Legacy 1.4 Support for Multiplayer

[OpenRift412]

I don't know exactly how feasible this would be, but I think it would be a good idea in the long run to allow for original 1.4 clients to connect to Piccu engine multiplayer sessions and vice versa, which would encourage less fracturing of an already fledgling multiplayer scene.

[InsanityBringer]

I don't think it's impossible, though to implement it I'd have to spend some time studying the 1.4 protocol through reverse engineering. Kevin Bentley considered releasing the 1.4 source too, but that seems to have never happened.

[OpenRift412]

I don't think it's impossible, though to implement it I'd have to spend some time studying the 1.4 protocol through reverse engineering. Kevin Bentley considered releasing the 1.4 source too, but that seems to have never happened.

I think the work will be worth it in the long run, should you decide to pursue it through reverse engineering.

[DefectiveByDesign]

I don't think this is that important, and neither did the 1.5 devs. This was an old controversy in the descent 3 community where in-group people had early access to 1.5, and were keeping it to themselves. People were arguing about Mac compatibility and other BS as an excuse to not release it. Then it was released anyway.

1.4 is an outdated version that has horrible problems, like graphics quality issues, and forces you to run in 16-bit color. There's no reason to run 1.4, especially today. It probably doesn't even WORK anymore, let alone has people online. If you're making it work with compatibility hacks, WHY? Maybe 3dfx glide works, but glide has 256 texture limit and bad lighting quality.

The people who were arguing over 1.5 compatibility were also the same people banning mouselook from multiplayer. IMO, if these people are still around whining about 1.5 compatibility and mouselook, they can stay on 1.4. You gotta keep em separated, dun dun dun...

If there's any new feature added, which IDK if it's been mentioned, it should be fixing the Pentium 3 exclusive sparkle particle effects, which only enabled on a Pentium 3. You can't run them on a modern CPU, because the game specifically checks for a Pentium 3 to run them.

[OpenRift412]

I don't think this is that important, and neither did the 1.5 devs. This was an old controversy in the descent 3 community where in-group people had early access to 1.5, and were keeping it to themselves. People were arguing about Mac compatibility and other BS as an excuse to not release it. Then it was released anyway.

1.4 is an outdated version that has horrible problems, like graphics quality issues, and forces you to run in 16-bit color. There's no reason to run 1.4, especially today. It probably doesn't even WORK anymore, let alone has people online. If you're making it work with compatibility hacks, WHY? Maybe 3dfx glide works, but glide has 256 texture limit and bad lighting quality.

The people who were arguing over 1.5 compatibility were also the same people banning mouselook from multiplayer. IMO, if these people are still around whining about 1.5 compatibility and mouselook, they can stay on 1.4. You gotta keep em separated, dun dun dun...

If there's any new feature added, which IDK if it's been mentioned, it should be fixing the Pentium 3 exclusive sparkle particle effects, which only enabled on a Pentium 3. You can't run them on a modern CPU, because the game specifically checks for a Pentium 3 to run them.

This really doesn't bring up any actual technical reasons as to why support shouldn't be added. Also, 1.4 has an option to enable/disable mouselook, as does 1.5 and Piccu, so I don't really see your point.

You can force 32-bit color on a modern system with 1.4 via a wrapper like dgVoodoo2.

On the topic of 3dfx Glide:

1. Does Descent 3 even use any textures larger than 256? It's a game from 1998, so I'd assume not.
2. Where does the lighting quality look worse than the other renderers? Even then, people can just use the other renderers.

I do think the Pentium 3 exclusive particle effects should be restored, I didn't know about that. You should probably make a separate issue about it.

[DefectiveByDesign]

Glide:
1: There probably is a few minor textures. Quake 3 was one of the first games you couldn't max out on a voodoo. There is also a general issue where games like Quake2 would round down non power of two textures, so many 3d games used lower quality textures than the software renderer. IDK about glide emulation, but it's generally not good as direct3d.
2: Descent 3 supports high quality Direct3d effects meant for a GeForce. You will get more effects, lighting, and optional bumpmapping support. It's beyond the glide version in visual fidelity. You need the 1.5 version to really max it out though. OpenGL Specular highlights was not fixed until PiccuEngine, so before this Direct3D was exclusively the best version.

Nobody remembers the Pentium 3 exclusive particle effects. Except me, because I own the original game, and have a Pentium 3 computer with Windows ME, which I built specifically for Descent 3. I also have the vortex 2 SQ2500 for A3D sound, and an Obsidian X-24 for glide. Glide is not that good on original hardware, and while emulation is better, glide is only good for games that have exclusive effects in glide.

You can read about the Pentium 3 effects in the descent 3 readme.

New features for Version 1.2.0:
- Additional Pentium III enhancements: motion blur on robots and
powerup sparkles.

I don't think you can enable them, unless you find some workaround that tricks the game. There used to be old utilities that would spoof the CPU-ID, but I doubt any of them work today, and may not have worked then. They also required special CPUs like unlocked laptop chips.

Overall, I don't see any legitimate, believable argument to support 1.4. This is a completely broken Windows 98 game. It started having minor problems with XP, major problems with Vista+, and almost nobody ships it with compatibility fixes except GOG. The original game was on a CD. Nobody has CD drives. I doubt the Mac version works either, because Mac moved from the original OS to a Linux or Unix based OS.

The original game was based on old technology that Microsoft started point blank removing from Vista.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista

The original servers don't exist. Everyone who is playing it, is modding it. If you are hardcore enough to fix the game to play multiplayer, you should be using 1.5.

1.4 is also a security risk. If somebody cheats in 1.5, the developers can patch the game. If the developers support 1.4, and the cheater is using 1.4, there's no way to patch this. It's always been a bad idea to support multiple game versions. Always.

When a developer of any other multiplayer game releases a patch, you are FORCED to use the patch. This is standard practice. There's every reason in the world to not use 1.4, or support 1.4, especially when it barely works, and asking for support is insinuating you have game hacks for 1.4, which you want to harass the 1.5 players with. Maybe not, but it's the absolute worst idea ever, and "playerbase" is nonsense. The game's dead, everyone still around should use 1.5.

Another issue with Descent 3 multiplayer, is that the community has never liked it that much. The older games are what people wanted to play multiplayer on. There's what? 10 people in the world playing Descent 3? Anyone using PiccuEngine is already on 1.5. So you need to reverse engineer 1.4 net code for what? 2 people? Like I said, it's a bad argument.

edit:
I haven't tested the latest versions of Descent 3 for years, so I tried both new versions. Both of them support the Pentium 3 special effects. Only Piccu Engine fixes the mouselook. I always wondered what was wrong with it, and apparently the ticrate is 20, which is insane.

The default FPS limit is 50 FPS. So you get 50 FPS with a 20 ticrate for the mouse, which is absolute cancer. Then you add in all the graphics bugs, and Descent 3 is garbage. Explains why it never was popular, too many problems. You can raise the FPS limit, but you can't fix the mouse ticrate, anything above 100 FPS completely breaks the mouse worse than it already was.

PiccuEngine fixes 99% of the issues running Descent 3. It doesn't support the full direct3d featureset like bumpmapping, but it wasn't that amazing.

Descent 3 ultimately seems like a techdemo for a Pentium3 + Voodoo5 + Vortex2, with it's voodoo5 style motion blur, and glide support, while they didn't address very important issues like mouse support and 32-bit color, which killed the game. 3dfx went bankrupt, and they didn't fix the issues with direct3d. Aureal also went under, which was better audio than EAX.

If I would play the game today, I would only use PiccuEngine. The remastered 1.5 patch has clipping issues. So in the PiccuStation level, you have these rock face statues with glowing eyes. These eyes are completely broken with clipping glitches. The older engine also doesn't properly support widescreen, except with command line variables, which don't work well.

The only issue I had with PiccuEngine is that it doesn't work under Wine/Linux, and you need ProtonGE. But it does work, and I'm having fun replaying it with working mouselook.

Descent 3 launched with bad support for everything normal, and supported everything discontinued. People dropped joysticks for Mouse and the Xbox controller. 3dfx and Aureal went under. So of course the game failed. Cool game, but it really needed patched for hardware that people actually used.

edit2:
I was wondering how anyone is getting Descent 3 1.4 to actually WORK. Then I remembered there was a fan repack by Dateiliste, who's site is down, and never made the repack publicly available, which it's still not available now, even searching internet archive. Which yet again reminds me of the original nonsense surrounding the original 1.5 release, where we had a clique of people controlling the availability of descent 3 fixes.

Here's a list of what his publicly unavailable repack contained:
Descent 3 version 1.4 in English.
The Descent 3 1.4 - 1.5 Version Switcher.
Mercenary add-on.
No-CD patch.
Descent 3 mod Pyromania.
Vortex for playing online.
Improved reticle.
Non-working and outdated network protocols/types removed.
Server tool to host Descent 3 servers.
Descent 3 level editor D3Edit.
Tycoon's ship logo tools.
Around 750 additional single-player and multi-player missions.
Additional mods like ladder anarchy, Olympia Gold, Basewars, Black Pyro Justice, etc.
Most recent file with pilot pictures.
Level development tools.
Additional software from Dateiliste like StartSP and modified launcher.
Moon's saved demo games for complicated single-player passages.
Many links to online resources.
Startmenu shortcuts for most single-player missions.
Optional desktop shortcuts for Servertool, Vortex, etc.

I don't think this kind of clique needs to be catered to, because they were really selfish and annoying, and I had figured they all quit playing descent 3 by now. The game is for everyone, not some exclusive underground club. 1.4 doesn't work unless you're using some modded out exclusive version that nobody else can download.