DescentBB

I have only one computer (at home).

How do you ping another player in an IXP network game?

press F8 then type in:

ping:xxx

where xxx is players name or first letter of their name.

no space between the ":" and their name

ping:tigeron

I made another edit to the previous reply (hubs & routers)

I have found the Ping bug cause. It might have caused the hoard bug as well. New D2X-W32 version will be available very soon.

Tiger, you have been a great help.

Would it be very hard to enable the status bar in resolutions beyond 640x480? And if not, how about implementing some kind of improved visual indicators for ship status (ammo, selected weapon, shields and energy) while in cock-pitless mode.

Oh, and would it be very hard to make the menu an overlay of the existing game screen instead of blacking everything out? Thats kind of annoying.

It wouldn't be hard to enable the status bar in modes above 640x480, but unless you wanted strange results you'd need to create a new graphic for each resolution. That's where the work is. Especially since it ceases to be simply an executable modification at that point.

Avder, if you create the bitmaps for it, I will allow for a bar HUD in screen res > 640x480.

Are you thinking of the game being rendered behind the menu? Pretty hard to do.

I wonder why it is such a problem to have the screen blanked out for the menu.

Cant you just stretch the bitmaps and assign them to new locations on the screen for each resolution? Well how about improving full screen status display then?

Diedel:

I have been more than happy to help. If I can do
anything specific just let me know.

Just made a test of the ping problem. It works
both ways now..Had to use win95 version of D2 on my laptop for the test. Can't seem to even get my laptop into the game with d2x so will have to wait for the Hoard test. Great Job well done Diedel. Thank you very much.

I'm having a problem with the music. It is either on or off. The volume control doesn't work. It's on loud or off and does so the "notch".

Is anyone else having this problem? Oh, this is the midi music. the CD music doesn't work for me as the cable is not hooked up.

SYSTEM:
mobo: Shuttle AK32A (VIA KT266A, VT8366A/VT8233)
CPU: Athlon 1800+
VID: XFX Nvidia 6600GT (drvrs:67.66)
Mem: 512meg Mushkin DDR 2100 cas 2.5
Sound: SB Live! 5.1 (sb0100)
OS: XP PRO
HD: Maxtor 7200 60 Gig (Quantum drive)
IE 6
Dx 9.0c

Diedel:

I seem to have a problem with version 1.1.39 exe.
99% of the time I cannot select the player and have the game start. Made a new player file with the same results. Several hundered bytes seem to get added to the size of the player file.

Using an old fresh player file that was used on version 1.1.37 I can enter the game normally. But after exiting the game and selecting the same player file again results in the screen staying at the pilot selection menu.

The above was done by clicking on the exe directly and not going through Kali as the game would just crash before it got to the pilot selection screen.

Hm. I have three player files, and all three work. Please try to create a new one and try that one.

I can't use any of my old player files w/ the latest ver. either. I can create a new one and it works.

Can't select old player in .40 either.

MOUSE RELATED QUESTION: my mouse started to behave differently in d2x-win32: I have had it quite fast while playing but after replacing .ini file with that provided in ZIP archive, mouse speed is back in "oldskool mode" - the faster I move it the slower ship reacts. I've played around with all settings in .INI file as well as whith d2x options (framerate,sensitivity), but still no luck. It takes two or three mouse movements to the side to rotate the ship by 180 degrees.
I want my fast mouse-look back ;-(

Mouse speed: Add "-limitturnrate 0" to d2x.ini (will only affect single player).

Player files: Sorry, please create new player files. No other fix available.

Oh yes, that will be it!
Some basic documentation would be appreciated.. such great work deserves it.
How comes that you can, Diedel, manage graphic engine, sound related code, networking system...? Are you all-in-1??

BTW: I have some doubts about invisibility orb functionality- although I'm invisible, robots are firing at me precisely (and no, can't be revealed by firing my weapons). But it is not essential.

Invis works for me - just tried it yesterday. Don't use your AB though.

Diedel:
Version 1.1.41

Hoard Damage:
The ping problem that you fixed seems to also have fixed the problem with Hoard Mode. Tested version 1.1.41 and damage can now be inflicted and taken. Great job.

Player file:
I used an old player file (Pre 1.1.39), actually much older, and it works just fine.

Radar:
Unable to toggle (Shift F1/F2) between heads up and top view. Control combination just cycles between available screens as normal (Rear, Radar, Guide bot). Also cannot seem to see the robots and power-ups in single player. Maybe I missunderstood the toggling action.

All your work is greatly appreciated.

Shift+F1/F2 should indeed cycle through Rear View -> Radar (top down) -> Radar (heads up) -> nothing. You need to turn Radar on in the toggles menu before a Radar will be displayed at all.

In single player you will however only see robots and powerups in your vicinity, i.e. in the segments you have already passed or that are close to your current position (like on the automap).

Hello Everyone and many thanks for the great work on D2X-32

I have a question.
D2X-W32 plays flawlessly on WindowsXP/SP2.
AMD XP2500
VIA chipset
RAM 512
Radeon 9600 PRO
ATI driver set Catalyst 4.6

However on:
AMD XP2100
VIA chipset
RAM 512
Radeon 9600 XT
ATI Driver set Catalyst 4.10

Winn98se / ME D2X â??W32 will crash to a black screen when:
1-The brightness slider is moved to any setting above minimum.
2-Even if you attempt to play with the brightness slider at minimum any ship strike or powerup pickup will cause the black screen.
This happens at any screen resolution or detail setting and I have tried a number of Catalyst driver sets both new and old with same result
The issue seems to be related to some code anomaly in -gl_luminance.

Any similar experiences out there ??

PS: DX9

Hi Dennis,

Catalyst drivers are at version 5.3 now. Please install the newest drivers, retry and post the result here.

Diedel

I have tried the latest driver set from ATI as suggested however the results are exactly the same.
I should also add that this happens on single player missions.
As an aside, even on my XP Box when the brightness sider is moved one or two notches above minimum the screen becomes outragiously bright and washed out (CRT).
Thanks again and I'll stay tuned for any possible fixes

I have debugged into D2X's gamma code. D2X seems to do that all by itself, i.e. not via the OpenGL driver. So I have no clue what's going wrong here. It could be that some palette files are gone bogus on your machines, so you may want to try a clean install of D2 into some temporary folder, install D2X there and see whether that helps.

Edit: To my utter amazement, I found the brightness control being non-functional. I remember successfully using it just recently though. Anyway, I haved fixed that. Brightness is indeed finally adjusted via the OpenGL driver. New D2X version online available.

where do I put the movie files?

Into the D2 main folder.

Great colour effects
But is the Headlight broken in the new build?
Doesn't seem to work from a previously saved SP game though.

.44 version:
* broken headlight (already mentioned) - yellow power is being consumpted but there is no light at all.
* shots are not emitting enough light IMHO.. I got used to shoot from time to time in dark places instead of using flares but now it is useless.
* can't see any difference between "coloured light shots" on and off (66.93 detonators; Geforce4Ti 4200)

but the enlightment moving together with shots in corridors are amazing!

move the version # of D2x-w32 to the lower-left hand corner of the menu screen, makes it easier to read it.

Are we stuck with the vertex lighting for the weapons, or can we eventually see light maps being used?

@fliptw,

I don't know how to implement light maps.

Actually, I'd love to build a new Descent-like engine from scratch, but ...

@qwerty,

it would be interesting to know whether you see a colorization effect or not.

Did you try all weapons with your brightness checks? There's a difference between a laser lvl 1 and a superlaser (lvl 6) or a plasma.

The colorless lighting routine simply changes the brightness area of the shot by some factor between 0 and 1. Applying light means scaling it again, with the red, green and blue values, which can be between 0 and 1 as well. I tried to use brightness and color scaling mutually exclusive, but that led to shots lighting everything equally bright, w/o any light decay at growing distances.

Head light fixed already in 1.1.45.

Coloured lighting is quite interesting but for some reason firing weapons seems to make the room darker sometimes. At least in fullbright rooms.

A few issues-- if I change keyboard ramping to a nonzero value less than 100%, when I go back to the menu it's at 100%.

Keyboard ramping is affecting forward/reverse/strafing, whereas I believe it should only affect rotational axes. Also, if keyboard ramping is set to 100%, toggle-slide and toggle-bank seem to be nonfunctional.

Yeah, that can happen, as the color replaces the current light (brightness). It's not perfect and rather a gimmick.

Realistically the coloured lighting would always be an addition operation, but I believe there are caps to light values in D2...

Sirius, I could try that, good idea. You would not see any color on a bright surface that way though.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering... I don't think Descent 2 goes past 100% lighting.

It could, but any other operation than multiplaying brightness with color values doesn't create the proper light decay effect.

Anyway, there's more important stuff to do with D2X than that : I have decided to implement D3's entropy game mode in D2X, and I will add a level auto download feature. Another feature I am gonna add is communication with a tracker, i.e. a game host will send it's IP address to a tracker, and clients can query the tracker for available game hosts and offer them for play. All I need is a tracker ...

If D2 does go over 100% lighting, it would be considered 'overbright'. While interesting for screenshots, it becomes annoying after playing for five minutes.

I can't seem to get D2x-W32 to work anymore.

I start the game regular or in Kali, then once I'm in the menu's, the screen doesn't change. like if I scroll down and select "multiplayer", hit enter, it does actually change within the game but my screen doesn't update hence I can't determine what I'm doing.

Playing around with monitor's refresh rates allows me to get to the next menu after the main one but then it pulls the same stuff.

ATI drivers 5.1 Catalyst


edit: installed 5.3 drivers and was able to play once in winxp, tried it in kali, same ole problem.

With all the activity here, I installed Descent 2 on my Windows Xp Pro system (right clicked d2 windows install using 98 mode from D2 CD) and the install went without a hitch. downloaded and fired up d2x-w32 and was amazed that my USB CH SETUP worked like a charm. Now all I have to do is get it to work with KALI

Q: sensitivity sliders for X Y Z R U V going to be added?
Q: why is ship turn rate framerate dependant
Q: RADAR - toggles to turn off robots/powerup going to be added

tried out the colored lighting... when the level 1 lasers pass through each cube it completely saturates it with red light. same thing with plasma and fusion.

Ferno,

The regular lighting routine simply increases the brightness of the cube a laser bolt or plasma blob is passing through. I have simply added color to that, so the cube will turn into that color.

Bubbaloo,

what makes you believe turn rate is frame rate dependant?

Merlin,

I have changed the menu rendering code a little and uploaded that version. Get it and see whether that helps.