DescentBB

Since I decided to put more emphasize on RL a few years ago (which turned out to be a good decision, btw) which included dropping out of the hardware update frenzy to keep up with latest games, I've restricted myself to buy cheap hardware that suits my needs (surfing, openoffice, etc.)

Intrigued by the new D1X-Rebirth port I also checked out D3 on my current systems both running XP 2P2 and DirectX 9.0c:

a) desktop with Matrox Millennium G450 LE (16 MB)
b) laptop with ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 (64 MB)

and these are the results:





Any suggestions?

That's a driver issue. Update them or swap them out for a set that doesn't give artifacts. Is that OGL or D3d? I still get wierd stuff in D3d from time to time. And normally it's after a driver update.

I have that exact issue when I run in Direct3D on my laptop (Radeon 9000 chip).

Switch to OpenGL. You'll generally get better performance, as well as fewer bugs.

Any budget card available today that still fits in your system will run Descent3 with no performance problems. A $40 video card from two years ago generally has more then enough performance to beat 100+ framerates in Descent3.

I've already updated to the latest graphics drivers for my Compaq NX7000 laptop at hp.com, the ATI page over at AMD does only provide links to Mobility Radeons > 9400.

Yes I'm using Direct3D drivers cause I'm not sure where to get OpenGL drivers for my cards. Do you have to have a seperate driver for each card or is there a generic one?

I though about getting a budget card but I'm still annoyed with all that AGP port hassle. You see, my current board only supports AGP cards with 1.5 Volt so I cannot use my old Voodoo 3 3000 (I imported from the US back in the day to get D3 Sol Ascent the minute it was released). I'd wish for having a 10 USD PCI card that I could still use in all of my computers....

Anyway, so what budget card without an active fan would be best? I prefer ATI and maybe I should buy one right away that is suited to play Doom3 so I can checkout 'Into Cerberon'.

OpenGL is a video API just like Direct3D is a video API, meaning it is already included in the video driver you are using right now. Just open the Descent3 launcher and hit setup, re-detect the video devices and change the default video renderer to OpenGL.

I've dug up an old Nvidia Geforce 2 MX (64 MB) in my basement hardware stash which is AGP x4 and runs in my mobo. XP recognized it and installed the drivers; then I've upgraded to the MSI drivers which came with OpenGL.

Now when I play the game on 1280x960 it sometimes starts a level in some kinda weird windowed mode. My screen's resolution is smaller than native and D3 is shifted out of the desktop to the left and top using up 3 quaters of the screen. I can hardly see my reticle.

ALT-TAB takes me to the desktop and back into the game in it's proper resolution. This happens also when I use the automap. Any way to fix this?

Ditch the MSI drivers, if it is Nvidia hardware use the Nvidia reference drivers at http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_93.71.html

I've installed these drivers and everything looks good. Except for when I get back from automap I'm still back on the desktop with part of the Descent window hovering in the upper left corner.

Moon wrote:I've installed these drivers and everything looks good. Except for when I get back from automap I'm still back on the desktop with part of the Descent window hovering in the upper left corner.

I had that problem with my ATI 9800 Pro. You need to just click the mouse and it shoudl bring you back. Real pain in the arse but nothing else I tried fixed it.

If that doesn't help, TAB twice again -- usually fixes it for me.

Yeah, of course double TAB works. I just wish it could be fixed. Not that the D3 automap is of too much use anyway

Moon,

do yourself a favor and grab a Geforce 7600 GS AGP for around 150 Euros. That's a pretty good budget card, and AGP cards won't be around much longer. It's also a good idea to always stick with the latest reference drivers from the GPU manufacturer.

On a side note, it might be your hardware/drivers causing D2X-XL to crash when trying to play D1 (or also D2?) with it.