Playing Descent using D2X-XL

Simple step by step instructions how to install D2X-XL, the most feature-rich Descent source port available, to give your Descent gaming experience a little more Ooomph!

Download

D2X-XL comes in a self-extracting rar archive. All you need to do is to download it from http://www.descent2.de/d2x.html and run it. The installer will prompt you for the folder to install D2X-XL to. Just navigate to your main Descent folder and extract the archive there.

Setup

D2X-XL has its own folder structure that needs to be set up before you can use D2X-XL to play Descent 1 and 2. Don't worry though, D2X-XL will do that all for you. :-)

D2X-XL comes in three flavors: Single threaded 32 bit, multi threaded 32 bit and multi threaded 64 bit. To have D2X-XL build the environment it needs to run, create a desktop shortcut for one of these versions. If you are on 64 bit Windows, you may want to use d2x-xl.exe from the "x64" subfolder. Otherwise, your choice may be d2x-xl-omp.exe. Both program versions support multicore CPUs. d2x-xl.exe is the program version for real old computers that still have a single core COU.

When you are done, run D2X-XL via the desktop shortcut you have just created. D2X-XL will now create the subfolders it needs and will copy the original Descent 1 and 2 data files from your Descent installation to these folders. Don't worry: Your original Descent installation will not be touched and will remain fully functional after D2X-XL has setup its folders and data.

Please regard that while the Descent 1 data files are optional, the Descent 2 data files are required; D2X-XL will not run without them.

You are now ready to play Descent using D2X-XL. :-)

Add-on Content

D2X-XL offers you a lot of add-on content:

• High resolution textures
  
• Improved game sounds
  
• Highly detailled player ships and powerup models
  
• High quality game music in ogg format
  
• High quality missions
  
• Additional game background images

All of this content is optional. To download any of it, go to http://www.descent2.de/downloads.html. You will find links to all add-on content for D2X-XL there. All of this content is stored in 7zip archives, so you will need to install the free, open source 7zip archiving program if you do not already have it.

Installation

To install add-on content, just download the add-on archive, open it with 7zip and extract its entire contents to your main D2X-XL (Descent) folder. The archives do already contain the proper subfolders, so you do not need to worry about where exactly to place the add-on data.

Textures

For high resolution textures, you can chose between an ultra hires (512x512) and a medium resolution (256x256) package. Of course you can go for the ultra hires package, but unless very close up, you will not notice a difference to the medium resolution textures, and these require much less computer memory; So you may want to go for the medium resolution textures.

Missions

You can find a huge number of hand picked high quality missions for Descent 1 and 2 as well as awesome new missions built specifically for D2X-XL on http://www.descent2.de. Move your mouse over the side-scrolling menu to the left of the home page for a page directory of the D2X-XL web site, or directly open http://www.descent2.de/spotlight1.html or http://www.descent2.de/3rdparty.html and use these pages' side-scrolling menus to navigate the site's missions area.

Updating

D2X-XL makes it very easy for you to find and download software updates: Just run the program and click on "check for updates" in the main menu. If a newer program version is available, D2X-XL will download it and store the installer in the subfolder "downloads" of your D2X-XL main folder.

All you need to do now is to quit D2X-XL, launch the installer it downloaded and have it extract its contents to your D2X-XL main folder.

Configuration

There are two ways to configure D2X-XL.

Configuration File

General settings you will usually just chose once are stored in a file named "d2x.ini" residing in the subfolder "config" of your D2X-XL installation. d2x.ini is a text file, so you can simply open it with a text editor and change its contents. Find a detailled description of what you can put in d2x.ini on http://www.descent2.de/d2x-switches.html.

In-Game Menus

The main means of setting up D2X-XL are the in-game menus. Since D2X-XL offers a lot more features than the original game, you will find more menus here. They are all neat and tidy and easy to understand. In case you might not understand some menu option, just highlight it and press F1: D2X-XL has an expansive built-in context help and will pop up a window explaining that option - no need to search a manual or the internet. :-)

Resources

You will find a lot more and a lot more detailled information about every aspect of D2X-XL on http://www.descent2.de:

• Installation guides for Windows, Linux and OS X
  
• Game guide
  
• Multiplayer guides (setup, tracker, and game modes)
  
• A nice forum to ask questions, get help and find fellow Descenters
  
• And much more

See you in the mines!

karx11erx (D2X-XL maintainer)

[devil make rye]

like we're talking about the same thing here right? http://www.descent2.de/downloads.html cause i install. and D1 is still white noise

[devil make rye]

i did and it's still the same.

[destiny2]

mep, try to install the hires sound package for Descent 1 please.

[devil make rye]

everything works perfectly except for descent 1. all of the sounds are pretty much white noise. ive tried looking this up and i havent really found much help. can someone help me with this please?

[[Overlord PuMo]]

Good and easy to follow guide! :)

And as an addition, I will add a bit of self-promotion (tee-hee :P) by suggesting
my Pumo Mines : Kartsal Motivation (3-level demo) mod/mission specially designed to use most of D2X-XL neat features. Everyone who would like to download it can find it here: http://pumosoft.3d-get.de/documents/pm___kartsal_motivation.html

And I also would like to suggest other D2X-XL exclusive levels from other authors that are a must play, like Anthology from Sirius, The Sphere and Dimensional Intersect by Yokelassence, and of course Boiling Point and Lunar Outpost Reloaded by D2X-XL mantainer, karx11erx.