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Intro/Questions from a returning old timer
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| ZiggyPopp 2004-09-08, 6:09 pm |
| Hi,
I'm back after a brief hiatus. Grad school and two kids. When I
was playing, D2 was brand new, 28.8 was all I had, 3DFX and Gluide(??)
were battling it out, a 3DFX Voodoo card with 2MB ram cost me about
$350, my pc was sporting a whopping 16 Mb ram and a Pentium I over
clocked at 100 MHz.
Lately, I've really missed the game. I've been in the stores recently
looking at some of the new tech TV's and thinking "I wonder what Descent
would look like on a smoking PC".
What is it like to play multiplayer over cable? Is the upload/download
speed differential an issue? I'd played over the 28.8 modem in Kali and
Kahn and, although I was severely hooked on MP D2, it sucked. I did play
over a one on one phone connection a couple of times which was better.
How do you like D3 over D2?
What vid cards should I look at?
Are either Win2k or XP more D2/3 friendly?
How high can frame rates get on today's high end PC's?
Did Spaceware go out of business? They were the maker of the SpaceBall
which I'm hooked on. Can't google much on them. I'm worried that it
will be a battle to relocate the drivers and set it up. I remember the
config on it was such a PITA.
Does Derek the cow dude still play?
Thanks,
ZP - KGBUZZ
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| Fusion 2004-09-08, 6:09 pm |
| On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 02:21:00 GMT, ZiggyPopp <ZiggyPop@hotmail.com>
wrote:
quote:
>Hi,
>I'm back after a brief hiatus. Grad school and two kids. When I
>was playing, D2 was brand new, 28.8 was all I had, 3DFX and Gluide(??)
>were battling it out, a 3DFX Voodoo card with 2MB ram cost me about
>$350, my pc was sporting a whopping 16 Mb ram and a Pentium I over
>clocked at 100 MHz.
>
>Lately, I've really missed the game. I've been in the stores recently
>looking at some of the new tech TV's and thinking "I wonder what Descent
>would look like on a smoking PC".
>
>What is it like to play multiplayer over cable? Is the upload/download
>speed differential an issue? I'd played over the 28.8 modem in Kali and
>Kahn and, although I was severely hooked on MP D2, it sucked. I did play
>over a one on one phone connection a couple of times which was better.
>
>How do you like D3 over D2?
>
>What vid cards should I look at?
>
>Are either Win2k or XP more D2/3 friendly?
>
>How high can frame rates get on today's high end PC's?
>
>Did Spaceware go out of business? They were the maker of the SpaceBall
>which I'm hooked on. Can't google much on them. I'm worried that it
>will be a battle to relocate the drivers and set it up. I remember the
>config on it was such a PITA.
>
>Does Derek the cow dude still play?
>
>Thanks,
>ZP - KGBUZZ
D3 is my favorite. Even after 4 yrs it still kicks XXX.
For video cards, makes no diff today. D3 plays well on both ATI and
Nvidia cards.
3DFX and Glide are long gone.
Spaceball is history also.
Kali stil exist and there is stil ppl who play D1 and D2 but using a
newer openGL version.
If you get kali and log onto the Descent server, anyone will helpy ou
get started into D2x or D1x or even D3.
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| Michael Wagener 2004-09-08, 6:09 pm |
|
Hi,
[vbcol=seagreen]
ZiggyPopp> Lately, I've really missed the game. I've been in the
ZiggyPopp> stores recently looking at some of the new tech TV's
ZiggyPopp> and thinking "I wonder what Descent would look like on
ZiggyPopp> a smoking PC".
Well... To put it simply: There's no such thing as a "current descent".
It's the same old game - being the same fun as ever.
ZiggyPopp> What is it like to play multiplayer over cable? Is the
ZiggyPopp> upload/download speed differential an issue? I'd played
ZiggyPopp> over the 28.8 modem in Kali and Kahn and, although I
ZiggyPopp> was severely hooked on MP D2, it sucked. I did play
ZiggyPopp> over a one on one phone connection a couple of times
ZiggyPopp> which was better.
Today I am playing D2X (which is D2's source code made working on
current hardware) on a LAN. Goto http://d2x.icculus.org/d2x/.
ZiggyPopp> How do you like D3 over D2?
Not at all.
ZiggyPopp> What vid cards should I look at?
All current cards work very well. All current joysticks too :-)
ZiggyPopp> Are either Win2k or XP more D2/3 friendly?
Neither. Use Linux. D2X is easier to setup and maintain on Linux.
ZiggyPopp> How high can frame rates get on today's high end PC's?
When I cap at vsync speed I can get 120 fps. But this is not desirable
so d2x has a cmdline option to cap at a give rate (I use 60 fps).
Have fun,
Mike
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| On Tue, 13 Jan 2004 02:21:00 GMT, ZiggyPopp <ZiggyPop@hotmail.com> wrote:
quote:
>How do you like D3 over D2?
I have *no* idea why D3 gets a thumbs down from folks, but...
there are those who probably think Halle Berry is butt ugly, too.
(personally, I think D3 is great.)
quote:
>What vid cards should I look at?
I like nVidia, my self...
quote:
>Are either Win2k or XP more D2/3 friendly?
I like XP Pro, but... that's just... in general.
quote:
>How high can frame rates get on today's high end PC's?
Insanely, but... Doom 3 should go a ways toward taking care of
some of that excess... <g>
Jeff
http://www.jefftturner.com
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| ZiggyPopp wrote:
quote:
> How do you like D3 over D2?
I think it rocks simply because of the better graphics, the always
usuable Afterburner and Phoenix ship which gives the fastest flying
experience so far.
quote:
> What vid cards should I look at?
Any current one will be sufficient.
quote:
> Are either Win2k or XP more D2/3 friendly?
I've been running D3 under XP with no probs. As long as you use D1X and
D2X they should run too.
quote:
> How high can frame rates get on today's high end PC's?
Too fast for D1 and D2 due to a bug that makes homing missile framerate
dependent and thus almost undodgeable. IIRC these are also fixed in D1X
and D2X. Otherwise you can always run with a framecap on 30 FPS.
--
Moon's Descendarium - THE single-player guide to D1-D3
http://moon.descent-3.com
Maintainer of The 'Official' D3 FAQ
http://www.descent-3.com/faq/
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| Yeremein 2004-09-08, 6:10 pm |
| > How do you like D3 over D2?
I prefer D3 for multiplayer. The improved graphics, the new gameplay
modes (especially Entropy), the variety of ships and weapons, and of
course the native TCP/IP networking--I'd rather not install IPX. (D1x
does do UDP/IP, but it's been a little problematic for me.)
For single player, it depends on my mood. The "find the keys, blow the
reactor" pattern in D1/D2 is less interesting than the varied missions
in D3.
However, action-wise, I prefer D1/D2. There's nothing quite like firing
up D1 in the Insane skill level and blasting and dodging to my heart's
content. Lots of satisfying explosions. But the D3 bots, by contrast,
keep dodging my lasers!
quote:
> What vid cards should I look at?
For Descent, it doesn't matter much. Any new card will do fine.
quote:
> How high can frame rates get on today's high end PC's?
For D1 and D2, too high, as others have stated.
For D3, I get better than 60fps at 1280x960 with anti-aliasing and
anisotropic filtering with my GF4 Ti4200 and XP2400+. (200+ FPS without
AA and AF.)
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| Raymond Martineau 2004-09-08, 6:10 pm |
| On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:42:10 -0700, Yeremein
<yeremein@nonexistent.net> wrote:
quote:
>
>However, action-wise, I prefer D1/D2. There's nothing quite like firing
>up D1 in the Insane skill level and blasting and dodging to my heart's
>content. Lots of satisfying explosions. But the D3 bots, by contrast,
>keep dodging my lasers!
I believe that the Insane skill level from D1/D2 is equal to the
Hotshot skill level from D3, when comparing to difficulty. While they
do dodge a bit on Hotshot, it's not really much compared to Ace or
Insane.
It's one of the good things that I like about D3 - when the skill
level increases, the difficulty in dogfighting enemy bots also
increase (as opposed to just the firing rate increasing.)
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