D2X-XL – an OpenGL modification of the classic video game Descent 2 | Hacker News Reader

D2X-XL – an OpenGL modification of the classic video game Descent 2

descent2.de

99 pointsdtx152 comments

There is another active project, DXX-Rebirth, that tries to recreate the original experience of Descent and Descent II as close as possible (i.e. it does not really mod the games).

http://dxx-rebirth.com/

There's also Overload, which has some of the Descent devs on the team and got some hardcore fans to extract data on original bullet movement speeds and other details. https://playoverload.com/

Sublevel Zero Redux is also worth mentioning. Although nothing compares to Descent1.

In the past there was significant animosity between this project and rebirth (which they referred to as stillbirth.) I haven't been part of that scene in years so I don't know if it continues.

I know nothing about that. I just liked DXX-Rebirth more because it preserved the „dull no-BS industrial look“ of Descent better. I also wasn’t a big fan of some other, similar games (looking at you D3, Forsaken)) which looked more like the lovechild of a lightshow and an architecture competition in comparison.

Back in days, D3 multiplayer experience was quite fresh and impressive. Shoutout 2 [DIII]Smiddy. I remember you, motherfucker.

Wow, that's... Using a pejorative that relates to what is often an incredibly painful experience for expectant mothers to describe the efforts of a group of volunteers working on an open source passion project. Or, simply, toxic.

Unlike the other one, rebirth compiles cleanly out of the box on Ubuntu.

Interestingly enough Rebirth triggers a compiler bug on my Ubuntu 20 system:

    during GIMPLE pass: local-fnsummary
    similar/main/object.cpp: In function ‘void d1x::object_rw_swap(dcx::object_rw*, int)’:
    similar/main/object.cpp:2611:1: internal compiler error: Illegal instruction
     2611 | }
          | ^
    Please submit a full bug report,
    with preprocessed source if appropriate.
    See <file:///usr/share/doc/gcc-9/README.Bugs> for instructions.
    scons: \** [similar/main/.d1x-rebirth.object.o] Error 1
    scons: building terminated because of errors.

Have you submitted that bug?

Hrm. Memories. One of the few games I played. And the only one where I almost always won when we did it over LAN!

edit: For comparison, in C&C, about the same epoch in the first variants I always lost, because I mistook it for SimCity, building defences, infra, etc. And then the masses of enemies came. Boohoohooo!

But Descent was my thing, easily.

> And the only one where I almost always won when we did it over LAN!

Me too! I'd say we should fight, but that game is to blame for my tendonitis and last time I played, I couldn't type for several days.

My superpower was that I played without autoleveling and didn't get disoriented. Can't pull wacky 0g maneuvers if you've got artificial gravity weighing you down...

Yeah, I was the same way. I also used a non standard keybinding which might have a longshot at helping you.

The idea was that halving strafe left and strafe right on separate fingers and similar things was wasteful. So instead I set up each of the 3 strafe dimensions on R/F, E/D, W/S, and roll on Q/A. Between that and using a joystick/trackball I could control all 6 dimensions simultaneously quite easily. So yeah no auto leveling and much better ability to surprise your opponent with unexpected movements.

Even though I didn't get disoriented in game, one thing I did notice is when I played a long session, if I then went for a drive for whatever reason I had a slight feeling of vertigo. So I learned to chill out for a bit after a Descent binge.

I use the same controls. I think they should be the standard for these games. I got my 3D sea legs in the evochron games. Once I figured out how to dogfight those games, going back to descent felt so much more natural.

I agree, that was the trick. Forget "the enemy gate is down" there is no down.

If you enjoy 6 degree of freedom games, but need something slower and more relaxing these days, I suggest checking out Hardspace: Shipbreaker.

Also had LAN parties playing Descent 1/2!

At the time, Duke Nukem 3D and Doom 2 were contemporary games. But (as far as I remember) Descent was the only game that supported both Mac and PC clients, and let them play together on LAN.

Edit: Does anybody know of an earlier graphical game that had mixed-client LAN support? (~1996-97)

> Does anybody know of an earlier graphical game that had mixed-client LAN support? (~1996-97)

Maybe Warcraft 2.

I thought so but I looked it up—the MacOS client for WarCraft 2 wasn't released until 1996; Descent came out in 1995 (Mac port in December). There was no "LAN patch" so it must have shipped with the support. I think it might have been the first.

Hahahah, my brother and I used to play a lot of C&C growing up. C&C Red Alert as well. We would keep our bedroom doors open and yell at each other down the hallway. You’d always hear cursing when the dreaded “missile launch detected” sound effect was played.

One of the first Zerg strats was to build pillboxes around tree areas and build multiple barracks and just pump out soldiers the whole time. Send in the red army…

Pardon me, but I seem to distinctly remember it as "a-bomb launch detected".

Yeah, whatever, you know what’s coming next from my brothers room. Screaming, explosions, thrown keyboard. :D

A-bomb prepping!

The Mac version of Descent, which came with a shiny new Redbook audio CD soundtrack and enhanced 640x480 graphics, came bundled with my family's Performa tower.

It was probably my first encounter with a proper video game. I never got to play it with a joystick (apparently the quintessential way of playing) but I got decent with the keyboard controls.

It's pretty fun, and holds up even today despite the now-dated graphics. It never got quite the level of recognition that Doom, Quake, etc got but in my mind it's just as much of a landmark in gaming.

Some Gameplay footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpLyV9_zgmM

that looks a lot more fun and straight forward than games today hm

a lot of times with nostalgia gaming, one quickly notices how broken and inaccessible the controls are and how much more imagination it requires to be an escape

but this one just looks straight forward and fun

I wouldn't call descents controls straightforward regardless of what mod/engine you use. 6 AOF Games are hard to play and descent is quite a hard game even in easier difficulties. That being said, it's a lot of fun for sure.

6DOF is hard to control for sure. A joystick with twist assigned to roll works well for heading, but I've never figured out how to best manage translation.

Descent has some limits on how fast you can adjust pitch which can be odd for new players (some of the ports can turn those off, but purists may object)

One control scheme that's used nowadays is two joysticks, with one to control orientation (pitch/roll/yaw) and the other to control translation (up-down/left-right/forward-back). I usually map the left stick to translation, with twist working the up-down axis.

Takes a little getting used to, but is pretty intuitive, and gives nice smooth analogue axis for all 6DOF.

Dual joystick was a setup I used with Descent but also experienced in Mechwarrior arcade. Allows for more precise control then a single joystick with hat switch. Feels weird at first though!! Controller prices were a premium back then so keeping two joysticks in good working order was uncommon if you played hard.

The MS Sidewinder 3D Pro had twist to roll, throttle control for forward/backward, and a 4-way hat switch for translation (aka ‘strafing’, if we’re both taking about the same thing here). It was perfect for Descent.

Edit: and Freespace!

I played freespace long after its hayday. The mod loader was lovely and the mod community was still quite active. The most expansive overhaul mod had only one server that had many players. It was a full-on RP server. It wasn't for me, but it was fascinating nonetheless.

Don’t forget the Gravis Phoenix which was truly a high end joystick at that time and perfect for Descent.

Hmm... I need to try harder with hats, I've never felt great about using them.

The Space Orb was the most effective way to play D2 once you got used to it.

That update history on the right is interesting.

Also if you like 3D shooters but haven't heard of any recently: give Overload a look.

https://playoverload.com

It's basically Descent. It's created by some of the original Descent devs.

Lots of fun in VR, too.

If you've got the stomach for it. I have a strong constitution but I really can't play overload in VR for more than 30 minutes without breaking out into a cold sweat.

This game was truly one of the first real 3d mouse controlled indoor flying shooter game. Even today you won't find many in this genre. Games like Darker and Terminal velocity were a bit similar and cool as well.

Mouse, hah. When I first played Descent, I had only a keyboard!

Same here, but the last time I played Descent it was with a full Thrustmaster setup including throttle, pedals and CrystalEyes 3D shutter glasses on a 19" monitor... Good times... lots of headaches.. but good times.

I still play Descent and variants with a keyboard. I also change my fps keybindings in other games to match closely to the aqze vs. the typical default wasd layouts

It’s a shell of its former self but if you like Descent there’s a few links to other community sites here:

http://warpcore.org

I also remember in that game discovering chording. Where you could hold down 3 or more keys to mess with the physics engine. You would end up going slightly faster that way.

Similar to bunny hopping in quake.

Double and triple chording is part of what makes the Descent-series games (as well as Overload) so interesting.

Your ship moves freely in all directions, and your speed is proportional to the square root of the number of independent directions you're moving in. Fly forward, speed is one unit; fly forward + sideways, speed is 1.41 units; fly forward + sideways + vertically, speed is 1.73 units.

There's a long, challenging learning curve to making best use of this mechanic.

On Linux, don't bother trying to compile it yourself (tons of compilation errors)

[EDIT]: and wine won't run the windoze version either.

ugh.

I have a version with working linux compilation and some other fixes here: https://github.com/arbruijn/d2x-xl/

Thank you. What is the intended build system? I see you've added empty NEWS etc files, but the configure script is still broken for me (config.log shows SDL test program fails with:

gcc: fatal error: cannot read spec file 'libgomp.spec': No such file or directory

I get further with cmake (which is not mentioned at all in the INSTALL file) but compilation still fails with:

/home/dtal/d2x-xl/audio/songs.cpp:48:29: error: narrowing conversion of '3759186702' from 'unsigned int' to 'int' [-Wnarrowing]

This a warning, not an error, so I assume the working system calls GCC with the correct flags. It would be great if you could update the documentation with working instructions.

I've fixed the narrow conversion error with newer compilers and added build instructions to the README.

Not sure what's up with libgomp.spec, it should be part of the gcc base package, at least on debian/ubuntu.

You've been downvoted, but I do wonder what process leads to someone building an archive that flatly does not work. When not even the mandatory files have been created to make autogen.sh happy, you have to wonder if anyone has even actually tried to build it.

i spent an entire summer on descent 2 :))

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