Tips to get D3 working on modern systems

[Sal]

1. When starting the game and going through the initial setup, click on the Video tab to bring up a device selection. Check OpenGL and uncheck Direct3D and 3Dfx Glide, then click the Scan for the Selected Video Devices button. Performing this step will allow the settings from your video card's control panel to be applied in-game.

2. Click on the Speed tab. Click on the drop down tab and select Very High. Auto-detect doesn't work right on modern systems.

3. If you plan on playing multiplayer games, make sure to update your network settings on the Network tab.

4. When you are done click OK and then you can launch the game with the Play button.

NOTE: If you get an OpenGL warning, ignore it. Modern video cards are much more compatible with OpenGL than when D3 originally came out.

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Addendum:

By default, resolution options will be limited. There's also a very restrictive FPS cap. You can fix these issues with command line switches.

-framecap <fps> Caps the framerate to the FPS specified. The default, oddly, is 50 FPS! Go ahead and set this to 999 if you don't want a cap.

-width <width> Sets the screen resolution to the specified width, if possible.

-height <height> Sets the screen resolution to the specified height, if possible.

-aspect <value> Specifies the screen aspect ratio for widescreen displays. 16:9 displays, such as 1920x1080, should use a value of 1.78.

-vsync Turns on vertical sync to prevent screen tearing.

[Bassblanco]

Lowering mouse sensitivity to 0.2 and using the command switch -mlooksens 3.5 solves the incontrolable mouse issues.

[Slasher]

Just downloaded the Descent series. Played years ago. Can't remember where you put the command line switches?

[Res1s7]

Use the included 3DFX Glide wrapper already installed by steam as that is the best renderer NOT opengl ... "nglide_config.exe".

[DarthSyphilis08]

These switches really worked well for me. Running butter smooth on 144hz monitor:
-framecap 0 -width 1920 -height 1080 -aspect 1.78 -z32bit -vsync

[Saphi]

Hello,
i only get a small viewport in the middle of oy screen, how can I fix this?

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

Now that I am using Windows 10 22H2 Descent 3 never runs for me anymore. After much mucking around without success I officially give up and hope for a source port.

[DarthSyphilis08]

I can get it to launch in Windows 11, but even with all the compatibility/admin permissions and patches I could find I cannot get it to really work with my AMD gpu. Just wants to flash to a black screen and crash over and over. I'll let you know if I figure it out, but in all honesty if you want a really good modern Descent game that was actually developed by the original creators, you should check out Overload. Really cool game. I wish it did better sales-wise but I'm guessing since there's been no word of a sequel I'm assuming it didn't do well enough. Shame. You can tell the developers really cared. It plays beautifully on any decent hardware.

[Duper]

Darth, if you're having issues getting it to run, go to the exe, rightclick and set your compatibility mode to XP and set Run as an admin. When you get in game, turn off the bilateral filtering or you won't get any textures.

I'd like to know how to get some texture smoothing. I miss glide sometimes.

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

Duper님이 먼저 게시:

Darth, if you're having issues getting it to run, go to the exe, rightclick and set your compatibility mode to XP and set Run as an admin. When you get in game, turn off the bilateral filtering or you won't get any textures.

I'd like to know how to get some texture smoothing. I miss glide sometimes.

You could try NGlide or DGVoodoo2 wrappers. One day I will try them but am doubtful it will run. This game desperately needs a source port. If one came out that supported HD textures I would make textures for it too.

[Duper]

Lone Wolfe님이 먼저 게시:

You could try NGlide or DGVoodoo2 wrappers. One day I will try them but am doubtful it will run. This game desperately needs a source port. If one came out that supported HD textures I would make textures for it too.

Thanks, I wound up using NGlide. My frames aren't the best but it looks tons better. I'm running a middle of the road AMD and it loses all the subpixelization that you would get in D3d mode. Thanks!

[Lone Wolfe (Hoover1979)]

Duper님이 먼저 게시:

Lone Wolfe님이 먼저 게시:

You could try NGlide or DGVoodoo2 wrappers. One day I will try them but am doubtful it will run. This game desperately needs a source port. If one came out that supported HD textures I would make textures for it too.

Thanks, I wound up using NGlide. My frames aren't the best but it looks tons better. I'm running a middle of the road AMD and it loses all the subpixelization that you would get in D3d mode. Thanks!

Glad to be of assistance. Try DGVoodoo2 also as it may perform better. I mainly use DGVoodoo2, which also allows Direct Draw games to run under D3D9, which is required for Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and fullscreen mode on the KEGA fusion genesis/32x/SEGA CD emulator to avoid the dreaded access violation (0xc00000005) CTD (fullscreen DirectDraw isn't supported by Windows 10/11).

[Duper]

The preformance is better but it won't run at res over 1024x786 regardless of line commands or what I set in the dg control panel. in Glide it wants to default to 680x486 :P Thoughts? Thanks!

[DarthSyphilis08]

I had an itch to try and play this game again on my AMD rig, and as of Feb 2024 with the latest AMD drivers for my 6900XT I am able to play this game at 1080p with the following tweaks:
You can use nglide config settings, but I found this actually led to weird visual artifacts especially around text, and did not really have smooth frame rate.
OpenGL doesn't look good as others have stated.

What I have done is:

Download and install Descent 3 1.5 beta patch found here: https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=64306

in the D3 Setup I chose D3D as my renderer and under Misc I put in Optional D3 Command-line Switches: -framecap 0 -width 1920 -height 1080 -aspect 1.78 -z32bit -vsync

Then you can use your AMD, or Nvidia control panels to add additional settings like supersampling (x2), anisotropic filtering (x16) which is what I did.

The game looks and runs smooth as butter, the only downside is the cockpit renders in such a way that the bottom half is cut off so I hit F3 to use the alternate UI and it works fine.

Hope this helps anyone struggling. As a life long fan of this series I hope the IP one day falls into the right hands and we can get a reboot/remaster this series deserves.

[][ONLY³][™ Dr. Jones]

Hello everyone,
I have a question, I am back playing D3 after 25 years.. this time on steam.
Please can somebody help me fixing this small issue? I always set the "render depth" option to 100... but every time I get to outdoor side of the map it get bounced back to 40... and the far away hills suddenly disappear.
Did anybody experienced anything like that?

I am using OpenGL on a Quadro K4000

[][ONLY³][™ Dr. Jones]

ONLY³™ Dr. Jones님이 먼저 게시:

Hello everyone,
I have a question, I am back playing D3 after 25 years.. this time on steam.
Please can somebody help me fixing this small issue? I always set the "render depth" option to 100... but every time I get to outdoor side of the map it get bounced back to 40... and the far away hills suddenly disappear.
Did anybody experienced anything like that?

I am using OpenGL on a Quadro K4000

Nobody having a similar issue?