The first Descent game had been published back in 1995 and at that time was the first computer game offering a true 3D environment you could move in at all 3 spatial axes. Hence it's often referred to as a 6dof (6 degrees of freedom) game. Descent 1 and 2 had been written as DOS based games using a software renderer. While there was a Windows 95 version later on, it never worked all that good with MS Windows. There were a few 3d accelerated versions made available when the first 3d acceleration hardware hit the market, most prominently a 3dfx version using the Glide API, but they could only be run from DOS as well. Descent 3, the last game from this franchise, finally came with - for its time - ultra-modern graphics and ran (and still runs) on both OpenGL and DirectX, while still offering nowadays rather obsolete Glide support, too. For many fans it is however a different game not quite keeping the look and feel of the first two games of the series. Sure, it looks nicer, but a game's priority should be game play.

The times of DOS are long since gone, and even Windows 95 and its successors are doomed. While you can run the Windows 95 version of Descent 2 on Windows 2000 and Windows XP, it is hardly playable there. Fortunately, a bunch of die hard Descent fans were determined to save this game and created OpenGL versions of both Descent 1 and Descent 2, that can be executed on Linux, Mac OS 8/9/X, and MS Windows. This site is dedicated to D2X-XL, as imo it offers all D1X has, and then some.

To help old and new D2 fans to get D2X-XL to work and fully exploit its features, I have created this small online manual. While it is partially outdated due to repeated changes to various menus, it will still give you a good overview over the program. You can always press F1 in any menu to have D2X-XL display a description of the currently highlighted menu item and what it does.

Although D2X-XL's hardware requirements are very moderate, you will not be able to run it on a computer from the times when Descent was a new game. You will need:

• Graphics card with hardware 3D acceleration (e.g. Geforce 2 MX 400, FX 5200 or Radeon 8500 or 9200)
• 1 GHz CPU
• 128 MB RAM
• 300 MB free harddisk space

When launching the game, you will first be asked to chose an existing player profile or create a new one. Such a player profile is stored in a file named .plr in the descent folder (e.g. 'DukeLeto.plr') and contains all settings of that player, i.e. which ship controls are mapped to what keyboard or mouse keys, the screen resolution to use, etc. Once a player is chosen, D2X-XL will display the main screen showing the game title and version and the main menu:

Hint: Press an option's highlighted key to immediately execute it.

In the options menu and its sub menus you will find the various game options and control configurations of D2X-XL.

In the sound effects and music menu you can adjust sound volume and enable or disable music sources.

Configure the game controls here.

Configure the view distance and amount of details the game shows when playing here. Note that even on current hardware rather considered 'low end' you can play D2X-XL with the highest detail settings (you might eventually just want to stick with a screen resolution of 640x480).

Tailor the various detail settings to your hardware.

Chose a screen resolution and screen mode here. The image is a little outdated: All cockpit views are available in all resolutions.

Well, this menu has become a bit more than that. Actually, you can edit most gameplay relevant settings here - at least those that are not multiplayer specific.

Adjust various rendering effects in this menu.

Adjust various rendering effects in this menu.

Adjust the appearance of the cockpit in this menu.

Display status of all weapons and additional equipment.

A weapon has four attributes: primary/secondary active/inactive loaded/empty available/unavailable Depending on the attributes, a weapon slot has different colors: active and loaded active and empty inactive and loaded inactive and empty unavailable You can toggle through the various weapon icon positions in-game by pressing Alt+W. In multiplayer games, this feature is server controlled, and is not available at all if the game host doesn't use D2X-XL. Note that for some cockpits, weapon icon positioning is limited.

Adjust various gameplay-related settings in this menu.

Chose a network protocol for multiplayer games, the level to play and the various game modes and settings here.

In the first step, you need to chose a network protocol to use and whether you want to host a game or join a game hosted by somebody else.

If you host a game, you will be asked to chose a level in the next step. If you are a game client, that step will be skipped.

If you host a game, you will be offered various game modes and settings in the third step. This step will also be skipped for clients.

Finally, you will end up in a screen where you can chose a game host to join when you are a client, and where you can chose players to accept to your game if you are a game host.

Chose a game mode and make various adjustments here. Note that the title line contains your current IP address and port for UDP/IP games. If you are using a router or a NAT, this need not be the IP address your computer is communication with the internet though. If you are hosting a UPD/IP game via tracker, the tracker will however have your proper IP address.

This menu allows to set various game modifiers.

Pressing any of the keys listed here will result in the reaction described for that key below.