DescentBB

I just downloaded version 0.50 of DXX and was wondering how it should be put into an already installed copy of Descent 2 Win95, The Infinite Abyss?

Create a new directory and install DXX into that directory. Then copy over the appropriate files from your D2 Vertigo directory over to the new directory. Read the readme that came with DXX it tells you how to do it.

RTFM

Okay, got it set up but how do you get it to run in accelerated OpenGL? Where do you put the command line switch?

Look into the INI file. There's nice stuff in there.

The switch you are looking for is -gl_trilinear.

viewtopic.php?t=11836

Second post. Just copy and paste those settings into notepad and save it as the appropriate ini file (in your case you'll want the d2x.ini settings for Descent 2). Be sure to set the filetype to ALL FILES, otherwise it will slap on a .txt at the end of the filename. If it asks you if you want to overwrite the file, click on YES.

I also recommend, if you haven't already, get a kali account. Thats where all the games are played these days. Also, if you don't want to fool with notepad, I have the appropriate files offered in kali whenever I'm on. (I won't be back on until the middle of next week.)

Question for Zico. I finally got Descent 2 set up and running in accelerated mode (trilinear) using the command line switches in the dx2.ini file and it looks great! One problem however is that the movies stutter, both the sound and video. this doesn't happen with the sounds in the game though. I have music disabled, the movies are all on the hard drive and I'm running in 1024x768.
Machine specs. are:
Pentium 3, 733
256 megs of RAM
Riva TNT2 video card
30 Gig hard drive
Windows 98SE
An old machine, I know. Thanks for your help. Also, I'm running at about 40 FPS in the game.

Also, what does the switch <set hud mode> do? I can't see any differences between the <new 1-3> selections. Thanks.

Syntax for this option is:
-hud 1
-hud 2
or
-hud 3
(sure, hud 1-3 look same in cockpit and Statusbar, differs in Full-Screen mode)

If you have low FPS while playing try to set INI option
-gl_scissor_ok 0
This *may* improve the ingame performance a little bit.

You may also want to check for updated drivers for your video card, if you haven't already. (Basically, you download the executable file, and run it. Your screen may flicker a couple times when the drivers are installing, but that is normal. Then when its finished, restart your computer and try running the game again.)

Thanks for the suggestions all. What exactly does -gl_scissor_ok 0 do?

The computer I'm using for D2 is an old Hewlett Packard 9600 model and it wouldn't let me update the video card driver when I tried several years ago. There is proprietary video card control panel that cannot be uninstalled, which then causes a major machine crash when you update the driver. I had to revert back to the old driver to get the system stable again. OEM computers can be impossible to upgrade, unfortunately.

What's funny about the sound problem is that the Win 95 version of Descent 2 works without any problems with either the graphics or the sound, it just doesn't look as good without video acceleration, pixel art just so lame. I'm spoiled I guess.

GL_Scissoring is currently used to smooth the weapon boxes in the D2 cockpit.
It's normally no big deal, but old cards can suffer with these operations.

So probably you can improve in-game performance by setting it to 0

Thanks Zico, I've got things set up the way I like although the sound still stutters a bit, not a big deal. I'll probably put the game on my newer and faster computer in the future.

The game looks really good and I'm grateful for all your efforts in keeping a timeless game alive. It even outlived my Monster Card.

Hm I guess the movies would probably playbetter, if you use the Lowres Movies. If you have copied them to the D2X-Directory as well, you can activate them by the INI switch -lowresmovies.

We always work on constant improvements of the performance.

But still I doubt these improvements may help on your system since you can't update your driver (and the movies are rendered to the Texture Buffer), as you have written... :/

I still have an idea to make the movies much faster anyway, but I cannot make promises about that at this moment (and not for the upcoming release).

I am sorry about that.

Actually, I did try the low res movies switch and the 11KHz sound switch, in three different combinations. Low res only, 11KHz only and with both of them on. The stuttering was worse when the low res movies were active, but the 11KHz sound switch made no difference so I've left them all off.

What's the difference between the h.mvl and l.mvl movie files? I only have the h.mvl files in my D2X game directory, which I copied over from my already installed copy of the original Descent 2.

On a different thread, I've noticed that the robots in the game react more slowly to my presence with the DXX version than in the original version of the game. Sometimes I can almost get up next to them and fire before they react. Hee, Hee, easier to kill.

Also, the thief bot behaves a little differently. I used to park behind a door and wait for him to open it and then blast his ass, but now he seems a little smarter and doesn't fall for it anymore. Now I have to trap him somewhere for a kill.