DescentBB

Hello

Everytime I start a new Game, I've to switch manualy to 32-Bit graficresolution.

I'm not realy shure, but I think this behavior starts with the new graficcard (Geforce 7600). System and driver are meanwhile completely new installed.

Is there a way to togle this switch for ever?

greetings, volker

PS: WinXP

In the D3 readme there is a command line option \"-z34bit\". You can configure the command lines by clicking \"Setup\" in the Descent 3 launcher, and going to the \"Misc.\" tab.

Hope that does it.

unfortunately not ...

The switch for 32-bit apears only if I call the settings from inside the game. It is not shown in the grafic-settings from the main-screen.

greetings, volker

It is a known bug in D3 v1.4 that the 32 bit setting does not stick. But more than that, 32 bit color simply does not work in OpenGL in Descent 3. Even if 32 bit appears to be turned on in the settings a good eye can easily spot 16 bit dithering in the game. 32 bit DOES work if you select Direct3D, however on more recent video cards and drivers there is often text/menu corruption using that render.

Thank you very much ... I've to use Direct3D because OpenGL is not recognize from D3. And without 32-Bit its realy, realy ugly ... fog looks more like a semitransparent wall than fog ...

OK, so I know its not nescesary to look up for a solution.

greetings, volker

If you are just playing single player you can use the v1.5 patch that is floating around somewhere, it fixes the 32 bit setting bug (but does not make 32 bit work in OpenGL).

Another thing to point out is that less than half of the textures in D3 are actually 32 bit. So really, it's not worth all the strain to get it to work.

The bot textures are very low quality (relatively speaking) being something like 16 bit. But remember that this game is 8 years old and came into being when many of the cool stuff we take for granted now were JUST coming into being then. Bump mapping for instance. Most models have like 4 to 5 layers of lighting effects. D3 has none of that. Bump mapping sure, but not like it's done today AND the ONLY card that supported it for a long time was the Matrox g4000 (is that what is was called? I forget) The predominated graphix acceleration back then was Glide but of course that died off soon after that.

Frogg, from the description you gave, it sounds like you have a driver issue.

Is this a new card where there wasn't one before? (you were using on-board graphics?) if so, you will need to go into your BIOS and make a few changes. If this is the case and you don't know how to do that, let us know what Mother board you have and we can help.

Have you updated drivers? If you are using the default pack that came with the card, the drivers are probably VERY out of date. The Gfx7000 series is quite old and end of life. I had a 7600GT and had none of the problems you are describing. So i think something is amiss.

Cheers!

do you people even understand what 32bit is without looking it up?

32 bit means that color information for whatever is being stored in 4-byte chunks (typically 8 bits per color [red, green, blue], with 4 bits for blending purposes), as opposed to 3-byte chunks (24 bit), 2-byte chunks (16 bit), or byte-sized chunks (8 bit).

More bits typically means better quality, with less noticeable blending for approximating colors not in the palette.

Do I win?

Bubba, have you opened up the game editor and seen how they designate their textures? Chastise Outrage, not us.

and thanks for crapping on this thread. You're consistency is commendable.