfog -nomotionblur -usesmoothing -z32bit

The command line options are in the readme file I believe.

Use openGL on your Geforce card. Bump mapping only works in Direct 3D and it's not that great since it one maps bots.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:41 pm

CDN_Merlin wrote:-nointro -nomusic -nooutragelogo -framecap 999 -nopentium3 -nosparkles -nooutdoorfog -nomotionblur -usesmoothing -z32bit

-nopentium3 implies -nosparkles and -nomotionblur, they are tacked on SSE enhancements included thanks to Intel greasing the wheels a bit for the Pentium III launch, disabling the pentium3 also disables SSE. -nopentium3 also disables a bit of code that gives about a 10% boost in indoor level geometry processing (largely irrelevant on any CPU from the last 5 years).

Floyd · Post by **Floyd** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 3:38 pm

http://www.planetdescent.com/site/dcip/ ... itches.asp

also, a readsnoone.txt comes with the game. directly accessible from the blue launcher window. it even shows all the info you seek for!

JRock · Post by **JRock** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 4:30 pm

wow thanks guys, much appreciated! =)

So Direct3D has better visuals than OpenGL or they're identical renderers and just both available for greater card variety support?

edit: Hmm, I'm having the menus issue so I guess I'll try Direct3D. Also, seems to still be running 640x480 even when I set it to higher res in the game settings menu. I wonder if there's a way to force a higher res, particularly widescreen for my display.
It appears Descent 3 doesn't even have a page yet at WSGF: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wi ... s_List_-_D

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 4:59 pm

Direct3D supports a few things OpenGL doesn't, but for the most part they are identical and the reason both are in the game was for wider compatibility.

JRock · Post by **JRock** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 5:05 pm

Hmm, if I try setting it higher than 1024x768 it resets it to 640x480. Even though my display is 1680x1050 it won't let me run 1280x960.

Also the mouse movement is really jerky. If I can get the aiming and the display resolution fixed I'll be doing A-okay.

I'll be messing with -mlooksens <scale> and -mousesens to see if those help.

Floyd · Post by **Floyd** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 5:10 pm

JRock wrote:Ideally there's a way to get some proper widescreen action going but I'm not crossing my fingers for that for a game from 1999... although D2X-XL seems to do it just fine for D1&D2.

if you would have read the switches on the link i gave you (or the readsnoone.txt) you would have seen the parameters -aspect, -height and -width.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 6:19 pm

To be more complete, use: -width 1680 -height 1050 -aspect 1.6
And do not assign a resolution in game.

JRock · Post by **JRock** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 7:27 pm

aye, i've got that working now. thanks for the help.
i think i'll force some AA too in NVidia control panel to help with the jaggies =)

still having issues trying to get my mouse to a comfortable setting though. mouselook was handled much easierly in D1&D2, especially via D2X-XL.

In D3 I can get it smooth but then I can't actually turn around without a thousand scrolls, or I can have it jerk around wildly as I move but then I can't aim with it. I think it's probably something silly I'm overlooking (and no I don't want to use a joystick hehe).

Floyd · Post by **Floyd** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:28 am

if you plan on going multiplayer, you can forget mouselook anyway. it's disabled on most servers, if not all.

JRock · Post by **JRock** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:28 am

No mp until I get the controls sorted and the sp campaign done again.

Why is mouse control so much harder to configure in D3, especially given that it works just fine in D1/D2?

Even using FlightSim (there's no option to un-invert the vertical axis though?) I still can't get it to feel close to right.

I'm trying to remember how it was I played this mp so many years ago and I'm starting to think I might have used a joystick but have since wiped that experience from my mind. Maybe this is why I remember D2 so fondly and don't remember too much about D3.

Floyd · Post by **Floyd** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:08 am

JRock wrote:(there's no option to un-invert the vertical axis though?)

go to controller config and click the

next to the axis you want to invert.

JRock · Post by **JRock** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 2:35 pm

gracias

Nosferatu · Post by **Nosferatu** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:11 pm

I noticed the \"use either OpenGL or DirectX\" comment.

Maybe someone can help me with something I have always had trouble with.

I currently play using OpenGL and put up with the \"white box\" every once in a while, because when I use DirectX, certain levels textures cause my CPU (not GPU) to peg a 100% high, causing a nasty frameyness.

I never have been able to solve it no matter how much I play with nvidia's performance settings, or even rivatuner.

Im not using an exactly old and underpowered system either, at least for D3 standards.

Asus A8N-DELUX socket 939 Athlon 3200+ (2Ghz)
BFG Geforce 7200 GS PCI-E (SLI not being used)

I have a feeling it might be my memory module. Compared to the mobo, its slightly older and slower memory. Its a KHX3200A 512M
http://www.kingston.com/hyperx/products/krx.asp

Anybody got any ideas on what I might try to get rid of the frameyness in DirectX?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:31 pm

Try turning off procedural textures from the in game detail settings. Granted that system should be more than sufficient to run D3 smoothly at all settings, even if a 7200 GS is pretty weak. It is unlikely the memory is causing it, age and speed are mostly irrelevant as long as it physically fits and works in the system it will be fast enough. At most faster memory would gain a few percent greater performance, what matters isn't how fast the memory is but how much of it there is. Insufficient quantity could possibly have an effect like that in larger levels. Also D3 always uses 100% CPU time on single core processors, that isn't an indicator of anything.

If you want to make sure, memory is exceptionally cheap these days, buy a couple compatible 1 GB sticks and replace what you have. Windows XP and most games run much happier on 2 GB I guarantee it.

Nosferatu · Post by **Nosferatu** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 1:25 am

Hmmm. I think turning off procedural textures might have done it. I still get a single \"jump\" now and then but nothing even close to the slide show stile franeyness that I was getting.

Thanks Krom. Guess thats the only thing I didnt try.

JRock · Post by **JRock** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:21 am

Just fyi: an occasional hiccup or jump, especially if you're also seeing untextured surfaces, is a good sign you're running out of texture memory on your videocard and it's accessing the harddrive to supplement the VRAM. Might want to try knocking down the texture setting a notch to see if that solves it completely.

Nosferatu · Post by **Nosferatu** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 8:51 am

Thats the reason I was thinking of upping my memory, especially since my mobo can handle higher memory speeds.

I'm not sure how PCI-E does it but I'm sure that it does go to system memory when it needs it, in some way, like AGP aperture.

But I'll also try notching down the texture complexity.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:26 am

D3 requires less than 16 MB of texture memory to run optimally. I don't know if you can find a retail PCIe video card with less than 64 MB onboard anymore.

And PCIe has Direct Memory Access just like AGP and PCI before it. The \"feature\" that allowed AGP to cache textures in the system memory was the greater available bandwidth. Of course it is always better to have the textures and frame buffer on the card because of the large differences in memory bandwidth and latency of local memory compared to going all the way out to the system. Which is why you see cards with as much as 1 GB of onboard memory these days.

Do I want to run OpenGL or Direct3D? Also, list of switches?

Do I want to run OpenGL or Direct3D? Also, list of switches?

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