D2X-XL

Software Screenshot:
D2X-XL
Software Details:
Version: 1.18.74 updated
Upload Date: 11 Apr 16
Developer: Dietfrid Mali
Distribution Type: Freeware
Downloads: 43

Rating: 3.3/5 (Total Votes: 4)

D2X-XL is an open source, freely distributed and multiplatform software project that aims to delivers an OpenGL port of the Descent 2 first-person shooter game for the Linux and Mac OS X operating system. It has undergone a lot of enhancements compared to the original Descent 2 game.

Features at a glance

Key features include colored lighting and lightmap support, full CTF mode, entropy multiplayer game mode, UDP/IP multiplayer code and tracker support, automatic mission download, in-level teleports, cameras and monitors, and speed boosts ("wind tunnels"). Also, support for playing D1 missions is integrated within the game.

The game has been engineered to support the highest screen resolution of your computer, and the cockpit views are available in all supported resolutions. In order to allow for improved mission file management, the game is designed to provide a mission folder with sub directories.

Getting started with D2X-XL

To play the D2X-XL game on your GNU/Linux box, we strongly suggest to first search it on the main software repositories of your distribution and attempt to install it from there. If this is not the case, you can always download the latest version from Softoware as a universal sources archive, suitable for any distributions of Linux.

To install the game, you will need the original game data and various libraries and tools, such as OpenGL, CMake, Glew, as well as the SDL packages. Unpack the archive on a location of your choice, open a terminal emulator, navigate to the location of the extracted files and run the “cmake .” command, followed by the “make” command, both without quotes.

Under the hood and supported OSes

The original name of the project is D2X and it is distributed in two editions, D2X-XL and D2X-w32. While the former edition is designed for Mac OS X and Linux OSes, the latter is available only for Microsoft Windows platforms. Both 32-bit and 64-bit hardware platforms are supported at this time.

What is new in this release:

  • Fixed: Removed a small memory leak
  • Fixed: Removed a couple of issues in the networking code causing synchronization failures in multiplayer games (particularly for large levels)
  • Improved: The time to connect to a multiplayer game should now be significantly shorter (particularly for large levels)

What is new in version 1.18.73:

  • Fixed: Hires animations from pog files didn't work anymore (only the first frame of the original low res animation got replaced)

What is new in version 1.18.72:

  • Fixed: The program could use up all system memory and hang when loading a bugged level containing segment edges with zero length

What is new in version 1.18.57:

  • Fixed: Light was way too dark at at light quality settings 'basic' and 'standard' (i.e. when using vertex based lighting) - much darker than lightmap based lighting

What is new in version 1.18.26:

  • Fixed: The program occasionally crashed when using the cartoon style renderer
  • Fixed: You couldn't select a savegame by pressing the number key its name is prefixed with in the savegame list
  • Fixed: The program could crash when trying to select a target for a homing weapon
  • Fixed: The main screen got black or segment edges were rendered at wrong positions when rendering auxiliary cockpit windows (e.g. the missile view) while glow was set to full
  • Fixed: The glow renderer didn't work right in auxiliary cockpit windows
  • Fixed: The flash effect during the reactor countdown didn't work
  • Fixed: The flash effect when picking up powerups didn't work

What is new in version 1.18.0:

  • New: D2X-XL now offers a cartoon style render mode
  • Improved: D2X-XL doesn't not need to compute b/w lightmaps for non colored lighting

What is new in version 1.17.93:

  • Fixed: When pressing the weapon shortcut key assigned to the currently selected weapon in a Descent 1 mission, D2X-XL tried to select a (D2) super weapon and issued an error sound when failing to do so.

What is new in version 1.17.92:

  • Fixed: Multiline help messages were truncated and not fully displayed
  • Fixed: Sprite-based powerups weren't rendered in rear view
  • Fixed: The destruction of the player ship in Descent 1 missions was accompanied by the sound of a closing door and not an explosion sound
  • New: D2X-XL can now precompute lightmaps for a part or all levels of a mission. Start lightmap precalculation with the new mainmenu option 'precompute lightmaps'

What is new in version 1.17.91:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL will not produce an error sound or error message anymore when pressing the key bound to the currently equipped primary or secondary weapon while playing a Descent 1 mission

What is new in version 1.17.90:

  • Fixed: The data folder detection code of the 64 bit Windows version of D2X-XL could crash
  • Improved: The default robot generator texture (#361, purple veins) will start to pulsate a few seconds after the robot generator has turned inactive

What is new in version 1.17.89:

  • Fixed: Effects got messed up when loading a save game

What is new in version 1.17.88:

  • Improved: The 64 bit Windows version of D2X-XL will automatically find the data files if they are in the standard location (i.e. in the 64 bit version's parent folder)

What is new in version 1.17.87:

  • Fixed: The function of the mission config's parameters '-3d_powerups' and '-colored_segments' were exchanged
  • Fixed: Added msvcr100.dll to the Windows release package

What is new in version 1.17.6:

  • Fixed: A bug in the string handling tab processing could cause crashes in the menu system (this affected e.g. the multiplayer game browser)

What is new in version 1.17.5:

  • Fixed: Reticle elements didn't get hilighted for armed weapons
  • Fixed: Robots were rendered too big in the Descent 2 briefings

What is new in version 1.17.4:

  • Improved: When rendering to an Oculus Rift device, D2X-XL will automatically use the Rift's native resolution
  • Changed: Oculus Rift and NVidia shutter glass based stereo rendering will only be offered in the render options menu if the required hardware is available
  • Fixed: The program crashed during startup
  • Fixed: New save games were broken
  • Fixed: The game could crash when starting a new mission
  • Fixed: Soft particle blending didn't work with side by side rendering

What is new in version 1.17.3:

  • New: Enabled a FOV control for the Oculus Rift render path in the render options menu (enable expert mode to see it)
  • Fixed: The program crashed when computing lightmaps
  • Fixed: The glow renderer didn't work with the Oculus Rift render path

What is new in version 1.17.2:

  • Improved: Stereo mode menu display works much better now
  • Improved: Side by side rendering memory requirements were halved
  • Improved: The HUD contains more information in Oculus Rift mode
  • Improved: Head tracking feedback via the HUD has been improved in Oculus Rift mode
  • Fixed: Credits, highscores and similar screens weren't properly displayed in stereo mode

What is new in version 1.16.27:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL couldn't load levels that did not have at least one static light source (out of memory error)

What is new in version 1.16.26:

  • Fixed: Auto leveling didn't work right.

What is new in version 1.16.25:

  • Fixed: Player ships couldn't move at all or got instantly destroyed when starting to move after loading a savegame made with a game version > v1.16.16.

What is new in version 1.16.24:

  • Fixed: When loading older savegames, robots often were passive.

What is new in version 1.16.23:

  • Fixed: Robots spawned during a mission (e.g. by robot generators or boss robots) often started in disarmed mode, rendering them passive

What is new in version 1.16.22:

  • Fixed: Loading savegames created with the most recent versions of the program crashed the program
  • Fixed: Seismic activities caused by triggers weren't properly saved in savegames and restored when loading such a savegame

What is new in version 1.16.21:

  • Fixed: Robots with physical attacks (i.e. Diamond Claws didn't attack other robots after having been reprogrammed)

What is new in version 1.16.20:

  • Fixed: Homing weapons didn't follow their targets anymore
  • Fixed: When reprogramming a robot, other robots that should still attack the player became passive

What is new in version 1.16.19:

  • Fixed: Reactors didn't attack players anymore.

What is new in version 1.16.18:

  • Fixed: Reprogrammed robots often just idled instead of attacking other nearby robots

What is new in version 1.16.16:

  • Fixed: When colored segment rendering was turned off, colored walls were rendered between adjacent water and adjacent lava segments
  • Fixed: With standard lighting, faces bearing rotated overlay textures had their base textures erroneously rotated, too

What is new in version 1.16.15:

  • Fixed: Static particle effects didn't work anymore

What is new in version 1.16.14:

  • Fixed: This time, D2X-XL simply removed all robot makers from a level when loading it.

What is new in version 1.16.13:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL still didn't always process robot makers properly (because the amateurs from Parallax have stored improper robot maker data in their levels and have implemented an overly complicated and inconsistently handled robot maker to segment relation ship)

What is new in version 1.16.12:

  • Fixed: Players, guidebot and robots could get stuck in a narrow passage in D2:CS level 12 (actually a problem with broken level geometry in that place)
  • Fixed: The thief stole builtin equipment and weapons
  • Changed: Made the thief messages brighter
  • Changed: The 'built in headlight' switch has been removed from the gameplay options menu; use the player loadout menu instead to add a headlight to player ships
  • Improved: D2X-XL will now generally seed the random generator with 32 bit random values (using the elapsed time [ms] since program start)
  • Improved: In D2X-XL levels thieves will also steal ammo racks (excess weapons and ammo will be dropped into the level)

What is new in version 1.16.11:

  • Fixed: Weapon information wasn't always reliably transmitted in multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.16.10:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when robots fired at the player in Pumo's Kartsal demo level 3 (and probably in other levels, too)
  • Fixed: Powerup and robot drop probabilities were (a bit) too low
  • Fixed: Huge custom models popped in and out of sight when the standard collision model was enabled
  • Fixed: Robot maker info still wasn't always processed properly
  • Changed: The 'spaniard' cheat will not destroy static, undestructable objects anymore

What is new in version 1.16.9:

  • Improved: The wireframe of special segment will always be fully rendered in the wireframe automap
  • Improved: Geometry collision detection should work better now

What is new in version 1.16.8:

  • Fixed: Robot maker info wasn't always processed correctly
  • Fixed: Descent 1 rendered exit sequences went out of sync
  • Fixed: Bump forces in player - robot collisions were too low
  • Fixed: Bump force calculation for the advanced collision model was only half correct

What is new in version 1.16.7:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL didn't always find and use all robot makers present in a level

What is new in version 1.16.6:

  • Fixed: Theft messages often were incomplete
  • Fixed: The screen flickered when returning from a secret level
  • Fixed: The reactor countdown didn't stop when entering a level teleporter after having destroyed the reactor
  • Fixed: The program crashed when the player died while a menu was open
  • Fixed: Bumping into robots didn't inflict any damage to the player ship

What is new in version 1.16.5:

  • Fixed: Basic lighting information wasn't properly processed
  • Fixed: Post-level briefings were affected by the mine flashing effect of the countdown sequence
  • Fixed: When the player died in a secret level, instead of showing the 'return to level ...' message the screen started to flicker

What is new in version 1.16.4:

  • Fixed: Credits that were rendered after finishing a mission weren't visible on the screen

What is new in version 1.16.3:

  • Fixed: Lightmap calculation didn't always work right and could produce dark triangles where there should have been light

What is new in version 1.16.2:

  • Fixed: Wireframe automap could show unnecessary lines when displaying segments with triangular faces

What is new in version 1.16.1:

  • Fixed: Triangular segment sides in a level messed up the lightmaps

What is new in version 1.16.0:

  • New: D2X-XL now supports segments with triangular sides (down to tetrahedrons)

What is new in version 1.15.350:

  • Fixed: Removed white screen flashing during light data calculation
  • Fixed: Removed nasty bright flashes when mine brightness was pulsating during the reactor countdown sequence

What is new in version 1.15.349:

  • Fixed: Explosion lightning effects weren't always rendered
  • Fixed: Removed a bug causing occasional crashes in the transparency renderer

What is new in version 1.15.348:

  • Improved: When another player becomes the game host during a multiplayer game, the original game host's game settings will now persist

What is new in version 1.15.347:

  • Fixed: Lightmap calculation occasionally created dark outlines around faces

What is new in version 1.15.346:

  • Fixed: Light data calculation was still broken (in a different way though ...)
  • Fixed: Player shields and energy were reset when entering a new level even if they were above 100%

What is new in version 1.15.345:

  • Fixed: Multi-threaded light data calculation was broken
  • Fixed: Sounds were audible when they shouldn't

What is new in version 1.15.344:

  • Fixed: With standard lighting levels tended to be too bright
  • Improved: Light data memory footprint is a bit smaller now

What is new in version 1.15.343:

  • Fixed: The program could crash during mesh calculation

What is new in version 1.15.342:

  • Fixed: Mesh improvement works more reliable for high mesh quality levels
  • Improved: D2X-XL needs less memory for huge levels

What is new in version 1.15.341:

  • Fixed: More than 127 fuel centers made D2X-XL crash
  • Fixed: No transparency and effects were rendered in the textured automap view anymore
  • Fixed: The 'show reticle' check box in the cockpit options menu didn't work
  • Changed: Under MS Windows the 64 bit executable and DLLs will now reside in the subfolder 'x64' of a standard D2X-XL installation
  • Improved: Light data will now consume less memory for large levels

What is new in version 1.15.340:

  • Fixed: Removed a bug in the transparency renderer that could cause program crashes
  • Improved: Light data precalculation is parallelized better now, resulting increased calculation speed on multi-core systems

What is new in version 1.15.339:

  • Changed: When a robot has an individual specification of what to drop when it dies, the robot's type based drop specification will be disregarded for non D2X-XL levels

What is new in version 1.15.338:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL stripped the player of all keys upon entering a secret Descent 2 level
  • Improved: D2X-XL now supports levels with up to 20.000 segments

What is new in version 1.15.337:

  • Fixed: At the highest lightning quality setting, no explosion clouds and sparks of shots hitting obstacles were rendered
  • Fixed: The PSALM often created excess laser powerups in multiplayer games
  • Changed: Smart weapon switch will be turned off by default

What is new in version 1.15.336:

  • Fixed: When rendering post process effects while anaglyphic stereoscopy was enabled, the image stood still and just flickered
  • Improved: At the highest lightning quality setting, real lightning effects replace the sprite based lightning effects for spawning players and robots and disappearing powerups

What is new in version 1.15.335:

  • Fixed: The PSALM still didn't work right (powerups were erroneously removed or added to the mine)
  • Improved: Lightmaps will be turned into gray scale images when colored lighting is turned off (in the render options menu)

What is new in version 1.15.334:

  • Fixed: Player weapons were respawned by the PSALM (Powerup Spam And Loss Minimizer) instead of the exploding ship
  • Fixed: Reactors sometimes were rendered as small hulks

What is new in version 1.15.333:

  • Fixed: Missiles didn't always respawn in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Exploding player ships didn't drop the guns they had picked up
  • Fixed: D2X-XL sometimes failed to find the mission belonging to a savegame despite it being present

What is new in version 1.15.332:

  • Fixed: When downloading a mission that was already present, but outdated, the program crashed (often after reporting an invalid HXM file)

What is new in version 1.15.331:

  • Fixed: The program occasionally crashed when writing to the log file
  • Fixed: The program occasionally crashed when rebuilding its OpenGL context
  • Fixed: The program spammed missiles and keys in multiplayer matches
  • Fixed: Spreadfire shots were invisible when hires textures were disabled
  • Changed: Players that are unreachable for three minutes will be dropped from the game and will have to quit and rejoin

What is new in version 1.15.330:

  • Fixed: Energy powerups that were placed in the mine by the level author and got picked up respawned endlessly in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Flags that were pickup in CTF games respawned endlessly
  • Fixed: Keys placed in a mine were converted to a robot instead of a shield boost in non-coop multiplayer games
  • Fixed: A successful mission download looped back to the mission download forever
  • Fixed: Players couldn't join multiplayer games using maps without a reactor or boss ('you are missing packets')
  • Fixed: When destroying a destructible overlay texture, all visible faces of the affected segment were rendered with the destroyed overlay (and not just the one bearing it)

What is new in version 1.15.329:

  • Fixed: Vulcan ammo disappeared in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Missiles disappeared in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: You couldn't allow mercury missiles in multiplayer games in the 'objects to allow' multiplayer setup dialog
  • Improved: Mine powerups will only respawn in multiplayer games when mines previously dropped from them have exploded
  • Improved: Missiles will only respawn in multiplayer games after they have exploded

What is new in version 1.15.328:

  • Fixed: Players could pick up regular lasers even when they had superlasers until they had reached the standard laser level 4
  • Fixed: The 'Died in mine' message didn't appear when the player died in the mine during the countdown sequence

What is new in version 1.15.327:

  • New: D2X-XL now supports long level filenames in hog files

What is new in version 1.15.326:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when toggling fullscreen mode twice while a menu was active
  • Fixed: When picking up a laser or super laser, the new laser level shown in the HUD message was one too low
  • Improved: When run in fullscreen mode, the game will switch to windowed output in order to avoid leaving the desktop at the game's screen/window resolution

What is new in version 1.15.325:

  • Fixed: Sound from explosion objects was only played once
  • Fixed: Proximity mines weren't moved by nearby explosions
  • Fixed: 2D oroximity mine sprites were rendered transparent
  • Fixed: The game crashed in anaglyph rendering mode when displaying transparent stuff (like e.g. smoke particles)
  • Fixed: With standard collision handling you could fly straight through reactors

What is new in version 1.15.324:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL now can drastically reduce the file sizes of precomputed level data (meshes, light data, lightmaps) by using compression. Enable with command line or d2x.ini switch '-compress_data {0|1}'

What is new in version 1.15.323:

  • Fixed: Players never dropped super lasers in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: The download manager locked itself when a download was cancelled
  • Fixed: Depending on aspect rate, the program could crash when a robot was hit by a missile and the missile view was displayed in a cockpit window
  • Changed: D2X-XL will now search for missions in its mission downloads folder first (to avoid overriding downloaded maps with different versions of the same map found in folders with lexically smaller names)
  • Improved: D2X-XL will now properly keep track about lasers and super lasers picked up (standard Descent assumes full standard laser loadout as soon as a player picks up super lasers)

What is new in version 1.15.322:

  • Fixed: The stuff a destroyed player ship dropped in multiplayer only appeared on that player's computer
  • New: The game host can now exclude any ship type from being used in multiplayer games (if all are excluded, only the standard Pyro is allowed)

What is new in version 1.15.321:

  • Fixed: A player dropped a shield and an energy powerup in multiplayer games everytime he changed his ship (exploit for gaining shield and energy)

What is new in version 1.15.320:

  • Fixed: Binary format savegames couldn't be loaded anymore
  • Fixed: The endlevel score screen didn't have a frame anymore
  • Fixed: Every multiplayer participant changing D2X-XL specific settings locally (like e.g. collision handling), replicated his entire D2X-XL settings to all other players, whether he was the game host or not

What is new in version 1.15.319:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when loading a level if particle effects were enabled and the program had been launched with the -lowmem switch set to '1'
  • Fixed: When killing the final boss in D2:Counterstrike and not reaching the exit in time, the final level was restarted
  • Fixed: The player name in the high scores screen was blinking too fast
  • Changed: Unless in nostalgia or multiplayer competition mode, distant Earth Shaker impacts will rock the mine less (depending on distance)
  • Improved: Joystick deadzone handling is a numerically more precise
  • New: Added the command line switches -movies (inverse to -nomovies) and -briefings (inverse to -noscreens)
  • New: Colored segment rendering can now be suppressed via the mission configuration (-colored_segments 0|1)

What is new in version 1.15.318:

  • Improved: Speeded up transparency rendering by about 10% on multi core cpus

What is new in version 1.15.317:

  • Fixed: When glow was enabled, 3D shield powerups looked pale or even bright white

What is new in version 1.15.316:

  • Changed: Critical network data version will now be supervised. Players with different network data versions than the game host will not be able to join that D2X-XL game
  • New: Game speed can now be scaled to up to three times the standard speed (in increments of 0.5)

What is new in version 1.15.315:

  • Fixed: The program could crash in multiplayer games when a player joined the game or respawned after having died

What is new in version 1.15.314:

  • Fixed: A forgotten debug switch caused all kinds of problems

What is new in version 1.15.313:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when loading addon bitmaps from locations with a long folder name

What is new in version 1.15.312:

  • Fixed: Player files were reported as being damaged after having been killed and/or having scored kills in a multiplayer game

What is new in version 1.15.311:

  • Fixed: With advanced collision handling, flying through powerups briefly accelerated the player ship
  • Changed: No multithreading will be available in the standard D2X-XL application (d2x-xl.exe)
  • Improved: Made the networking code more robust

What is new in version 1.15.310:

  • Fixed: You couldn't pass through powerups you couldn't collect
  • Fixed: When disabling 3D powerup rendering in-game and hires textures were enabled, no powerup sprites were rendered for those powerups hires sprites were available for
  • Fixed: When not in a game, changing the player ship type in the gameplay menu had no effect

What is new in version 1.15.309:

  • Fixed: Robots didn't fire and could hardly be hit anymore
  • Fixed: Players could pick up powerups behind impassable walls (e.g. gratings) if the powerups were sticking out of the segment a bit

What is new in version 1.15.308:

  • Fixed: A player could collect powerups he shouldn't be able to reach (like the full map powerup in Descent 2, level 2)

What is new in version 1.15.307:

  • Fixed: Secret level entries in mission files with multiple references to regular levels weren't properly processed, causing such a mission to be rejected by d2x-xl

What is new in version 1.15.306:

  • Fixed: Bosses occasionally teleported to areas they shouldn't be able to access

What is new in version 1.15.305:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when processing explosion sound effects

What is new in version 1.15.304:

  • Fixed: The particle renderer could occasionally crash the program
  • Fixed: The program could crash when loading levels containing effect objects
  • Improved: Sound will decay more smoothly

What is new in version 1.15.303:

  • Fixed: Now the program crashed when starting it in full XL mode ...

What is new in version 1.15.302:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when loading a level in pureD2 or nostalgia mode
  • Fixed: Processing lightning effects with invalid parameters (more branches than nodes specified) could crash the program

What is new in version 1.15.301:

  • Fixed: Sounds located in the same segment as the player often weren't audible

What is new in version 1.15.300:

  • Fixed: Sounds from behind closed doors were audible
  • Fixed: Marker weren't rendered with their number in the automap
  • Fixed: Instead of moving the existing one to the current drop position, dropping a spawn marker when a spawn marker wasn't already present in the level created another spawn marker
  • Fixed: When the player ship was changed inside the mission, the player spawned in the previously chosen ship when respawning after having been destroyed
  • Improved: Players cannot pick up energy boosts used for marking a path
  • Improved: Path finding used for sound handling is much, much faster now (this had shown to be a major performance hog before)
  • Improved: Sound from a segment with more than one sound source will not be overly loud anymore
  • Improved: The range of the Guidebot has been increased from 200 to 1000 segments from its current position, making it more likely that it will find stuff for you in huge missions like e.g. Anthology
  • New: Players can have a path to an arbitrary path marked with the new 'minotaur' cheat

What is new in version 1.15.299:

  • Changed: During lightmap calculation lights will also contribute to faces hidden behind walls that may disappear or become transparent when playing the level

What is new in version 1.15.298:

  • Fixed: OOF based hires models weren't always rendered properly
  • Fixed: Message triggers with non-existant messages could crash the program

What is new in version 1.15.297:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL will not crash anymore when a robot drops non-existant robot types (caused by errors in the level) when dying

What is new in version 1.15.296:

  • Fixed: The program will not terminate itself after encountering invalid powerups that are dropped from exploding robots anymore

What is new in version 1.15.295:

  • Fixed: Cloaked walls weren't always rendered properly
  • Fixed: With basic lighting, colored walls and segments weren't rendered
  • Fixed: The program crashed when trying to launch a multiplayer game with the German localization enabled
  • Improved: Added a German localization for the updater

What is new in version 1.15.294:

  • Fixed: Robots that died with a death roll kept rolling (instead of exploding) as long as they were hit
  • Fixed: When particle effects were turned off, the amount of debris couldn't be changed anymore because the corresponding effects menu entry got hidden
  • Fixed: Even if effects were disabled, extra debris was created during explosions
  • Improved: Explosions from destroyed robots will now move towards the player while they are visible, giving a more realistic explosion effect

What is new in version 1.15.293:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when invoking certain menus (e.g. the keyboard configuration) when using localized messages (hint: Install the latest d2x-xl data package)

What is new in version 1.15.292:

  • Improved: Loading screens shuffling is now more random

What is new in version 1.15.291:

  • Fixed: Colored segments still weren't always rendered right
  • Improved: Descent 2 custom background images will now be shuffled for missions that have no custom background images

What is new in version 1.15.290:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL crashed when a destroyed robot dropped items not available in D2X-XL (due to errors in the mission)

What is new in version 1.15.289:

  • Fixed: Rendering colored segments (water, lava) didn't work right anymore
  • Fixed: Re-enabled some code to unstick objects, so player ships (hopefully) won't get stuck in robots anymore when colliding with them

What is new in version 1.15.288:

  • Fixed: When enabling custom weapons and playing a level that has some, then leaving the level, disabling custom weapons, and playing the same level again, custom weapons were still enabled
  • Changed: The option that makes gatling guns start to fire with a delay has been moved from the sound to the gameplay options menu. When this option is enabled, gatling gun fire will be delayed even if the gatling rotation sound is turned off or not available; in that case you will just not have an audio feedback for that like you have when the spinning sound is there.
  • New: The new game menu now also has an option to disable custom weapons

What is new in version 1.15.287:

  • Fixed: Some areas in rendered movies were rendered black instead of white

What is new in version 1.15.286:

  • Fixed: The credit screen's background image wasn't rendered properly
  • Fixed: You couldn't enable mods in the new game menu anymore
  • Fixed: The last custom background used while playing a mission was kept for the main menu after playing

What is new in version 1.15.285:

  • Fixed: When particle collision handling was enabled, the program could hang or crash

What is new in version 1.15.284:

  • New: You can now disable custom weapon mods via the gameplay options and more multiplayer options menus

What is new in version 1.15.283:

  • Fixed: Players frequently couldn't fire shots and/or couldn't be hit in multiplayer games (usually this went away when closing the multiplayer session and starting a new one without terminating the program)
  • Changed: D2X-XL will not override custom weapon info (from custom HAM files) for multiplayer games by resetting weapon info to the Descent 1/2 default values anymore

What is new in version 1.15.282:

  • Fixed: With lightmap based lighting levels were completely bright

What is new in version 1.15.281:

  • Fixed: Levels containing pre-computed colored light (from DLE-XP) were rendered pitch black when the lighting method was set to 'basic'

What is new in version 1.15.280:

  • Fixed: When shadows were enabled, firing flares or transparent shots (lasers etc.) led to all kinds of rendering flaws

What is new in version 1.15.279:

  • Fixed: When moving diagonally into a wall, the ship often briefly hung or stopped instead of smoothly sliding along the wall

What is new in version 1.15.278:

  • Fixed: When firing Gatling shots into a skybox while effects were enabled (and thus light tracers were rendered), the mine walls disappeared due to being overlapped by the skybox and (semi-) transparent faces (e.g. gratings)

What is new in version 1.15.277:

  • Fixed: Sometimes objects were rendered that weren't visible to the viewer
  • Fixed: 'repair center' segments from standard levels will be converted to regular (non-functional) segments when reading them. This fixes a flaw in standard level format where segments could be marked as 'repair center' although repair centers weren't supported by standard Descent and prevents this flaw from being exploited by using D2X-XL in multiplayer games where some participants are using other Descent versions

What is new in version 1.15.276:

  • Fixed: When taking a lot of screenshots, the program encountered a severe error due to a memory leak, throwing the player back to the main menu

What is new in version 1.15.275:

  • Changed: At highest render quality, glow will be applied to the textured automap, too
  • Improved: When the HUD is turned off, automap screen shots will not show keyboard control information

What is new in version 1.15.274:

  • Changed: Screenshots will now show the D2X-XL label and Descent web site URL in their lower right corner.

What is new in version 1.15.273:

  • Fixed: The rear view stayed black when shadows were enabled

What is new in version 1.15.272:

  • Fixed: The game could crash when loading a level with mesh improvement quality set to high
  • Fixed: The pathfinding wasn't properly reconfigured when entering or leaving secret levels, which could cause program crashes

What is new in version 1.15.271:

  • Fixed: The game could crash when loading a level with mesh improvement quality set to high
  • Fixed: The pathfinding wasn't properly reconfigured when entering or leaving secret levels, which could cause program crashes

What is new in version 1.15.270:

  • Fixed: The game could crash when the joystick configuration menu was opened or closed

What is new in version 1.15.269:

  • Fixed: The game crashed when loading a game via the quit/config/load/save menu after the player ship had been destroyed and before it had exploded

What is new in version 1.15.268:

  • Fixed: The program reported a missing background image file and halted in -pureD2 mode
  • New: Added cockpit menu option allowing to hide target indicators behind obstacles

What is new in version 1.15.267:

  • Fixed: Hitting triggers still didn't work quite right

What is new in version 1.15.266:

  • Fixed: Triggers weren't always hit by shots (shooting through gaps in gratings and forcefields was probably also affected by this bug)

What is new in version 1.15.265:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when loading savegames or transferring the player to a new level
  • Changed: Target and damage indicators will now shine through walls to some extent

What is new in version 1.15.264:

  • Fixed: Collision detection didn't always work right
  • Fixed: Player ship shield and energy were set to the standard values when the player entered a new level even when the player had gathered more than the standard amounts of them
  • Improved: Robots stuck in walls will be moved out of the walls
  • Improved: Target, damage and missile lock indicator transparency now increases with growing distance of the target to the viewer

What is new in version 1.15.263:

  • Fixed: A few menu options didn't stick
  • Fixed: A few menu help messages were wrong

What is new in version 1.15.262:

  • Fixed: Loading a savegame containing both bosses that did and bosses that did not ended a level when being destroyed could crash the program
  • Changed: Energy draining robots will not have a constant lightning effect, but lightning arcs reaching to their target when actually draining it
  • Improved: Sound handling is more precise and more efficient

What is new in version 1.15.261:

  • Fixed: The render options menu didn't always work right
  • New: Added a simple way point system for moving lightning effects

What is new in version 1.15.260:

  • Fixed: Sound effects tied to objects (e.g. lighting effect objects) weren't played
  • Fixed: Repair center lightning effect was yellow instead of light blue
  • Improved: Perlin based lightning generation now works as it should
  • New: Added a thickness property for lightning bolts and expanded the level and demo formats accordingly
  • New: At highest render quality, the Omega lightning effect will now have a slow moving, massive lightning bolt surrounded by faster electric discharges

What is new in version 1.15.259:

  • Fixed: A log message contained a formatting error
  • Fixed: The menu for reordering secondary weapons couldn't be invoked anymore
  • Fixed: Demos couldn't be viewed anymore
  • Fixed: Player ship size could occasionally get messed up with the consequence of the player not being able to move throw narrow level areas
  • Improved: D2X-XL game information is sent less frequently during multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.15.258:

  • Fixed: The end level score screen wasn't always displayed

What is new in version 1.15.257:

  • Fixed: The program occasionally crashed right after starting
  • Fixed: The program crashed when trying to send XML game info while a tracker game was being hosted
  • Fixed: The program occasionally crashed when disconnecting players

What is new in version 1.15.256:

  • Fixed: The player ship occasionally kept exploding upon entering a multiplayer game
  • Fixed: When saving a multiplayer game in the first save slot, the other players wouldn't save the game
  • Fixed: When loading a multiplayer game from the first save slot, the other players wouldn't load their corresponding multiplayer save game
  • Fixed: When a player loaded a multiplayer save games, loading the other players' save games failed and the players had to quit and rejoin
  • Fixed: When loading a multiplayer game while a menu was active, the program crashed
  • Fixed: Players did not always properly reconnect after having loaded a multiplayer save game

What is new in version 1.15.255:

  • Fixed: The game could crash in the multiplayer options menu when trying to host a multiplayer game
  • Improved: Internal menu handling is safer now, making the menu system more robust

What is new in version 1.15.254:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when the screenshot path + filename was longer than about 90 characters and a screenshot was to be made

What is new in version 1.15.253:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when playing back a demo after having entered and left a level

What is new in version 1.15.252:

  • Fixed: The update downloader didn't find updates on Sourceforge.net
  • Improved: Added a progress bar for program update downloads (Windows and Linux)

What is new in version 1.15.249:

  • Fixed: A syntax flaw in a shader program made the shader unusable

What is new in version 1.15.248:

  • Fixed: Explosion effects on objects weren't rendered
  • Fixed: Splash damage of huge explosions (e.g. from Mega missiles) wasn't computed correctly

What is new in version 1.15.247:

  • Fixed: Transparent stuff was rendered incomplete (e.g. only one triangle of a transparent face was shown)

What is new in version 1.15.246:

  • Fixed: Missiles and gun shots couldn't move into skybox segments anymore
  • Fixed: Missiles and gun shots in skybox segments were invisible
  • Improved: Reintroduced an optimization for stereoscopic rendering to the transparency renderer

What is new in version 1.15.245:

  • Improved: Decreased the light data memory footprint by about 40%

What is new in version 1.15.244:

  • Fixed: The transparency renderer consumed a whopping 290 MB of memory which could cause program crashes when it couldn't allocate its buffers
  • (its memory consumptions has now been decreased to around 10 MB)

What is new in version 1.15.243:

  • Fixed: A bug in secret level handling could cause program crashes

What is new in version 1.15.242:

  • Fixed: Removed a few bugs that under rare circumstances could cause program crashes

What is new in version 1.15.241:

  • Fixed: Joystick deadzones weren't properly set after loading a player profile
  • Fixed: Fire wasn't rendered properly when soft particle blending was disabled
  • Changed: Reverted a collision handling related change that apparently prevented proper sliding of the player ship along walls and around corners
  • Improved: HUD messages won't show on screenshots
  • Improved: HUD and RADAR will not be rendered during the player ship explosion sequence anymore
  • New: Robots firing fusion guns will have a 3D shockwave effect New: Mods can now have level specific loading screen background images
  • New: Mods can now have level specific loading screen background images

What is new in version 1.15.240:

  • Fixed: The heavy fighter's shield could be charged to 200% with an energy -> shield converter
  • Improved: Player ships will not endlessly bounce off walls when being driven against them while having thrust

What is new in version 1.15.239:

  • Fixed: The program could hang and/or crash when the player collected powerups

What is new in version 1.15.238:

  • Fixed: Objects got stuck in powerups

What is new in version 1.15.237:

  • Fixed: On rare occasions, D2X-XL crashed when the player fired a gun
  • Fixed: Segment and side centers could be wrong (due to integer overflows)

What is new in version 1.15.236:

  • Fixed: Various bugs and flaws in hitbox based collision detection and handling were removed

What is new in version 1.15.235:

  • Improved: Static objects cannot be penetrated during collisions anymore
  • Improved: The 'spaniard' cheat will not destroy geometry objects (i.e. objects with AI 'static' and strength 0)
  • Improved: Geometry objects do not count towards the robot tally

What is new in version 1.15.234:

  • Improved: Static objects will now have somewhat better collision handling
  • Improved: Static objects will not fire back when being shot at
  • Improved: Static objects will be treated like geometry when being shot at
  • Improved: Static objects will not cast shadows

What is new in version 1.15.233:

  • Fixed: The program could hang or crash when trying to read broken mission info
  • Fixed: No lightmaps were computed by the non-OpenMP program version when multi threading was enabled (via d2x.ini)
  • Fixed: Objects with a strength of 0 caused program crashes; such objects are now handled as indestructible

What is new in version 1.15.232:

  • Fixed: Glow effects were clipped improperly at any except the fullscreen cockpit mode

What is new in version 1.15.231:

  • Fixed: The shockwave effect wasn't rendered at the proper position for all cockpit modes except the fullscreen view
  • Improved: The shockwave effect looks better (hard to see due to its speed, but trust me, it does

What is new in version 1.15.230:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when moving from a level containing destructible lights to the next level

What is new in version 1.15.229:

  • Fixed: Transparent faces frequently were opaque at the hightest lighting setting

What is new in version 1.15.228:

  • Fixed: At the highest lighting setting, there was no light at all
  • Fixed: Game folder detection could fail on Linux and OS X

What is new in version 1.15.227:

  • Fixed: Ambient light in front of instead of behind light sources was dimmed

What is new in version 1.15.226:

  • Fixed: Transparent walls often were rendered opaque

What is new in version 1.15.225:

  • Fixed: The change in v1.15.223 broke light calculation for ambient light contribution to faces behind light sources

What is new in version 1.15.224:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when computing lighting information
  • Fixed: Colored transparent walls were fully transparent and white when lightmap based lighting was used
  • Fixed: Energy sparks weren't displayed properly on monitors (camera outputs)
  • Fixed: Waterfall smoke wasn't rendered properly

What is new in version 1.15.223:

  • Improved: There will be no abrupt brightness decrease between light emitting faces and their adjacent faces anymore

What is new in version 1.15.222:

  • Fixed: Some forgotten test code randomly caused weird light effects, getting worse when playing for a while

What is new in version 1.15.221:

  • Fixed: Lightmaps caused black seams at face edges
  • Fixed: Dynamic light sources caused hard light transitions between faces
  • Fixed: Faces adjacent to light emitting faces often were too dark
  • Improved: Lightmaps will now be blurred which takes care of the jaggies in lightmaps quite nicely, and produces a softer shadowing effect

What is new in version 1.15.220:

  • Fixed: Some lightmap calculation flaws were removed

What is new in version 1.15.219:

  • Fixed: Light data precalculation could loop forever
  • Fixed: The distance calculation (via DACS segment path finding) for lightmaps didn't work correctly, often causing lights to cast ambient light where they shouldn't have
  • Improved: Lightmap calculation will be (potentially) faster and more precise
  • New: Added a render menu option for adjusting lightmap calculation precision (only available in expert mode)

What is new in version 1.15.218:

  • Fixed: The new lighting code didn't work right for dynamic lights

What is new in version 1.15.217:

  • Fixed: Depending on player position and view direction, the main view could occasionally be pitch black
  • Changed: Lightmap quality has been bumped up one notch, e.g. each setting now produces lightmaps which are four times as detailled as before
  • Changed: Bullet time and slow motion will now be turned off when the reactor has been destroyed and will not be available during the mine destruction phase
  • Improved: Lightmap calculation is more precise (the price of which is that it is also quite a bit slower)

What is new in version 1.15.215:

  • Fixed: Glow effects often were badly clipped at standard glow setting

What is new in version 1.15.214:

  • Fixed: The program hung on Linux after loading the game data and before displaying the main menu

What is new in version 1.15.213:

  • Fixed: Objects weren't lit by geometry lights

What is new in version 1.15.212:

  • Fixed: Visibility precalculation and subsequently lightmap generation didn't always work properly

What is new in version 1.15.211:

  • Fixed: Earth shaker bomblets bounced around until their lifetime had expired

What is new in version 1.15.210:

  • Fixed: Palettes with different than the standard transparency color keys weren't rendered right
  • Fixed: The planetary surface and sun occasionally were miscolored during the Descent 1 mine exit sequence
  • Fixed: The minimap in the cockpit displays wasn't always shown
  • Fixed: The cockpit window position description sometimes was '(NULL)'
  • Improved: When deleting a pilot, D2X-XL will ask whether to delete that pilot's savegames, too (and not just do it)
  • Improved: You can now override the Descent 1 exit textures by placing appropriately named textures in the main or mod texture folders ('moon02.tga' for terrain and 'sun.tga' for the sun)

What is new in version 1.15.209:

  • Fixed: The single threaded program rendered doorways opaque

What is new in version 1.15.208:

  • Fixed: Robot generators oocasionally ceased to work (particularly when playing long multi-level missions)
  • Improved: The shield, energy and afterburner gauges look better and are more meaningful now

What is new in version 1.15.207:

  • Fixed: The framecap didn't work right on very fast machines
  • Fixed: The glow renderer didn't work right, leading to all kinds of problems when rendering transparent stuff
  • Fixed: 3D thruster flames were flickering when standard glow was enabled
  • Changed: The glow renderer will only be available on hardware and with OpenGL drivers supporting multiple render targets
  • Changed: Glow will appear a little softer

What is new in version 1.15.206:

  • Fixed: When using the intra-level teleport cheat ('subspace') and leaving the menu by pressing the Escape key, instead of remaining where he was the player was teleported somewhere
  • Fixed: Stuff glow was applied to occasionally wasn't rendered
  • Fixed: 3D missile thruster flames weren't rendered properly
  • Fixed: Player ship 3D thrusters occasionally had the missile thruster color

What is new in version 1.15.205:

  • Fixed: Materialization centers were randomly exchanged
  • Fixed: When in free camera mode, homing missiles targetted the spectator instead of the player ship

What is new in version 1.15.204:

  • Fixed: Robot and equipment generator info wasn't always processed properly

What is new in version 1.15.203:

  • Fixed: Equipment generator info wasn't processed properly anymore
  • Fixed: The visibility culling didn't always work right (which among others could lead to messed up lighting)

What is new in version 1.15.202:

  • Fixed: The screen aspect ratio wasn't computed correctly for all cockpit settings except the fullscreen one
  • Fixed: As a result of that, the radar was distorted
  • Fixed: Homing weapons turned in insane angles

What is new in version 1.15.201:

  • Fixed: Homing weapons didn't lock on targets when the program was executed single threaded

What is new in version 1.15.200:

  • Changed: Replaced command line switch '-nobotai' with '-disable_robots'
  • Improved: D2X-XL will handle faulty materialization center information better
  • New: Added command line switch '-disable_powerups', disabling all powerups in the game completely (including keys!)

What is new in version 1.15.199:

  • Fixed: Removed a potential source of side by side configuration errors being reported when launching D2X-XL and/or D2X-XL not launching properly (MS Windows only)

What is new in version 1.15.198:

  • Fixed: Depending on OS and compiler used to build D2X-XL (e.g. g++ on Linux), debris didn't move away from its origin's explosion center

What is new in version 1.15.197:

  • Fixed: The pause message box wasn't shown when pausing the game
  • Fixed: The smoke transparency settings made in the smoke details menu had no effect on the appearance of smoke in the game

What is new in version 1.15.196:

  • Improved: Reduced shader changes when rendering particles

What is new in version 1.15.195:

  • Fixed: The new multi threaded target tracking code crashed

What is new in version 1.15.194:

  • Improved: When multi threading is enabled in the game, target tracking of homing weapons is now handled by multiple threads

What is new in version 1.15.193:

  • Fixed: A few shaders wouldn't compile on certain ATI graphics hardware

What is new in version 1.15.192:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when encountering invalid robot or equipment generator information in a level

What is new in version 1.15.191:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when using multi-threading while rendering shadows
  • Fixed: No splash damage from big explosions was applied anymore
  • Fixed: Some effects that should weren't rendered additively at basic and standard lighting settings
  • Fixed: Encountering robots that had no guns (e.g. the Class 2 Supervisor) could crash the program
  • Fixed: D2X-XL could crash when the player tried to pick up certain powerups
  • Improved: Target tracking is now faster

What is new in version 1.15.190:

  • Improved: Big missile, boss and player explosions now have a beefier explosion sound

What is new in version 1.15.189:

  • Fixed: Robot Vulcan and Gauss didn't fire light tracers
  • Fixed: Sounds often were too low in wide open areas (particularly if these were built out of huge segments)
  • Fixed: The score screen wasn't displayed anymore after finishing a level
  • Changed: BPer shots and smart mine blobs now emit light (which they didn't before)
  • Improved: Chose a better sound for huge (e.g. boss) explosions

What is new in version 1.15.188:

  • Fixed: Shadows often had holes
  • Changed: Energy sparks will rotate at high render quality
  • Improved: Particle rendering is faster for huge numbers of particles

What is new in version 1.15.187:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL now always correctly determines the orientation of TGA textures

What is new in version 1.15.186:

  • Fixed: When loading a level, instead of showing progress bars the screen flickered rapidly
  • Fixed: When starting a game, some custom sounds (e.g. the missile sound) were inaudible
  • Fixed: Glow didn't always work
  • Changed: Tweaked the amount of debris coming from destroyed robots and players
  • Improved: The particle system now needs significantly less state switches and buffer flushes at high quality settings

What is new in version 1.15.185:

  • Fixed: Instead of custom models from the mission file, D2X-XL displayed its default hires ships
  • Changed: Robot gatling smoke trails are now solely controlled via the gatling smoke trail check box in the effect options menu
  • Changed: Blurring of shadows now depends on shadow quality (higher quality -> stronger blur)
  • Improved: Shadow volume calculation is now faster on most hardware

What is new in version 1.15.184:

  • Fixed: Explosions will not create several object fuselages as debris anymore
  • Fixed: Non light emissive gun fire (e.g. Gatling rounds) will not create shadows anymore
  • Fixed: Depending on the render quality setting, the 'basic' shadow setting was changed to 'full' by the program
  • Changed: Missile explosions do not create a blue shockwave effect by themselves

What is new in version 1.15.183:

  • Fixed: Objects were shadowing themselves where they were illuminated
  • Fixed: Lighting didn't always work right anymore when multi threading was enabled

What is new in version 1.15.182:

  • Fixed: The scene was occasionally rendered in monochrome
  • Fixed: Objects (still) weren't properly lit
  • Improved: Shadows will now be blurred when glow is enabled
  • Improved: Shadows will now only be cast by bright dynamic light effects (weapon fire, explosions, headlights), which is creating a very dynamic shadowing effect

What is new in version 1.15.181:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL wasn't using the Descent 2 mod for Vertigo

What is new in version 1.15.180:

  • Fixed: The reticle lit up red when targetting the guidebot (i.e. a friendly)
  • Fixed: You couldn't launch cooperative games anymore with missions marked as 'coop' in the mission file

What is new in version 1.15.179:

  • Fixed: The program crashed on various occasions (frequently while or after loading or starting a new game after having played a level)
  • Fixed: The program didn't display anything; instead the output window rapidly flickered

What is new in version 1.15.178:

  • New: At the highest particle effect quality setting, smoke trails have bright fire clouds at their origin (beware: frame rate killer with many smoke trails)

What is new in version 1.15.177:

  • Improved: RADAR will leave room for HUD icons and message texts
  • New: You can now chose from different radar colors (see the cockpit options menu)

What is new in version 1.15.176:

  • Changed: ALT+R will only toggle RADAR range and not position any more
  • New: The size of the radar can now be adjusted
  • New: Added RADAR settings (position, size, range) to cockpit options menu

What is new in version 1.15.175:

  • Fixed: The RADAR was partially off-screen for cockpit views other than the fullscreen view
  • Changed: The RADAR has been made a bit smaller
  • Improved: The RADAR's visibility has been enhanced with a dark background

What is new in version 1.15.174:

  • Fixed: Objects weren't lit by headlights anymore
  • Fixed: Snow didn't look right anymore (as it used a wrong particle texture)
  • Changed: The game didn't allow for more than 15 debris fragments total; for debris amount settings other than 'standard' this limit has been removed
  • Improved: The RADAR looks much better and more 3D

What is new in version 1.15.173:

  • Changed: Explosion shrapnel has been replaced by the possibility to increase the amount of debris created by exploding objects
  • New: Added a new explosion shockwave effect courtesy of the guys from the Freespace Open Project

What is new in version 1.15.172:

  • Improved: Missile smoke trail length isn't depending on missile speed anymore
  • Improved: Shrapnel stresses the system less

What is new in version 1.15.171:

  • Fixed: Robot Gauss and Vulcan shots didn't create a smoke trail
  • Fixed: Missile smoke trails didn't have a red glow where they were emitted anymore
  • Improved: Optimized smoke creation
  • Improved: Rocket smoke trail shines reddish near the thrusters
  • New: Added smoke details menu (only available in expert mode)

What is new in version 1.15.170:

  • New: Added parameter '-collision_model {0|1}' to per mission configuration, allowing level authors to control collision model usage (0: hit sphere, 1: hit boxes)

What is new in version 1.15.169:

  • Improved: Added player info to XML game info

What is new in version 1.15.168:

  • Fixed: Configuration parameters weren't properly evaluated
  • Fixed: Under certain circumstances shield spheres flashed brightly white when glow was enabled
  • Fixed: Parts of the level were occasionally rendered transparent when glow was enabled and lightning was visible

What is new in version 1.15.167:

  • Fixed: Not all available missions were shown in the mission list anymore
  • Fixed: Some levels still couldn't be loaded

What is new in version 1.15.166:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL couldn't load levels anymore

What is new in version 1.15.165:

  • New: D2X-XL now supports XML game status requests, returning ping, score, kills, deaths and country information of all participants of a match in progress

What is new in version 1.15.164:

  • Fixed: The shockwave effect lasted way too long

What is new in version 1.15.163:

  • Fixed: With per pixel lighting textures often were distorted
  • Fixed: Instead of returning to the main menu when quitting from playing a level, the program was immediately terminated
  • Improved: It is sufficient to specify a game host's IP address and port number to have D2X-XL automatically join that host's game after launch

What is new in version 1.15.162:

  • Fixed: Many transparent 2D effects (explosions etc.) weren't rendered anymore

What is new in version 1.15.161:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL didn't correctly enter netgames when begin executed with direct netgame launch parameters
  • Fixed: D2X-XL could hang after leaving a level
  • Fixed: Shockwave effect wasn't render at the proper location in cockpit and widescreen views
  • Fixed: Lightning glow was too dark when general glow effect rendering was disabled
  • Fixed: The program wasn't automatically closed after the player had left a game that had been automatically started

What is new in version 1.15.160:

  • Fixed: The screen wasn't updated when shockwave effects were present, but invisible to the player
  • Fixed: Many weapons that shouldn't created shockwaves

What is new in version 1.15.159:

  • Fixed: The HUD wasn't properly displayed when the shockwave effect was rendered

What is new in version 1.15.158:

  • Fixed: Depth testing in the shockwave shader often failed

What is new in version 1.15.157:

  • Improved: The shockwave shader now does depth testing to avoid distorting geometry or objects in front of an explosion
  • Improved: Soft blending should be significantly faster now due to removal of duplicate depth buffer reads

What is new in version 1.15.156:

  • Fixed: Helix energy consumption wasn't doubled in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: D2X-XL game clients added themselves to trackers as server and replied to XML game info queries with partially corrupt responses
  • Improved: Lightning effect looks better
  • New: Added frame post processing
  • New: Added shockwave effect for explosions etc.

What is new in version 1.15.155:

  • Fixed: Players trying to join a server after having been a server themselves responded to XML game info requests for a short while

What is new in version 1.15.154:

  • Fixed: Collision detection and visibility testing for objects didn't work right

What is new in version 1.15.153:

  • Fixed: The program didn't start unless the program folder was explicitly specified using the -userdir parameter

What is new in version 1.15.152:

  • Fixed: Some weird code issue located in a global overloaded operator caused the program to crash
  • Improved: Decreased the CPU load caused by the game menus

What is new in version 1.15.150:

  • Changed: Made some adjustments of the XML game info format

What is new in version 1.15.149:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when the guidebot was very close to player at level start
  • Fixed: The program crashed when opening a door that had a non-animated texture at its backside (like in Plutonian Outbreak 2)
  • Fixed: The program crashed when loading polygon models that had submodels without any faces (like in Plutonian Outbreak 2)

What is new in version 1.15.148:

  • Changed: Added and changed a few XML game info fields

What is new in version 1.15.147:

  • New: Added support for external game info queries; XML formatted game information is provided for these

What is new in version 1.15.146:

  • Fixed: The in-game help screen listed CTRL+P instead of PAUSE as pause key
  • Fixed: Per level sounds of Descent 1 mods weren't used
  • Fixed: Suppressing certain ship types via mission or level config files didn't work in all cases
  • Fixed: The gameplay options menu crashed when only one ship type was allowed
  • Fixed: The ship selection in the gameplay options menu didn't work right when a ship was unavailable
  • Improved: D2X-XL will make sure that the player always gets an available ship assigned when entering a new level

What is new in version 1.15.145:

  • New: Added support for per mission and per level configuration files

What is new in version 1.15.144:

  • Fixed: Objects the center of which were in invisible segments, but that extended into visible segments weren't rendered
  • Fixed: D2X-XL will not create binary model files from custom model files contained in hog files (and hence not put the binary files in D2X-XL's main folder)
  • Fixed: Energy and shield values still weren't right in the status bar and full cockpits
  • Improved: Unified the blur shader for less shader state changes

What is new in version 1.15.143:

  • Fixed: With full or status bar cockpits, glow wasn't rendered at the right place, but at an offset to the glowing object

What is new in version 1.15.142:

  • Fixed: Destroyed reactors disappeared after a short while

What is new in version 1.15.141:

  • Fixed: You weren't always awarded the full rescue bonus even if you had rescued all hostages from a level
  • Fixed: Energy centers in Descent 1 levels were often rendered both with the old animated spark texture and the new spark effect

What is new in version 1.15.140:

  • Fixed: Transparent walls were invisible with basic and standard lighting

What is new in version 1.15.139:

  • Fixed: At basic and standard lighting, door animations weren't visible

What is new in version 1.15.138:

  • Fixed: Scrolling in the netgame browser garbled the browser display
  • Fixed: Graphical shield gauges were under/overflowing for the light and heavy ships

What is new in version 1.15.137:

  • Fixed: Players frequently couldn't connect to multiplayer games in progress

What is new in version 1.15.136:

  • Changed: When the game host disconnects, only a player using the server port as local port can become the new game host

What is new in version 1.15.135:

  • Fixed: The game host didn't always properly open its UDP connection, causing other players to be unable to connect to him

What is new in version 1.15.134:

  • Fixed: Download still wasn't always working (blame the wrong documentation of SDLNet_TCP_Recv for it)
  • Fixed: When the game host disconnected from a multiplayer game, he couldn't reliably reconnect
  • Fixed: On Linux, folders using Windows delimiters (backslash) weren't properly removed from ASE models' texture file names, causing hires models not to be loaded
  • Improved: The transparency renderer will avoid unnecessary depth buffer reads

What is new in version 1.15.133:

  • Fixed: The renderer was extremely slow when rendering transparency on low-end graphics hardware (like Intel IGPs) even when using pureD2 mode or turning off shader usage
  • Improved: Depth buffer reads will now be profiled and automatically disabled if they take too long
  • Improved: D2X-XL will fall back to alsa if pulse audio cannot be initialized

What is new in version 1.15.132:

  • Fixed: The mission download didn't work reliably and could even hang

What is new in version 1.15.131:

  • Fixed: Server address information got mixed up when the program queried several servers from a tracker
  • Improved: Mission download is now done via TCP which is much more reliable than UDP

What is new in version 1.15.130:

  • Fixed: The game host was flooding the other players with ping requests while waiting for them to join during level transition
  • Fixed: In multiplayer games, players often took a long time to connect or to enter the next level during level transition

What is new in version 1.15.129:

  • Fixed: Mines weren't lit in nostalgia/pureD2 mode
  • Fixed: The textured automap was available in pureD2 mode
  • Fixed: Level songs from mods weren't played when a global playlist was present
  • Fixed: No secret level songs from mods were played (these should have the name 'slevel##.ogg', where '##' is a two digit, zero padded level number)

What is new in version 1.15.128:

  • Fixed: A few menu help messages were off, and others were too long w/o line breaks
  • Fixed: The HUD equipment icons were miscolored in levels that were using another than the default palette
  • Fixed: When changing the player profile, you could gain access to all the levels the previous player had reached even if you hadn't reached them yourself
  • Fixed: Demo recordings taken in levels containing effect objects were broken (effects will intentionally not be displayed during demo playback though)
  • Fixed: Directed exits didn't work in a mission's last level
  • Fixed: Players were sent to the next level in the level sequence when dieing after destroying the reactor or last boss regardless of any directed exits in the level
  • Fixed: When a level couldn't be entered while trying to enter a multiplayer game, the program could crash
  • Changed: Moved the mission download controls to the miscellaneous options menu

What is new in version 1.15.127:

  • Fixed: Due to a typo, the '-enable_freecam' switch didn't work
  • Fixed: The advanced collision detection didn't work reliably
  • Improved: You cannot drive parts of the player ship into objects by rotating it around an axis

What is new in version 1.15.126:

  • Fixed: Errors in robot info data (submodel joint and angle info) could cause program crashes (e.g. in 'Descent: The Enemy Within')

What is new in version 1.15.125:

  • Fixed: The update function used an outdated URL to access and download program updates
  • Fixed: The built-in multiplayer tracker URL was outdated

What is new in version 1.15.124:

  • Fixed: Level areas not explored by the player, but seen by the Guidebot were shown in the automap when the cockpit's Guidebot view was turned on

What is new in version 1.15.123:

  • Fixed: Video sound was distorted
  • Changed: Re-introduced the "-enable_freecam" command line switch allowing to turn off the free cam

What is new in version 1.15.122:

  • Fixed: Energy centers didn't refuel player ships to their capacity depending on ship type, but always to 100

What is new in version 1.15.121:

  • Fixed: The fullmap powerup was removed from players when entering a new level even if it was specified as built-in equipment

What is new in version 1.15.120:

  • Fixed: When a player with a local port different from the server port became the game host, other players couldn't reconnect to his game after having disconnected
  • Fixed: Damage lightning wasn't deleted from the system in all cases causing lightning handling to process more and more lightning, causing laggy gameplay
  • Changed: The amount of damage lightning on an object has been decreased to avoid overburdening the game with their management on weaker systems

What is new in version 1.15.119:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when operating an exit trigger via a master trigger

What is new in version 1.15.118:

  • Fixed: When the game host disconnected in a UDP tracker game and another player subsequently became game host, the game became invisible on the tracker
  • Fixed: When the game host disconnected in a UDP tracker game and another player subsequently became game host, players that disconnected couldn't reconnect
  • Fixed: Player shield status wasn't always properly reported to other players in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Thruster flames of other players often weren't properly rendered in multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.15.117:

  • Fixed: Players could pick up weapons in multiplayer games they were already carrying

What is new in version 1.15.116:

  • Fixed: Cameras weren't always properly rendered on older NVidia hardware
  • Fixed: In non-expert mode, stereoscopic rendering didn't always work

What is new in version 1.15.115:

  • Fixed: Complex polygon models of energy weapons weren't completely rendered (e.g. fusion blobs from Pumo's Descent weapon mod)
  • Improved: Multiplayer level transition handling has been improved to avoid players having to wait in the score screen forever

What is new in version 1.15.114:

  • Fixed: Data packets containing information about powerups dropped by destroyed robots weren't properly processed in UDP based games
  • Fixed: Not all players could enter the next level in coop games after a level had been destroyed and the players had gathered in the score display

What is new in version 1.15.113:

  • Fixed: Players sometimes couldn't move in multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.15.112:

  • Fixed: Stuck robots exploded right away instead of trying to free themselves

What is new in version 1.15.111:

  • Fixed: Bossed in Descent 1 levels often self-destructed for no apparent reason when trying to find or destroy the player

What is new in version 1.15.110:

  • Fixed: Transparent objects (like e.g. the modded laser bolts in Pumo Mines) weren't always rendered anymore

What is new in version 1.15.109:

  • Fixed: Some network data wasn't properly processed by a new client connecting to a game host which could cause inconsistencies between host and player game states
  • Fixed: Headlights didn't always work right in multiplayer
  • Fixed: Player name and 'typing' message weren't centered on player ships in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: The game host only sent information about its current ship state (ship type, weapons, damage) when the hosting player first fired a weapon, equipped a another weapon or selected a different ship

What is new in version 1.15.108:

  • Fixed: Player ship data was corrupted after loading a multiplayer save game
  • Fixed: Fixed: You couldn't separately set soft blending for smoke, sprites and sparks as expert user and with highest render quality set
  • Changed: Previously, for gun shots coming in groups (like lasers), only one shot produced an impact sound. Now, each separate shot will produce on (can cause sound to build up)

What is new in version 1.15.107:

  • Fixed: At highest render quality, no particle fx, light trails, coronas or 2D gun shots (sprites) were visible

What is new in version 1.15.107:

  • Fixed: At highest render quality, no particle fx, light trails, coronas or 2D gun shots (sprites) were visible

What is new in version 1.15.106:

  • Fixed: Transparent parts of hires models will now be rendered properly
  • Fixed: The automap wasn't rendered properly anymore
  • Improved: Hires ship headlight beams will now be blurred when glow is enabled

What is new in version 1.15.105:

  • D2X-XL now supports glow effects.

What is new in version 1.15.104:

  • Fixed: Object triggers that were to be operated when their object was destroyed weren't operated

What is new in version 1.15.103:

  • Fixed: Triggers often didn't work

What is new in version 1.15.102:

  • Improved: Added code to make sure the game doesn't try to spawn non-existent robots or powerups in materialization centers (and crash when trying to)

What is new in version 1.15.101:

  • Improved: D2X-XL does some plausibility checking on trigger data when reading a level or save game to avoid program crashes caused by faulty level data

What is new in version 1.15.100:

  • Fixed: Particles weren't always rendered properly (stuttering/disappearing particle effects)

What is new in version 1.15.99:

  • Fixed: Shrapnel wasn't rendered any more
  • Fixed: Fire effect wasn't rendered properly

What is new in version 1.15.98:

  • Fixed: Thruster flames often were rendered at a wrong angle or not at all
  • Improved: Displaying a lot of different particle effects will not slow down the game as much as it did before

What is new in version 1.15.97:

  • Fixed: When changing the ship type in-game, the ship subsequently exploded again and again until the game was over

What is new in version 1.15.96:

  • Fixed: The renderer was messed and the program could crash when hires textures were disabled
  • Changed: Particles emitted in a skybox segment will now disappear when leaving the segment their originating from (this allows better control of where effects and snow are visible)

What is new in version 1.15.95:

  • Fixed: Debris sometimes blocked the player's sight
  • Improved: Debris is handled better

What is new in version 1.15.94:

  • Fixed: Thrusters weren't rendered when glow was set to standard
  • Fixed: Rendering damage lighting with glow resulted in a messed up image

What is new in version 1.15.93:

  • Fixed: The program could crash or hang when loading a level that only contained robot and no geometry triggers
  • New: Added support for rain and snow particles effects
  • New: Added new textures and sounds for rain and snow particle effects (find them in d2x-xl-data-1.15.93.7z)

What is new in version 1.15.92:

  • Fixed: Real-time glow didn't work with camera views
  • Fixed: Changing the camera quality from low to high could result in distorted camera output

What is new in version 1.15.91:

  • New: D2X-XL can now render glow effects (e.g. for lighting, shields and explosions). Enable in the effect options menu (only available at render quality 'high' or better)

What is new in version 1.15.90:

  • Fixed: Lightning branches weren't properly rendered

What is new in version 1.15.89:

  • Fixed: Faces containing see-through areas became completely transparent when lit with the headlight
  • New: Added a 'readonly' mode where D2X-XL will not try to write any data to disk (will slow down model and level loading). Enable by placing '-readonly' in d2x.ini

What is new in version 1.15.88:

  • Fixed: Exiting a Descent 1 level that had been entered coming from a secret level bumped the players back to the level they just exited

What is new in version 1.15.87:

  • Improved: 3D shield boost powerup is better visible
  • New: Hoard orb can now be rendered as 3D model (sphere)

What is new in version 1.15.86:

  • Fixed: Due to a recent addition, multiplayer was broken
  • Changed: Camera outputs will now only be displayed across their entire face regardless of any resulting distortion
  • Changed: Replaced messages 'Prepare for Descent' with 'Loading...' and 'Setting up Renderer' with 'Prepare for Descent'

What is new in version 1.15.85:

  • Fixed: There was a small bug in ship physics
  • Fixed: The program didn't reliably switch to the screen resolution stored in the active player profile at program start

What is new in version 1.15.84:

  • New: Added support for variable player ship energy capacity
  • New: Added support for third ship type ('heavy fighter' with max. 150/300 shield, max. 120/240 energy, 90% of standard ship speed, built-in ammo rack)
  • New: You can now specify ase model file names for standard, light and heavy fighters in d2x.ini (-medium_ship, -light_ship, -heavy_ship)
  • Changed: When changing the ship in-game, the player will not lose a life, but respawn with the energy and shield the abandoned ship had (up to the maximum allowed for the new ship)
  • Changed: The light fighter will only have a maximum energy capacity of 90/180 units
  • Changed: The light fighter will not be able to carry Fusion guns
  • Changed: The standard ship will not be able to carry triple Fusion guns
  • Changed: Other than in nostalgia mode, the ammo rack will only increase the standard ship's transport capacity by 50% (was 100% before)

What is new in version 1.15.83:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when trying to display the exit door animation during the initial Descent 1 briefing

What is new in version 1.15.82:

  • Fixed: Auxiliary cockpit views were transparent when using unenhanced stereoscopic rendering
  • Fixed: Effects weren't properly rendered when using stereoscopic rendering
  • Fixed: Players who had triple fusions could only drop one fusion gun
  • Fixed: Players who had triple fusions would only drop one fusion when their ship was destroyed
  • Fixed: Savegames weren't properly restored anymore
  • Fixed: Damage lightning wasn't shown all over hires models

What is new in version 1.15.81:

  • Fixed: Auxiliary thrusters didn't fire as they should during certain flight maneuvers
  • Changed: Switching to another ship in-game will cost the player a life

What is new in version 1.15.80:

  • Fixed: Auxiliary views didn't show gun fire, missiles and effects (effects will only be shown at highest render quality)
  • Changed: The inventory can be turned off (meaning invuls and cloaks collected by the player aren't stored but used immediately)
  • Improved: Pressing F4 will now drop markers that do not rotate. CTRL+F4 will drop rotating markers. ALT+CTRL+F4 will drop a spawn marker. CTRL+R in the automap will toggle the highlighted marker's rotation
  • New: Support for Joffa's and MetalBeast's 'Phantom XL' Pyro model (ship can be chosen when creating a new game or in the gameplay options menu)

What is new in version 1.15.79:

  • Fixed: Joystick axes weren't processed properly anymore

What is new in version 1.15.78:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when rendering thrusters
  • Fixed: Laser bolts weren't rendered additively anymore

What is new in version 1.15.77:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL didn't determine correctly whether a compiled model file (modelXXX.bin) was older than the corresponding ASE file
  • Fixed: Missiles were launched too far in front of their mounting points
  • Fixed: Objects weren't always properly lit
  • Fixed: Lightning effects belonging to the last object in the game's object list weren't removed when they should
  • Fixed: When playing a multi-level mission and starting at level X, exiting level X+1 would always bounce you back to level X+1 instead of advancing you to level X+2
  • Fixed: Leaving a D1 secret level could get you to any level (not just the proper next one)
  • Fixed: Reactor countdown didn't work reliably
  • Changed: Removed the fixed physics frame time due to various problems with it

What is new in version 1.15.76:

  • Fixed: Missile smoke was emitted in 'chunks'

What is new in version 1.15.75:

  • Fixed: Objects kept travelling when the game was paused
  • Fixed: Explosion lightning effects didn't disappear and randomly got attached to objects in the mine
  • Fixed: Triggers that were operated by master triggers and that should only affect the player who had operated the master trigger affected all players in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Using a screen size override different from the screen size stored in the player profile could lead to render faults (missing textures, missing models, etc)
  • Changed: A screen size override from the command line or d2x.ini will now supersede settings from player profiles that are loaded via the menu and remain active until the user explicitly changes the screen resolution
  • New: Added support for directed exits allowing to target any level in a mission and not just the following one
  • New: Added support for segments damaging the shields and decreasing the energy of a player ship

What is new in version 1.15.74:

  • Improved: D2X-XL will now start in fullscreen mode at the highest possible screen resolution (unless told otherwise in d2x.ini)

What is new in version 1.15.73:

  • Fixed: Monitors were misaligned when changing camera quality in-game
  • Fixed: Joystick deadzones weren't properly set after reading a player profile
  • Fixed: Joystick deadzones weren't properly sync'd in the joystick options menu
  • Fixed: Custom screen resolutions will not be messed up anymore
  • Changed: Physics calculations will now be done at at a fixed rate of 40 fps
  • Improved: D2X-XL will now properly offer all available fullscreen resolutions

What is new in version 1.15.72:

  • Fixed: In anaglyph 3D mode controls configuration menus weren't displayed in-game
  • Fixed: Fusion power setting wasn't saved when quitting the program
  • Changed: You can now turn the cockpit's object tally display off in the cockpit options menu
  • Changed: Fusion power can now only be adjusted to be like in Descent 1 or in Descent 2 (the setting is only effective in Descent 2 missions)

What is new in version 1.15.71:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL will not demand the Vertigo high resolution movie file (d2x-h.mvl) to be present

What is new in version 1.15.70:

  • Fixed: Menu hotkeys for alternative languages didn't work
  • Fixed: English and German language files weren't up to date anymore
  • Changed: Brightness increase for 3D rendering can now be explicitly enabled or disabled in expert mode

What is new in version 1.15.69:

  • Fixed: Occasionally a visible face wasn't rendered (particular if the related side consisted of two rather convex triangles)

What is new in version 1.15.68:

  • Fixed: The program could crash while proceeding to the next level of a Descent 1 mission when using the exit movies and having to compute lightmaps for the new level

What is new in version 1.15.67:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when rendering excessive amounts of smoke while multi-threading was active

What is new in version 1.15.66:

  • Fixed: A bug in robot AI processing could cause program crashes in coop games
  • Fixed: A networking bug that caused objects present in the mine to differ between the participants of coop games
  • Fixed: 'scoregoal' network message processing didn't take increased player count for UDP/IP games into account

What is new in version 1.15.65:

  • Changed: In-level teleports will not use the same destination segment twice in direct succession

What is new in version 1.15.64:

  • Fixed: In anaglyph 3D rendering mode, menus could be partially hidden behind the full cockpit or status bar

What is new in version 1.15.63:

  • Fixed: Small rendering flaws in mouse and joystick config menus
  • Fixed: No transparent and overlay faces were rendered in the fully bright textured automap

What is new in version 1.15.62:

  • Fixed: The program frequently crashed when using a lot of lightning (for Omega cannon or explosions)
  • Fixed: The program occasionally crashed due to a bug in robot AI (when trying to make non-sniping robots snipe)

What is new in version 1.15.61:

  • Improved: Moving lightning bolts around works better now (needed e.g. for Omega lightning and damage lightning)

What is new in version 1.15.60:

  • Fixed: Objects were always rendered fully bright

What is new in version 1.15.59:

  • Fixed: A bug in the renderer could cause segments and objects inside of them to be rendered twice
  • Fixed: Objects were frequently rendered twice when multi-threading was used to render them

What is new in version 1.15.58:

  • Fixed: With anaglyph 3D rendering, ship cockpit and status bar weren't rendered while a menu was opened in-game

What is new in version 1.15.57:

  • Improved: Enhanced brightness adjustment is available for basic lighting now

What is new in version 1.15.56:

  • Fixed: 3D objects sometimes were rendered 'inside out'

What is new in version 1.15.55:

  • Improved: Brightness handling has been improved (screen will look less 'foggy' at high brightness levels)
  • Improved: Brightness will be automatically adjusted for anaglyph 3D rendering to compensate for the brightness loss caused by the glasses

What is new in version 1.15.54:

  • Fixed: Lightning bolts were too fat

What is new in version 1.15.53:

  • Fixed: Lightning bolts were too fat

What is new in version 1.15.52:

  • Fixed: The high pitched shield warning wasn't played when shields dropped below 10%
  • Fixed: Path finding erroneously used multi-threading, resulting in choppy rendering
  • Fixed: The program occasionally crashed when a boss spawned robots and the level had object triggers
  • Fixed: The program could crash when hitting the vulnerable spot of the alien boss 2 and the Vertigo end boss

What is new in version 1.15.51:

  • Fixed: Too few sparks were rendered in energy and repair centers
  • Fixed: Shield warning sound will stop to be played after pausing and pausing the game
  • Changed: Removed multithreading toggle ALT+M since it didn't work right anymore due to changes in multithreading

What is new in version 1.15.50:

  • Fixed: 120 fps framecap was reset to 60 when leaving the render options menu

What is new in version 1.15.49:

  • Fixed: Additive textures were rendered several times on top of themselves, causing excessive glow
  • Fixed: The Gatling bullet drop effect could cause program crashes
  • Changed: Explosion lightning doesn't fork
  • Changed: Added 120 fps setting to the render options menu's framecap control

What is new in version 1.15.48:

  • Fixed: Air bubbles were too big
  • Fixed: Basic lighting was broken
  • Improved: Model rendering is significantly faster when three or more threads are available
  • Improved: Sound and robot path finding speed has been doubled

What is new in version 1.15.47:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL was constantly rebuilding lightmaps for level w/o skyboxes

What is new in version 1.15.46:

  • Fixed: Sometimes thruster flames were extremely long and/or big in the automap
  • Fixed: Turning off lightning in-game could crash the OpenMP versions of the program
  • Improved: Position tracking has been accelerated, speeding up particle processing

What is new in version 1.15.45:

  • Changed: Shortened Gatling gun light tracers a bit

What is new in version 1.15.44:

  • Fixed: Monitors didn't show smoke when anaglyph 3D rendering was enabled

What is new in version 1.15.43:

  • Fixed: Bubble particle effects crashed the program
  • Changed: Player thrusters are now purplish (part of the 3D thruster effect made by pokeman7452)
  • Improved: D2X-XL now only uses one thruster texture
  • Improved: Thanks to pokeman7452, the hires Pyro's thruster fan blades rotation looks smoother now (re-download the Pyro)

What is new in version 1.15.42:

  • Fixed: Lightning didn't always properly light its environment
  • Fixed: Some invisible walls that were made visible via a trigger weren't displayed after having been turned visible
  • Changed: Only the smoke particles of fire effects will rotate

What is new in version 1.15.41:

  • Fixed: Overlays on transparent faces weren't always rendered
  • Fixed: Forked lightning rendering was broken

What is new in version 1.15.40:

  • Fixed: The OpenMP versions of the program crashed when Perlin function based lightning was rendered
  • Fixed: The OpenMP versions of the program didn't render Perlin function based lightning properly
  • Improved: Forked lightning looks better

What is new in version 1.15.39:

  • Fixed: Depth blending didn't work right, causing edges where coronas hit walls
  • Fixed: Fire particles were rendered with black or white squares around them at smoke setting 'basic'
  • Fixed: Lightning with style 'jaggy' didn't scale with amplitude
  • Changed: The reticle will now be rendered at screen distance in 3D mode
  • Changed: Player names will not be shown on the ships in Coop games if that option not selected by the game host
  • Improved: Perlin function based lighting looks better

What is new in version 1.15.38:

  • Fixed: With basic lighting only half (one triangle) of each geometry face got rendered
  • Fixed: The headlight could render untextured transparent faces opaque
  • Fixed: Overlay textures sometimes weren' rendered
  • Fixed: The standard D2X-XL version (not the OpenMP ones) swapped the red and blue channels of hires and custom textures
  • Fixed: Light emitting hires textures (e.g. for weapons) didn't emit light (only with the standard D2X-XL version, not the OpenMP ones)
  • Fixed: Perlin function lightning creation (type 'smoothe') didn't work
  • Fixed: Forked lightning rendering didn't work
  • Improved: OpenMP versions will render a bit faster (achieved by reducing max. threads to 4 - hyperthreading just doesn't cut it :P)

What is new in version 1.15.37:

  • Fixed: Non-animated smoke particles didn't rotate
  • Improved: Tweaked missile smoke

What is new in version 1.15.36:

  • Fixed: Dynamic light effects often didn't work
  • Fixed: Flares were miscolored
  • Fixed: File selectors and list boxes caused massive load on the graphics hardware
  • Fixed: The headlight rendered faces transparent and/or white
  • Changed: Powerup coronas are smaller
  • Changed: Toned down headlight glare effect
  • #mproved: Missiles use a new, somewhat less obtrusive particle image
  • New: Smoke setting 'full' now properly lights smoke particles, 'standard' renders the smoke always bright (as before)

What is new in version 1.15.35:

  • Fixed: Robot generators never stopped to work (regardless of level type and difficulty level)
  • Fixed: Lightning with plasma didn't have distinct bolts

What is new in version 1.15.34:

  • Fixed: If anaglyph 3D deghosting was set to 'high', neither the mine nor in-game menus were rendered

What is new in version 1.15.33:

  • Fixed: Morphing robots were invisible
  • Fixed: On insane difficulty, robot generators worked forever in Descent 1 missions (they only should in Descent 2 missions)
  • Improved: Lightning rendering is more efficient now
  • Improved: Shrapnel rendering needs less resources
  • Improved: Rocket and robot smoke trails are appearing smoother

What is new in version 1.15.32:

  • Fixed: 2D thruster flames weren't rendered properly
  • Fixed: The program was freezing frequently when turning anaglyph 3D rendering on
  • Fixed: The countdown sequence was initiated when the Guidebot moved through the mine exit
  • Fixed: The cockpit energy bar wasn't always growing shorter as energy got used up
  • Changed: The amount of shrapnel created for an exploding robot will be better balanced

What is new in version 1.15.31:

  • Fixed: Distant transparent stuff wasn't rendered in the automap
  • Fixed: Animated faces weren't animated in the automap
  • Fixed: When the Guidebot shot a (non-permanent) trigger, the trigger was destroyed but not activated
  • Fixed: Omega lightning wasnn't rendered properly
  • Improved: Fire effect looks better

What is new in version 1.15.30:

  • Fixed: Smoke particles close to the player weren't rendered
  • Fixed: Ship engine sound was constantly stuttering
  • Fixed: Ship engine sound wasn't linked to effects sound volume
  • Fixed: Sound volume generally was too low (half of what was set in the sound options menu)
  • Fixed: Setting the sound volume to zero resulted in the sound output volume being maxed out
  • Improved: Added a better jet engine sound

What is new in version 1.15.29:

  • Fixed: When 3D thruster flames were enabled, the screen got cluttered with big white faces
  • Changed: Undamaged player ships will not have a smoke trail anymore when moving
  • Changed: Changing stereo separation (only available in expert mode) in the render options menu will now immediately change the renderer output
  • New: Pyro RL thruster fan blades are rotating now (you need to download and install the updated hires Pyro to see this feature)

What is new in version 1.15.28:

  • Fixed: In free camera mode, splash damage of explosions close to the camera position was applied to the player ship
  • Fixed: The primary weapon wasn't properly displayed in the fullscreen cockpit when graphical cockpit gauges were enabled
  • Fixed: The game often crashed when entering a secret level
  • Fixed: 3D shield orbs weren't rendered
  • Changed: Energy and repair center lightning effect will only be shown when the player ship in them actually gets recharged
  • Improved: Basic light trails look better

What is new in version 1.15.27:

  • Fixed: Player explosion packets when a player was leaving the game weren't properly formed
  • Fixed: Overlays weren't always rendered properly
  • Fixed: Fusion damage wasn't handled properly in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Fusion lightning effects weren't properly displayed in UDP/IP multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Shield spheres were too dark
  • Fixed: The program occasionally crashed (usually during combat)
  • Fixed: Some HUD texts weren't drawn
  • Fixed: No geometry was rendered during demo playback
  • Fixed: Particle effects that should be visible weren't rendered on rare occasions
  • Fixed: Static smoke with high transparency (low alpha) wasn't rendered at all
  • Fixed: You couldn't should proximity bombs and smart mines when they were rendered as 2D sprites
  • Fixed: Hitbox collision was used in nostalgia/pureD2 mode if it had been selected in a game session using standard mode before
  • Fixed: The advanced damage model was used in nostalgia/pureD2 mode if it had been selected in a game session using standard mode before
  • Fixed: Radar sometimes was incompletely rendered
  • Improved: Static effects will now be rendered during demo playback
  • Improved: The particle system will utilize multicore CPUs better and hence render particle effects (particularly smoke) faster
  • Improved: Smoke effects fade out smoother
  • Improved: Lightning looks better
  • Improved: Lightning is rendered faster

What is new in version 1.15.26:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL didn't always find the Descent 1 briefing movies
  • Fixed: Briefing robots weren't rendered properly (had no textures)

What is new in version 1.15.25:

  • Changed: No data will be read from the binary player profile (*.plr) except the info about the highest level a player has reached in each mission he has played

What is new in version 1.15.24:

  • Fixed: Rendering 3D shield spheres could freeze the program

What is new in version 1.15.23:

  • Fixed: Non-polygonal energy weapon shots weren't rendered
  • Fixed: Smoke was flickering

What is new in version 1.15.22:

  • Fixed: Smoke was still rendered with black squares around it in the 64 bit program version
  • Improved: Effects are rendered somewhat faster in anaglyph 3D

What is new in version 1.15.21:

  • Fixed: A flaw in the shader manager led to shader effects not always working properly (e.g. causing black squares around smoke particles)

What is new in version 1.15.20:

  • Fixed: No transparent stuff was rendered when enabling and then disabling anaglyph 3D rendering.

What is new in version 1.15.19:

  • Fixed: Player ship orientation wasn't properly rendered in the automap when the wireframe was shown
  • Fixed: Robot and powerup positions weren't rendered in the automap when the wireframe was shown
  • Fixed: Powerup coronas often weren't rendered at all or had the wrong color
  • Fixed: Sound wasn't controlled via an extra thread any more, causing stuttering when entering or leaving slow motion

What is new in version 1.15.18:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when loading a level if basic lighting was selected

What is new in version 1.15.17:

  • Fixed: Anaglyph rendering didn't work anymore
  • Fixed: 2D powerups weren't rendered anymore
  • Fixed: Shield spheres weren't rendered anymore
  • Improved: Non-enhanced anaglyph rendering is faster now
  • New: Command line switch '-quad_buffering' to enable quad buffered stereo rendering on graphics hardware supporting it

What is new in version 1.15.16:

  • Fixed: With standard lighting many faces weren't rendered
  • Fixed: Disabling all effects in-game didn't turn off energy sparks, but enabled the old style energy sparks
  • Improved: The renderer keeps track of all relevant OpenGL states
  • Improved: The renderer only uses client side render buffers now
  • Improved: The automap wireframe is rendered about 50% faster now

What is new in version 1.15.15:

  • Improved: The automap will be rendered faster when many faces are visible

What is new in version 1.15.14:

  • Fixed: Thrusters shone through objects when render quality was set to highest and smoke was rendered
  • Changed: Removed support for red/blue and red/green anaglyph 3D glasses
  • Changed: Removed the command line option '-expertmode'
  • New: Added an expert mode control to the misc options menu
  • New: Added support for green/magenta anaglyph 3D glasses
  • New: Implemented quad buffered rendering for shutter glasses (not available on all hardware)
  • New: Implemented Dubois optimization for red/cyan anaglyph rendering

What is new in version 1.15.13:

  • Changed: If expert mode is not enabled, only the 3D glasses type can be changed (all other settings default to reasonable values)

What is new in version 1.14.217:

  • Fixed: Stereo separation and screen distance will not be reset anymore when turning off anaglyph 3D rendering
  • Fixed: Robot appearance effect wasn't rendered properly (alpha instead of additively blended)

What is new in version 1.14.216:

  • Fixed: No spheres for player ships, powerups and other objects were rendered in the wireframe automap

What is new in version 1.14.215:

  • Improved: Shader management has been optimized, resulting in fewer shader switches
  • Improved: Renderer draws faces with and without overlays in two separate passes to minimizes shader switches
  • Improved: Depth blended rendering of smoke and energy sparks creates significantly less shader switches

What is new in version 1.14.214:

  • Fixed: Particles were distorted (twice as wide as high)

What is new in version 1.14.213:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when the player encountered robots w/o weapons
  • Fixed: The program could crash when trying to render a powerup that uses D2X-XL addon bitmaps
  • Changed: Homing missiles will turn a bit less aggressively
  • Improved: Reticle distance looks better in anaglyph 3D rendering

What is new in version 1.14.212:

  • Fixed: Frequent crashes during multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Multiplayer messages weren't displayed while being typed
  • Fixed: Framerate, marker messages and cruise state weren't displayed

What is new in version 1.14.211:

  • Improved: Asymmetric frustum will now be properly set for anaglyph 3D rendering
  • New: Added toe in projection for anaglyph 3D rendering (may provide better stereo separation for distant structures at the cost of a negligible distortion of the view)
  • New: Added options to chose anaglyph 3D rendering projection and screen distance

What is new in version 1.14.210:

  • Fixed: Game crashed in pureD2 mode (apparently nobody uses this mode ...)
  • Fixed: You couldn't turn off missile lock indicators

What is new in version 1.14.209:

  • Fixed: No cockpit was rendered in blue/red and green/red anaglyph 3D modes
  • Fixed: The game crashed when trying to select 3D glasses if no glasses had been chosen before
  • Fixed: The program could freeze when a lot of smoke effects were visible

What is new in version 1.14.208:

  • Fixed: No cockpit was shown when menus were opened in-game
  • Fixed: Cockpit window background wasn't properly cleared in anaglyph 3D rendering mode
  • Fixed: The HUD overlaid the automap
  • Changed: The reticle will not be displayed while menus are open in-game
  • Improved: Stereo separation can now be set in smaller steps (a smaller stereo separation creates less ghosting)

What is new in version 1.14.207:

  • Fixed: Rendering cockpit windows messed up the anaglyph 3D view

What is new in version 1.14.206:

  • Fixed: Vulcan ammo was getting less and less during multiplayer games.
  • Changed: Vulcam ammo can only be picked up if the player can take the entire clip
  • Improved: Added support for more anaglyph 3D glasses
  • Improved: Added enhanced anaglyph rendering mode and anaglyph rendering brightness adjustment

What is new in version 1.14.205:

  • Improved: Mine walls will not disappear any more when using the chase cam view (except when the view point is out of the mine)
  • New: Added support for anaglyph based 3D rendering (experimental; control it via the render options menu)

What is new in version 1.14.204:

  • Fixed: The OpenMP versions of the program could hang when trying to display the automap

What is new in version 1.14.203:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when opening the cockpit options menu after having played a game
  • Fixed: When using the enter key as a ship control, no text was printed in that control's field in the input configuration dialog

What is new in version 1.14.202:

  • Fixed: With standard lighting, levels were only partially lit by the OpenMP versions of D2X-XL
  • Fixed: Camera outputs were sometimes displayed rotated sideways

What is new in version 1.14.201:

  • Fixed: The program could hang when a level contained equipment generators
  • Fixed: The afterburner sound wasn't played reliably in multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.14.200:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL will not place powerups half in walls any more

What is new in version 1.14.199:

  • Fixed: When the game host had turned on radar in multiplayer games, it was always displayed at the radar position on the game host's cockpit
  • Changed: Fixed spawn points and powerup respawn delays can now be set in the multiplayer D2X options menu
  • New: Cockpit window types can now be set in the cockpit settings menu

What is new in version 1.14.198:

  • Changed: Timed permanent triggers will have their delay reset when being enabled by an enable trigger

What is new in version 1.14.197:

  • Fixed: The program could freeze when a player ship was destroyed

What is new in version 1.14.196:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL could crash when loading levels containing invalid triggers
  • Fixed: Vulcan/Gauss ammo was set to 5000 when loading a savegame while Vulcan/Gauss were set as built-in equipment
  • Improved: Savegames now contain information whether mod usage was enabled for the saved mission

What is new in version 1.14.195:

  • Fixed: You cannot change the built-in equipment settings in-game during non-coop multiplayer sessions anymore

What is new in version 1.14.194:

  • Fixed: The program could freeze when a player ship was destroyed

What is new in version 1.14.193:

  • Fixed: Powerups will not be able to float into blocked segments anymore
  • Improved: Savegames will not be written each time a player dies anymore during UDP/IP multiplayer games, thus reducing potential temporary program freezes

What is new in version 1.14.192:

  • Fixed: Textures sometimes were partially messed up (had gray stripes)
  • Fixed: OGG music wasn't played by the 64 bit versions of D2X-XL

What is new in version 1.14.191:

  • Fixed: A bug in the sound channel management could cause sound problems and program crashes

What is new in version 1.14.190:

  • Fixed: OpenMP version of D2X-XL crashed on Linux
  • Changed: Disabling setup test (with '-check_setup 0') will now completely disable message boxes on Linux, this avoiding any OpenMotif related problems

What is new in version 1.14.189:

  • Fixed: Kills in multiplayer games crashed the game
  • Fixed: D2X-XL could crash when OpenMP multithreading was enabled and more than two cores were available

What is new in version 1.14.188:

  • Fixed: Mines dropped randomly by destroyed player ships in multiplayer games sometimes moved extremely fast for the other participants

What is new in version 1.14.187:

  • Improved: Stuff dropped by an exploding player ship will now behave more similar (e.g. drift to the same directions) for all participants of a multiplayer game

What is new in version 1.14.186:

  • Fixed: Sometimes powerups that should have been dropped weren't in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Player profile occasionally got damaged after multiplayer games
  • Fixed: If cheats had been enabled for multiplayer games, they even worked in competition mode
  • Improved: In UDP/IP multiplayer games, stuff dropped by an exploding player will not be created randomly by each participant, but will be replicated and behave exactly as it does for the exploding player (Descent 2 handled this differently to reduce network load)

What is new in version 1.14.185:

  • Changed: Decreased UDP/IP packet size

What is new in version 1.14.184:

  • Improved: Joining netgames has been accelerated
  • New: Packet loss is displaye on the HUD in multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.14.183:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when trying to connect to a game host

What is new in version 1.14.182:

  • Fixed: Powerups etc. disappearing too soon in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Multiplayer games getting out of sync and players being unable to join and/or sync properly with a running game
  • Fixed: Game crashing on Linux when displaying OpenMotif message boxes
  • Changed: Multiplayer game sync'ing packets will now be sent faster (depending on the host's packets per second setting)
  • Changed: Plasma blobs will fly straight again

What is new in version 1.14.181:

  • Fixed: The game crashed when connection errors occured while starting or joining a multiplayer game

What is new in version 1.14.180:

  • Changed: Plasma projectiles will follow a spiraling trajectory (only singleplayer and if the Plasma gun hasn't been modded)
  • Improved: Objects will be removed from multiplayer games more reliably

What is new in version 1.14.179:

  • Fixed: Missions with long names could crash the program in the new game menu
  • Fixed: Player names were cut off in the HUD

What is new in version 1.14.178:

  • Fixed: Sorting players by score didn't work
  • Fixed: Sometimes ships of disconnected players remained visible
  • Fixed: The netgame info dialogs didn't work

What is new in version 1.14.177:

  • Fixed: Teams didn't get balanced when new players joined

What is new in version 1.14.176:

  • Fixed: The score goal was too low
  • Fixed: Presence of demo data wasn't properly checked
  • Fixed: Presence of addon texture data wasn't properly checked
  • Fixed: A few Linux related issues

What is new in version 1.14.175:

  • Fixed: Players were always put on the blue team in team games

What is new in version 1.14.174:

  • Fixed: The multiplayer game host's maximum play time setting didn't stick and D2X-XL always assumed 5 minutes

What is new in version 1.14.173:

  • Fixed: Multiplayer games could only be joined by one player less than allowed by the game host even if the level allowed for more
  • Fixed: Player colors weren't shown on low resolution ships in multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.14.172:

  • Fixed: Player ship colors and cockpit elements weren't rendered properly in multiplayer games for players 9 and up

What is new in version 1.14.171:

  • Fixed: Players who joined a multiplayer game after another player had been disconnected could have the wrong ship colors

What is new in version 1.14.170:

  • Fixed: The game crashed when the ninth player entered a multiplayer game

What is new in version 1.14.169:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL always used only 8 player start positions even if there were more in a level
  • Improved: D2X-XL will now disconnect any players in excess of a level's start positions that had been admitted to the game by the host before launching the game
  • Improved: D2X-XL will not admit players in excess of a level's start positions to a game in progress

What is new in version 1.14.168:

  • Fixed: When trying to join a multiplayer game, players always got an error message about a level version mismatch

What is new in version 1.14.167:

  • Improved: D2X-XL will now use max. 8 players in standard level and max. 16 players in D2X-XL levels, thus staying compatible with other Descent 2 versions

What is new in version 1.14.166:

  • Changed: D2X-XL will now support up to 16 players in multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.14.165:

  • Fixed: When thief bots were suppressed, vital items carried by thief bots in a mine (like e.g. keys) weren't dropped

What is new in version 1.14.164:

  • Improved: Score goal will be checked even if the reactor has been destroyed

What is new in version 1.14.163:

  • Improved: D2X-XL will now check the kill goal in multiplayer games more reliably

What is new in version 1.14.162:

  • Improved: D2X-XL will try to check TGA image integrity and only read valid image files

What is new in version 1.14.161:

  • Fixed: Transparency still wasn't rendered properly in single threaded mode
  • Fixed: Picking up powerups or killing robots could crash the game

What is new in version 1.14.160:

  • Fixed: Transparency wasn't rendered properly in single threaded mode
  • (Delete the contents of the subfolders 256, 128 and 64 of the textures folder if you are experiencing this problem)

What is new in version 1.14.159:

  • Fixed: Object triggers could get messed up when being loaded from savegames

What is new in version 1.14.158:

  • Changed: Increased max. segment count to 8000
  • Improved: Waterfall effect rendering

What is new in version 1.14.157:

  • Fixed: Object trigger actions depending on the object being damaged to a certain amount weren't executed
  • Improved: Savegame loader is more stable when encountering messed up boss data

What is new in version 1.14.156:

  • Improved: Object trigger handling is more robust now

What is new in version 1.14.155:

  • Fixed: Bosses that didn't end the level didn't die
  • Fixed: Bosses that didn't end the level when destroyed and were spawned in robot generators didn't fire
  • Fixed: The program could crash when bosses were spawned in robot generators

What is new in version 1.14.154:

  • Fixed: Master trigger semaphores didn't work
  • Fixed: Recently gained score wasn't displayed properly
  • Changed: Teleporting to a marker now costs 50.5 energy and 25.5 shield
  • Changed: Robot triggers cannot be delayed

What is new in version 1.14.153:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL will now take proper care of semaphores for master triggers from older level and savegame versions

What is new in version 1.14.152:

  • Fixed: Master trigger semaphores didn't work right, causing master triggers to be erroneously activated

What is new in version 1.14.151:

  • New: Added a semaphore value to master triggers (the trigger will only be enabled when the semaphore is zero)

What is new in version 1.14.150:

  • Fixed: Fixed: Robot master triggers now work

What is new in version 1.14.149:

  • Fixed: The ship could be driven halfway into huge faces
  • Fixed: Boss robots had no explosion sounds during their death roll and when detonating

What is new in version 1.14.148:

  • Fixed: Shots and flares often didn't pass through gaps in textures (e.g. grates or fans).

What is new in version 1.14.147:

  • Improved: Static smoke will not pop up when emerging anymore, but fade in softly

What is new in version 1.14.146:

  • New: Added waterfall particle effect

What is new in version 1.14.145:

  • New: Added support for robots with boss behaviour that do not end a level

What is new in version 1.14.144:

  • New: Added two D2X-XL addon sounds ('computer.wav' and 'energy.wav')

What is new in version 1.14.143:

  • Fixed: Effects didn't work any more

What is new in version 1.14.142:

  • Fixed: One-shot flythrough sound triggers still didn't work

What is new in version 1.14.141:

  • Fixed: '-check_setup 0' had no effect (important: This option only has an effect when used from the command line, not from d2x.ini!)
  • Fixed: Gatling smoke trails were rendered even if smoke effects were completely disabled

What is new in version 1.14.140:

  • Fixed: 2D hostages weren't always properly lit
  • Fixed: One-shot fly through sound triggers didn't work
  • New: Autoplay teleport object triggers will be executed at level start, causing the object to appear in one of the teleport trigger's target segments
  • New: Normal triggers can now point to objects (currently only working for enable and disable triggers pointing to effect objects, allowing to toggle their effects)

What is new in version 1.14.139:

  • New: Added command line option '-check_setup {0|1}', disabling (0) or enabling (1) D2X-XL's check for required files and copying them to their proper subfolders

What is new in version 1.14.138:

  • Fixed: Collisions with powerups could cause critical damage

What is new in version 1.14.137:

  • Fixed: A spurious crash when leaving the game with the resolution set to 1920x1200
  • Fixed: A crash in the netgame options menu when the hoard data wasn' available
  • Fixed: Collisions with powerups could cause critical damage
  • Fixed: Afterburner charge wasn't set to maximum when having the afterburner (as built-in equipment) and respawning or entering a new level
  • Changed: Increased the maximum number of missions in the mission list from 300 to 500

What is new in version 1.14.136:

  • Fixed: Permanent sounds that had been started via a sound trigger weren't played anymore when loading a save game that had been taken with the sounds playing

What is new in version 1.14.135:

  • New: Added fire particle effect (feel free to make a better one ;)
  • New: Added fire sound to D2X-XL sound files ('sounds2/d2x-xl/fire.wav'), allowing to add a fitting sound to fire particle effects

What is new in version 1.14.134:

  • Fixed: The framerate display always was enabled when starting or loading a game
  • New: D2X-XL will now print the message 'Press F1 for help in menus' in menu screens

What is new in version 1.14.133:

  • Improved: In standard Descent, Vulcan ammo packs collected in multiplayer games weren't respawned when the ammo contained in them was used up by a player; D2X-XL will now keep track of Vulcan ammo collected and used up and respawn Vulcan ammo packs just like missiles

What is new in version 1.14.132:

  • Fixed: Hires sounds were loaded if present even if hires sound was disabled via d2x.ini
  • Fixed: Capturing a flag scored only one instead of five points

What is new in version 1.14.131:

  • Fixed: A bug in the sound system causing choppy sound after extended periods of intense fighting

What is new in version 1.14.130:

  • Changed: Moved d2x-xl specific sounds to sounds2d2x-xl
  • Improved: Sound handling
  • New: Added a bunch of d2x-xl addon sounds
  • New: Added volume control for ambient sound to sound & music options menu

What is new in version 1.14.129:

  • New: Sound creation for triggered events can now be suppressed

What is new in version 1.14.128:

  • Improved: Homing missile turn speed will be constant even at less than 40 fps

What is new in version 1.14.127:

  • Fixed: Triggered sounds that should have only been played once were replayed everytime a savegame containing such triggers was loaded
  • Fixed: Trigger sounds weren't played anymore
  • Fixed: Sound from ambient sound sources was crackling and building up

What is new in version 1.14.126:

  • Fixed: Player names in HUD weren't always rendered on top of the player ships
  • Fixed: New and rejoyning players were added to teams using auto balancing when auto balancing was off
  • Fixed: When a player rejoined a multiplayer game, the time he had spent in the mine was reset, not allowing him to destroy the reactor even if he should be able to
  • Fixed: Fixed: Homing missiles turned to well
  • Fixed: The ship thruster sound suddenly got very loud when the ship wasn't moving

What is new in version 1.14.125:

  • Fixed: When a save game was restored that had been saved with the player having acquired a super laser while lasers were set as built-in weapons, the player lost the super laser
  • Fixed: The program crashed in multiplayer when a player picked up a missile four pack, giving him more missiles than he could carry and the program tried to leave the excess missiles in the mine
  • Fixed: Faces were flickering at highest render quality when viewed close up
  • New: Added support for sound effect objects

What is new in version 1.14.124:

  • Fixed: In the physics options menu, auto-Levelling mode 'to mine' didn't stick
  • Fixed: Corrected the auto-levelling menu help texts

What is new in version 1.14.123:

  • Fixed: Ogg music wasn't always played on Windows Vista and Windows 7 (d2x.ini:-midifix 1 required)
  • Fixed: Unless effects volume was explicitly changed in the sound options menu, there was no sound in movies, briefings and levels when the game was run with midifix and music was turned off

What is new in version 1.14.122:

  • Fixed: The HUD stayed turned off after Descent 1 exit sequences
  • Fixed: The self extracting D2X-XL installation archive couldn't be launched on Windows 7

What is new in version 1.14.121:

  • Changed: Addon textures will not be considered vital for program operation anymore
  • Improved: Added graphical message boxes for Linux

What is new in version 1.14.120:

  • Fixed: The program hung when a plr file was found in its main folder
  • Fixed: The setup check will now detect the Descent 2 demo files
  • Fixed: Downloading program updates didn't work anymore

What is new in version 1.14.119:

  • Fixed: Flash effects were sometimes taken into the menus
  • Fixed: Damage icons were visible after the player's death
  • Fixed: The sound system didn't always properly update permanent sounds
  • Changed: Only the player ship will have blue thruster flames now, all other objects have orange ones

What is new in version 1.14.118:

  • New: Added update checking for Linux (newer source packages will only be downloaded, unpacking it and building the program is up to the user)

What is new in version 1.14.117:

  • Fixed: With basic lighting D2X-XL kept rendering coronas for lights that had been turned off via a trigger
  • Fixed: The new game menu's 'enable mod' checkbox had not always been properly displayed or hidden
  • Changed: The file descent.cfg will not be considered vital for a D2X-XL installation anymore as it will be created by D2X-XL when it is missing

What is new in version 1.14.116:

  • New: Added a check for program updates and a function to download and install program updates (Windows only)
  • New: Added a file setup check for Linux

What is new in version 1.14.115:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL was considering descent2.p11 and descent2.p22 vital and was terminated when it couldn't find them, but actually they aren't
  • Fixed: The new game menu offered an invalid level range when being opened after a network game had been played
  • Fixed: In Descent 1 missions robots that were at some distance fired huge salvos at the player

What is new in version 1.14.114:

  • Fixed: When the minemine cheat was active, no powerups were dropped by robots. That included keys and other important stuff, which now will be dropped regardless of the minemine cheat
  • New: D2X-XL will now check whether all required files are available and create any required folders and copy those files there if necessary. Depending on what files are missing, a list of those files will be displayed and D2X-XL will terminate if vital files aren't available. Please note that this feature currently is only available for the MS Windows version and also works with the -userdir parameter.

What is new in version 1.14.113:

  • Fixed: Multicast networking didn't work properly
  • Fixed: Multiplayer game data formats were incompatible across hardware platforms and operating systems

What is new in version 1.14.112:

  • Fixed: The number of available threads with OpenMP wasn't properly determined
  • Fixed: The 32 bit and 64 bit D2X-XL version's mesh files were different
  • Fixed: Multicast netgames didn't work properly
  • Fixed: Under certain circumstances the game host's multiplayer options menu would be rapidly redrawn and the program would hang
  • New: On Windows Vista and Windows 7 you can make D2X-XL control the general sound and midi volumes separately by setting the command line switch -midifix ([0|1})

What is new in version 1.14.111:

  • Fixed: In Descent 1 missions sometimes shots were fired at the player from out of nowhere
  • Fixed: The shadows setting was reset from 'full' to 'basic' when D2X-XL was restarted
  • Fixed: UDP networking didn't work in the 64 bit program versions

What is new in version 1.14.110:

  • Fixed: The new game menu didn't always offer the option to start a new game at any level up to the highest level the player had explored in that mission

What is new in version 1.14.109:

  • Fixed: The OpenMP and Intel versions crashed when robots were destroyed while explosion shrapnel was enabled

What is new in version 1.14.108:

  • Fixed: Non-permanent sounds started via a trigger were re-started everytime the game was paused, the player respawned or a savegame was loaded

What is new in version 1.14.107:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL now properly processes the -userdir parameter, allowing it to be run from an arbitrary location and not just the D2X-XL installation root folder
  • Fixed: D2X-XL crashed when using more than two threads
  • Fixed: The program froze when multi-threading was used and a robot was destroyed with full lightning effects being enabled

What is new in version 1.14.106:

  • Fixed: Permanent sound triggers didn't work at all anymore
  • Fixed: The in-menu help text for the framecap/V-Sync control is now correct
  • New: Added a D2X-XL version for 64 bit Windows

What is new in version 1.14.105:

  • Fixed: Faces with transparency controlled by an alpha channel were opaque
  • Fixed: OMP and Intel versions were freezing when lightning was visible or at least casting light on the scene
  • Fixed: Permanent sound triggers wouldn't start a sound when being shot again after having played their sound

What is new in version 1.14.104:

  • Fixed: Modded D1 robots that should do a death roll didn't disappear after having been killed
  • Fixed: When launching the same D1 missions several times from the new game menu, a Descent 1 mod wasn't loaded during any but the first launch even if specified in the new game menu

What is new in version 1.14.103:

  • Fixed: No sound was audible when loading a Descent 1 savegame from the main menu
  • Improved: Made sure that hires textures with small flaws in their alpha channels were not erroneously considered transparent (which could cause robots behind closed doors to see the player)

What is new in version 1.14.102:

  • Fixed: OpenMP versions crashed when executing parallel code
  • Improved: You can now set the number of cores available to D2X-XL with the -multithreaded switch

What is new in version 1.14.101:

  • Fixed: The 'show reticle' option got enabled each time the cockpit options menu was left

What is new in version 1.14.100:

  • Fixed: Transparent polygonal models (e.g. laser shots) were opaque when rendered against smoke
  • Fixed: Cockpit bitmaps weren't filtered and hence looked very 'low res'
  • Changed: You can disable the reticle again in the cockpit options menu

What is new in version 1.14.99:

  • Fixed: Unchecking the 'enable effects' checkbox in the effect options menu didn't turn coronas off
  • Fixed: Powerups were rendered as low res models when effects had been globally turned off in the effect options menu
  • New: d2x-xl-w32-omp.exe offers multithreading that will scale better with available CPUs/CPU cores (don't use on systems with more than 4 cores total)

What is new in version 1.14.98:

  • Fixed: Transparent faces were visible through walls at highest render quality when smoke was rendered

What is new in version 1.14.97:

  • Fixed: Transparent faces were too dark or not rendered at all with per pixel lighting when smoke was visible

What is new in version 1.14.96:

  • Fixed: Invoking the render options menu in-game could crash the program

What is new in version 1.14.95:

  • Fixed: The warning sound on low shields option didn't stick when entering the new game menu and leaving it without starting a game
  • New: Added a checkbox to the effect options menu allowing to completely turn all effects off (smoke, lightning, coronas, energy shields, light trails, gatling tracers, energy sparks, etc.)

What is new in version 1.14.94:

  • Fixed: The framerate setting in the render options menu didn't stick when expertmode had been set in d2x.ini
  • Changed: Particle light trails are a bit shorter
  • New: Added a light color control to the render options menu allowing to turn off colored light or turn off colored light for wreapons only or overall

What is new in version 1.14.93:

  • Fixed: Lightmap calculation did not properly handle custom textures containing transparency -> textures will now be loaded before computing lightmaps
  • New: Added support for 'autoplay' triggers (i.e. triggers that are automatically operated by D2X-XL - feature is intended to be used in conjunction with timed triggers)

What is new in version 1.14.90:

  • Fixed: Flat shaded (untextured) faces of polymodels were plain white (e.g. laser shots)

What is new in version 1.14.89:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL didn't properly compute lighting for objects, often displaying them too dark
  • Changed: Demo recording will now be stopped when the player leaves the current level
  • Improved: D2X-XL will now detect more reliably when to recompute a level's light data, lightmaps and meshes

What is new in version 1.14.88:

  • Fixed: The game could crash at higher AI aggressivity settings when the player attacked a reactor

What is new in version 1.14.87:

  • Fixed: Close door triggers could cause program crashes
  • Changed: In D2X-XL levels, close door triggers will now immediately start closing the doors they target

What is new in version 1.14.86:

  • Fixed: Delayed triggers only worked if the delay was more (instead of less) than 15 minutes

What is new in version 1.14.85:

  • Improved: Upscaled demo data fonts now are better readable
  • Changed: Trigger delays will only be recognized in D2X-XL levels
  • Changed: Limited max. trigger delay to 15 minutes

What is new in version 1.14.84:

  • Fixed: The standard game sounds weren't played right
  • Fixed: When using the demo data, there was no sound at all

What is new in version 1.14.83:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL didn't work with the demo data anymore
  • Improved: Fonts are scaled up when using the demo data

What is new in version 1.14.82:

  • Fixed: Ambient sounds weren't played anymore
  • Fixed: Descent 1 levels often didn't load

What is new in version 1.14.81:

  • New: Provided a Descent 1 or 2 mod is available it can be selected for use with unmodded missions
  • New: Added blue and red thruster flames to d2x-xl.hog (blue is default)

What is new in version 1.14.80:

  • Fixed: The game froze when using the rear viewFixed: Doors that were set to open in DLE-XP were rendered as closed
  • Fixed: Automatic doors that were set to open in DLE-XP didn't automatically close after a while

What is new in version 1.14.79:

  • Fixed: The headlight didn't work right with transparent faces
  • Fixed: Loading savegames often resulted in crashes
  • Fixed: D2X-XL occasionally hung when trying to quit from a level

What is new in version 1.14.78:

  • Fixed: Guns and missiles often didn't respawn properly in multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Illusionary lava walls damaged the player even when disabled
  • Fixed: Shield damage and energy drain triggers affected every player in multiplayer games and not just the one activating them
  • Fixed: Lightning that was set to be mute started to emit sound after the player had died
  • Fixed: Players didn't die when shield damage triggers reduced their shields below zero
  • Fixed: Blinking lights worked reversed from what was set with DLE-XP
  • Fixed: If the width/height ratio of the render window was very big, faces at the periphery of vision often weren't rendered
  • Changed: Shield damage triggers now add/subtract the given percentage of a player ship's default shields (100) to/from the ship activating the trigger

What is new in version 1.14.77:

  • Fixed: The new delayed trigger code could cause crashes when countdown, message or sound triggers were operated
  • Changed: Triggers with a delay time of less than 100 ms will not be delayed
  • Changed: Added the loadout options submenu back into the gameplay menu

What is new in version 1.14.76:

  • Fixed: Delayed triggers with a delay of less than 750 ms weren't operated
  • Fixed: The demo file format now properly handles the additional 'multiplayer' wall flag

What is new in version 1.14.75:

  • Fixed: If there were more than one marker in the mine, only the first rotated
  • New: Added support for doors that ignore markers sitting in them when closing
  • New: Added support for timed triggers
  • New: Added support for multiplayer-only objects
  • New: Added support for triggers that enable and disable other triggers

What is new in version 1.14.74:

  • Fixed: Sometimes a displaced shield glow effect was rendered
  • Improved: At other than standard AI aggressivity, robots will notice the player when his headlight is on
  • Improved: At other than standard AI aggressivity, robots will notice the player from behind when he is very close to them

What is new in version 1.14.73:

  • Fixed: Master triggers weren't permanent even if having been marked as such in DLE-XP
  • Fixed: Faces bearing energy sparks as secondary texture weren't rendered when the energy spark effect was enabled

What is new in version 1.14.72:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when a robot was destroyed

What is new in version 1.14.71:

  • Changed: The reticle will not highlight anymore when pointing at cloaked targets
  • Improved: Boss robots won't cloak during their death roll anymore

What is new in version 1.14.70:

  • Improved: Mods will now be generally enabled for custom missions and can be enabled for built-in missions in the new game menu

What is new in version 1.14.69:

  • Fixed: Lightmap calculation was broken

What is new in version 1.14.68:

  • Fixed: Advanced coronas sometimes had sharp edges
  • Fixed: Soft particle rendering didn't always work as intended

What is new in version 1.14.67:

  • Fixed: Scaled up HUD texts were spilling over in adjacent HUD areas when another than the highest corona quality was used

What is new in version 1.14.66:

  • Fixed: No reticle was displayed when the new additional reticle bitmaps weren't present
  • Fixed: Shields weren't properly rendered when no shader support was available
  • Fixed: Guns weren't firing properly anymore (projectiles were missing)
  • Fixed: Smoke wasn't rendered properly when shader support was unavailable
  • Changed: Decreased the time a shield is visible after a hit when no shader support is available

What is new in version 1.14.65:

  • New: D2X-XL can highlight the reticle in red when a target is in the player's line of fire (single player and coop only; install the new hires reticle textures to enable this feature).

What is new in version 1.14.64:

  • Fixed: The renderer goofed up when moving to the next level or loading a savegame in-game

What is new in version 1.14.63:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL potentially didn't properly connect to other Descent 2 versions in multiplayer games due to a small incompatibility
  • Changed: Simplified the transparency renderer to avoid rendering flaws

What is new in version 1.14.62:

  • Fixed: The program could crash in pureD2 mode or on hardware not offering sufficient shader support
  • Fixed: Scaled up HUD texts were too wide in pureD2 mode, clobbering the cockpit display

What is new in version 1.14.61:

  • Fixed: Incompatibilities to other Descent 2 versions in the vector math prohibiting playing multiplayer games with users of other Descent 2 versions

What is new in version 1.14.60:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL could produce rendering flaws with standard lighting and on hardware not supporting shader programs

What is new in version 1.14.59:

  • Fixed: Robots didn't fire through grates in Descent 2 levels

What is new in version 1.14.58:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when rendering cloaked objects with damage lightning
  • Fixed: Not all visible faces were rendered in huge levels when multithreading was enabled and standard lighting was chosen

What is new in version 1.14.57:

  • Fixed: The program could crash when rendering shield effects while a skybox is visible

What is new in version 1.14.56:

  • Changed: You now have better fine control over the frame rate in notebook-friendly mode

What is new in version 1.14.55:

  • Fixed: Critical damage wasn't reset when a player ship respawned after it had been destroyed

What is new in version 1.14.54:

  • Improved: Increased stability due to rewritten OpenGL interface (should fix crashes on NVidia hardware when firing missiles)

What is new in version 1.14.53:

  • Fixed: Memory constantly decreasing due to a (probably graphics driver related) flaw in object rendering
  • Fixed: Moved the critical damage icon a little down to avoid overlapping with the reticle's single missile indicator
  • Fixed: A few text position and alignment issues in the cockpits occuring when scaling up texts

What is new in version 1.14.52:

  • Fixed: Removed some lag occurring after entering or loading a new level by preloading all addon sounds

What is new in version 1.14.51:

  • Fixed: Some guns still didn't consume ammo
  • Fixed: Built-in equipped guns weren't properly handled when removing excess powerups in multiplayer games

What is new in version 1.14.50:

  • Fixed: Gauss and Vulcan as well as a few energy weapons did not consume ammo
  • Fixed: Shield and energy drain triggers were handled the wrong way round for both D1 and D2 (values were added instead of subtracted)
  • Fixed: The critical damage repair delay wasn't properly saved and restored from savegames
  • Improved: D2X-XL will now process all properties of Descent 1 triggers that have multiple flags set

What is new in version 1.14.49:

  • Changed: Critical damage now gets repaired faster (1.5 secs delay between each repair)
  • Improved: Tweaked critical the damage system
  • Improved: Texts in full and statusbar cockpits are now scaled according to game window resolution
  • New: When graphical gauges are disabled, numerical critical damage values are displayed below the reticle

What is new in version 1.14.48:

  • Fixed: Once charged, the Fusion cannon stayed charged
  • Changed: The critical damage icon will now be shown right below the reticle
  • Changed: Critical damage repair time has been decreased to two seconds per health increase
  • Changed: Green damage icon now denotes full health, yellow means minor, red significant and purple severe damage
  • Improved: The damage icon now looks way better
  • New: Added Fusion overcharge lightning effect (only with full lightning effect setting)

What is new in version 1.14.47:

  • Changed: Robots are less likely to target other robots due to critical aim damage
  • Improved: The zoom reticle now will only light up when targeting robots, reactors and opponents
  • New: Critical damage will be repaired at a rate of 1 step every 3 seconds (repair amount per step equal to damage amount per hit)
  • New: Added a critical damage display to the HUD
  • New: Added alignment to mine option back in and reorganized alignment settings
  • New: Added '-nomusic' ini switch to completely disable MIDI music

What is new in version 1.14.46:

  • Improved: Light calculation has been significantly improved

What is new in version 1.14.45:

  • Fixed: The light visibility handling caused light sources to light areas invisible to them
  • Fixed: Light emitting faces cast speculars on themselves which could cause lighting flaws
  • Improved: Robots attacking other robots should now work better
  • New: Added an enhanced damage model (enable in physics options menu)

What is new in version 1.14.44:

  • Fixed: Advanced collision handling didn't work properly
  • Fixed: Shield effect didn't work properly with advanced collision detection
  • Improved: Tweaked new lightmap calculation method

What is new in version 1.14.43:

  • Fixed: Rounding error induced flaws in lightmaps caused dark spots where there should have been light
  • Changed: Lightmaps now will shine through doors - that seems to be the better compromise
  • Improved: Prettified the zoom scope

What is new in version 1.14.42:

  • Improved: Standard (non-particle based) light trail appearance

What is new in version 1.14.41:

  • Fixed: Faces adjacent to light emitting faces were too dark when using lightmaps
  • Changed: Added a scope to the zoomed view

What is new in version 1.14.40:

  • Fixed: Program crashed when last digit of 'DetailLevels' in descent.cfg (sound channel code) was less than 4
  • Fixed: Check box changes did not stick in the sound and music settings menu when a slider was changed after the change
  • Changed: Low shields warning sound option (sound and music settings) will now only be displayed in the when graphical gauges are enabled (cockpit settings)
  • Changed: Tweaked missile smoke
  • Changed: Faces with a light emitting texture as base texture and no light emitting overlay texture will be considered 'ambiently lit' and not light other such faces (that way you can create some background light without ugly artifacts)
  • Improved: Shields now only light up around the point where they were hit
  • Improved: Lightmap generation now takes the actual shape of light emitting faces into account
  • New: Zoom crosshairs now light up red when a target is in the line of fire

What is new in version 1.14.39:

  • Fixed: Some weapons didn't fire properly anymore

What is new in version 1.14.38:

  • Fixed: Zooming out when switching to a weapon that doesn't support zoom now works properly
  • Changed: Made missile smoke particles somewhat smaller
  • Improved: Made the 3D thruster shorter
  • New: Added a special reticle for zoom mode

What is new in version 1.14.37:

  • Fixed: Missiles, lasers and fusion shots could go through walls if the muzzle or launch pod they came from were close enough to that wall
  • Improved: 3D thruster flame now is textured and looks better

What is new in version 1.14.36:

  • Fixed: The program crashed when destroying a blastable wall that had no wall at its opposite side

What is new in version 1.14.35:

  • Fixed: Enhanced collision handling caused objects to have difficulties separating after a collision
  • Fixed: Enhanced collision handling caused the player to be slowed down when hit from behind
  • Fixed: The sound system could saturate, keeping to play sounds that should have been stopped
  • Fixed: 3D shield powerups didn't move when dropped by a robot (most apparent when all shields dropped by the thief stayed in the same place, overlapping each other)
  • Changed: The 'minemine' cheat will not turn invisibility on anymore
  • New: Added zoom and headlight switch sounds

What is new in version 1.14.34:

  • Fixed: Monitors were rendered even if they were invisible for the player
  • Fixed: The missile lock indicator (rotating triangles) wasn't reliably rendered if monitors were visible
  • Changed: The player ship won't shake under water if no thrust is applied
  • Changed: To prevent the mine being spammed with powerups, robots do not drop shield and energy powerups while the player uses the minemine cheat

What is new in version 1.14.33:

  • Fixed: Monsterball didn't respawn in its initial location after a team has scored
  • Changed: Re-simplified hit detection and collision handling (standard hit detection includes standard collision handling, advanced hit detection means advanced collision handling)

What is new in version 1.14.32:

  • Fixed: Improved hit detection occasionally bounced the player around like mad
  • Improved: Separated collision handling from hit detection in the physics menu
  • Improved: Collision handling
  • Improved: Homing weapons will now track monsterballs

What is new in version 1.14.31:

  • Fixed: Cockpit windows were visible when the dead player camera view was used
  • Fixed: Player ship lightnings weren't shown when spectating in free camera mode
  • Fixed: Omega lightnings weren't rendered when mod data was available for the mission being played
  • Improved: If cockpit window position is set to center and two windows are to be displayed, D2X-XL will move them apart to make them both visible

What is new in version 1.14.30:

  • Fixed: The player ship could still be driven into some walls (e.g. the big pipes in Boiling Point's first level).

What is new in version 1.14.29:

  • The player ship and robots could be driven half into walls and the player couldn't fire his weapons.

What is new in version 1.14.23:

  • Changed: Added smooth zoom option to gameplay options menu
  • New: Added playlists for mods (playlist must be named 'playlist.txt' and reside in mod folder, songs have to reside in the subfolder 'music' of the mod folder)

What is new in version 1.14.22:

  • Improved: Per pixel lighting

What is new in version 1.14.21:

  • Fixed: Robots didn't always drop the stuff they contained in coop games
  • Fixed: The program crashed when loading a multiplayer game several times

What is new in version 1.14.20:

  • Fixed: When D2X-XL created a new descent.cfg file, it crashed on every subsequent launch due to an invalid sound channels value in the detail levels entry (32, allowed are 2 - 4).

What is new in version 1.14.19:

  • Fixed: Rendering 2D powerup sprites could crash the program
  • Fixed: Rendering the 2D slow motion or bullet time powerup sprites crashed the program

What is new in version 1.14.18:

  • Fixed: Replacements for Vertigo robots weren't properly loaded from mod hxm files

What is new in version 1.14.17:

  • Fixed: Robot and weapon models from mod HAM files weren't properly displayed
  • Fixed: Mod txb files weren't found
  • Changed: In notebook-friendly mode (misc. options), the number of sound channels can be set (music & sound options)

What is new in version 1.14.16:

  • Fixed: Ambient sounds didn't always start to play after loading a savegame
  • Fixed: Vulcan and Gauss ammo was always restored to 5000 when loading a savegame and Vulcan or Gauss gun were set as built-in equipment
  • Fixed: Light from forcefields wasn't properly turned on and off when the forcefields were toggled
  • Fixed: The program crashed when the credits were viewed a second time
  • Fixed: Smart blobs from Diamond Claws could destroy triggers, but didn't operate them
  • Fixed: Robots randonly got passive when a minimap display was enabled
  • Improved: D2X-XL will now only suppress Omega lightnings for mods when the Omega blobs have actually been modded

What is new in version 1.14.15:

  • Fixed: Rendered Descent 1 exit sequence wasn't played anymore

What is new in version 1.14.14:

  • Fixed: Program crashing due to weapon fire hitting cambots or gun muzzles sticking out of the level
  • Fixed: Distorted sound due to Phoenix blobs getting stuck
  • Fixed: Sound wasn't properly restored after playing a mod, causing sound distortion
  • Fixed: Player ship drag (inertia) control didn't work

What is new in version 1.14.13:

  • Fixed: The robots' player detection didn't always work well with advanced hit detection
  • Fixed: Robot briefings were repeat and played w/o audio when using the Descent 1 briefing movies

What is new in version 1.14.12:

  • Fixed: Program frequently crashing during death roll of final Descent 1 boss
  • Fixed: Faces becoming transparent with per pixel lighting when lit by dynamic light sources (e.g. flares)
  • Fixed: Transparent faces turning dark at certain view angles
  • Fixed: Sound volume always got set to 100% when starting a new game
  • Fixed: When you selected a mission from an arbitrary missions folder, then return to the main menu and chose 'singleplayer mission', you could start the previously selected mission, which could cause a program crash

What is new in version 1.14.11:

  • Fixed: Monsterball appearing in non-Monsterball multiplayer games
  • Changed: '-multithreaded 1' now keeps effects being handled sequentially; use 'multithreaded 2' for full multithreading (may cause the program to briefly freeze from time to time)

What is new in version 1.14.10:

  • Fixed: The Program occasionally crashed when rendering lightning while multithreading was enabled.

What is new in version 1.14.9:

  • Fixed: Dropping a weapon didn't not remove the weapon from the player ship (so you could drop an infinite number)
  • Changed: Max. Omega firing duration now is 5 seconds in singleplayer and coop games

What is new in version 1.14.8:

  • Fixed: More shader quirks
  • Fixed: Program crashing when displaying certain custom animations from POG files
  • Changed: Ship will not shake under water when standing still

What is new in version 1.14.7:

  • Fixed: The renderer didn't work any more

What is new in version 1.14.6:

  • Fixed: A shader program quirk that could lighting problems and program crashes

What is new in version 1.14.5:

  • Fixed: Hires animations of exploding lights and monitors weren't played
  • Fixed: When D2X-XL was compiled on a 64 bit operating system using a 64 bit compiler, Descent 1 robots didn't properly target the player

What is new in version 1.14.4:

  • Changed: Menu background images will now be read from textures/wallpapers on Windows and OS X and from ~/.d2x-xl/wallpapers on Linux

What is new in version 1.14.3:

  • Fixed: It could happen that instead of proximity mines, smoke grenades were used in singleplayer
  • Fixed: The guidebot could be accessed in Descent 1 missions

What is new in version 1.14.2:

  • Fixed: D2X-XL closed doors that were supposed to stay (partially) open
  • Fixed: Textures on faces with overlay textures weren't rendered properly on rare occasions
  • Fixed: Game frequently crashing when rendering lightnings while multithreading is enabled
  • Changed: Player ships will now show short wing tips if the player has no quad lasers, standard lasers if the player has no superlasers, superlasers otherwise

What is new in version 1.14.1:

  • Changed: Removed the April fool code
  • Fixed: Robots weren't properly lit by static light sources
  • Fixed: Custom robot data from mods wasn't properly unloaded when playing an unmodded mission after a modded one

What is new in version 1.14.0:

  • New: D2X-XL's memory management has been vastly improved, with drastically reduced memory requirements and load times
  • New: D2X-XL fully supports modding all aspects of Descent 1 and 2, from textures over models to sound and music
  • New: The UI has been massively simplified and is much more accessible
  • New: Stability has been much improved due to a massive amount of code having been refactored to C++
  • Fixed bugs in the following program areas that could cause program crashes:
  • texture handling
  • planetary surface rendering during Descent 1 exit sequences
  • lightmap calculation
  • hoard data loading code
  • AI path finding code
  • Descent 1 exit sequence rendering
  • Texture manager when loading levels with robot generators
  • Model manager when loading low res models
  • Smoke manager when rendering static smoke
  • High resolution model handling (particularly OOF models)
  • Playback of demos taken in levels with cameras
  • Fixed bugs in the following program areas that could cause rendering glitches:
  • The FOV was too small (90

Screenshots

d2x-xl-68089_1_68089.png
d2x-xl-68089_2_68089.png

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