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D2X-XL Changelog

What's new in D2X-XL 1.18.64

Aug 5, 2015
  • Changed: Added the new 'official' D2X-XL tracker's IP address to the internal tracker list
  • Fixed: The external language files (English and German) were outdated. OS X and Linux users need to download and install the latest d2x-xl data file package for this update
  • Changed: Data compression (for stored lightmaps etc.) is active by default now
  • Improved: When downloading an update, D2X-XL will make the program root folder the current directory to make applying the update a bit simpler (no need to direct the sfx archive to the proper folder anymore)
  • Fixed: The update function produced a broken error message when no version info was found on the download servers
  • Fixed: Lightning effects could crash the program
  • Improved: The light contribution of indirect (scattered, reflected) light has been improved
  • Fixed: When fog was disabled, rendering transparent textures at the surface of water and lava segments didn't work
  • Fixed: The program could apparently hang when computing lightmaps (it didn't though, it just got unresponsive, but kept working)
  • Fixed: Light sources could illuminate areas not directly exposed to them when they shouldn't.
  • Fixed: Indirect light (i.e. the part of the light cast by a light source that illuminated an area not directly exposed to the light source by reflection) could be too bright
  • Fixed: If you had previously selected a mission via the main menu's 'single player' option, you could only select maps from the 'single' subfolder during subsequent lightmap precalculations.
  • Fixed: Light fall-off didn't take light brightness into account
  • 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
  • Fixed: Some hires texture were considered 'super transparent' (i.e. propagating their transparency through a base texture they were used as a decal on) although they weren't
  • Fixed: The program could crash when loading levels containing segments with triangular sides
  • Fixed: Lightmaps for triangular segment sides weren't properly computed

New in D2X-XL 1.18.55 (Jul 13, 2015)

  • Fixed: Fog wasn't properly rendered in automap view, causing completely opaque fog for distant areas
  • Fixed: The lightmap precalculation settings dialog lacked a couple of vital options
  • Fixed: Light cast by objects (particularly laser shots, rockets, explosions and flares) was way too dark
  • Fixed: Fog got thicker when the automap was displayed in a cockpit window
  • Fixed: Fog wasn't properly rendered in cockpit windows (rear or missile view)
  • Fixed: The program used the wrong default transparency for light fog
  • Fixed: The rain effect produced rain that was falling way too slowly
  • Fixed: Flares (and light casting objects in general) could be too bright or fail to light nearby objects and geometry
  • Fixed: The program could crash when loading a level right after lightmaps had been precomputed for it

New in D2X-XL 1.18.50 (Jun 23, 2015)

  • Fixed: Objects (powerups, robots, etc) could appear too bright
  • Fixed: The program considered itself being in stereoscopic render mode when it
  • wasn't
  • Fixed: The program crashed when computing lightmaps
  • Fixed: Segment distance calculation could hang (usually happened during lightmap
  • precalculation)
  • Fixed: The program played water sounds when the player was outside of water
  • segments
  • Fixed: Fog settings weren't properly assigned to fog segments
  • New: D2X-XL now supports adjustable fog color and opacity (can be set per level
  • with DLE)

New in D2X-XL 1.18.46 (Jun 19, 2015)

  • New: Added volumetric fog
  • New: Added a 'fog' control to the effect options menu
  • New: Added two new segment properties: Light fog and dense fog
  • New: Ship scrape sounds can now be turned off (in the sound & music options menu)
  • Fixed: Lightning fx of robots and powerups remained visible in the automap even if rendering of robots and powerups was turned off there
  • Fixed: The program could crash during lightmap calculation on rare occasions
  • Fixed: Depending on lightmap settings and level, lightmaps were recomputed everytime the level or a savegame from that level was loaded
  • Fixed: Lightmaps sometimes had incorrect ambient light contribution (particulary for very close lights)
  • Changed: Explosion shrapnel effect (fast moving, small explosion fragments) is available again (adjust in effect options menu)
  • Changed: Smoke puffs from firing gatling guns is independent from player smoke setting
  • Improved: Tweaked gatling smoke and gatling bullet trails
  • Improved: If particle fx are enabled and render quality is set at 'high' or better, a particle fire effect will replace the sprite based muzzle flash effect of gatling guns
  • Improved: Lightmap calculation works a bit faster

New in D2X-XL 1.18.40 (Jun 12, 2015)

  • Fixed: The program crashed when first precomputing lightmaps and then computing lightmaps on the fly during level load

New in D2X-XL 1.18.39 (Jun 12, 2015)

  • Fixed: Fast moving objects didn't reliably operate fly-through triggers they passed
  • Fixed: You could pass through the deflecting side of a speed boost (aka wind tunnel)
  • Fixed: Lightmap calculation worked wrong for faces that shared a vertex with a light
  • emitting face
  • Fixed: Player orientation wasn't always set right by teleport triggers or the
  • subspace cheat
  • Fixed: Not all 3D powerups were aligned as intended
  • Improved: Objects (players) leave speed boosts (aka wind tunnels) with a reasonable
  • speed now
  • Improved: Energy sparks are nicely aligned now

New in D2X-XL 1.18.37 (Jun 10, 2015)

  • Highlights:
  • Added a cartoon style renderer (cel shader)
  • Significantly improved program stability

New in D2X-XL 1.17.83 (Sep 9, 2014)

  • Added Oculus Rift (1) support
  • Added a side by side rendering mode for stereo TVs
  • Fixed and improved networking (multiplayer functionality)
  • Added an observer mode for multiplayer games
  • Fixed and improved texture and memory management
  • Fixed, improved and added graphical effects
  • Improved the playlist handling and added shuffling
  • Improved folder handling
  • Fixed many more bugs and issues

New in D2X-XL 1.16.27 (Jul 11, 2013)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.26 (Jun 13, 2013)

  • Fixed: Auto leveling didn't work right

New in D2X-XL 1.16.25 (Jun 3, 2013)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.24 (May 27, 2013)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.23 (May 27, 2013)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.22 (May 27, 2013)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.21 (May 27, 2013)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.20 (May 27, 2013)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.19 (May 27, 2013)

  • Fixed: Reactors didn't attack players anymore

New in D2X-XL 1.16.18 (Apr 22, 2013)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.17 (Apr 17, 2013)

  • New: Robots can now be disarmed and reprogrammed to attack other robots via triggers
  • New: Seismic activity can now be initiated via a trigger

New in D2X-XL 1.16.16 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.15 (Jan 25, 2013)

  • Fixed: Static particle effects didn't work anymore

New in D2X-XL 1.16.14 (May 30, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.12 (May 29, 2012)

  • 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)

New in D2X-XL 1.16.11 (May 16, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.8 (May 10, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.6 (May 6, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.5 (May 6, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.4 (May 3, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.1 (Apr 30, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.16.0 (Apr 30, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.335 (Mar 29, 2012)

  • 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)

New in D2X-XL 1.15.334 (Mar 29, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.333 (Mar 26, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.323 (Mar 17, 2012)

  • 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)

New in D2X-XL 1.15.321 (Mar 15, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.320 (Mar 15, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.319 (Mar 15, 2012)

  • 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)

New in D2X-XL 1.15.318 (Mar 14, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.317 (Mar 14, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.316 (Mar 12, 2012)

  • 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)

New in D2X-XL 1.15.307 (Mar 7, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.306 (Mar 5, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.301 (Feb 27, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.296 (Feb 21, 2012)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.295 (Feb 20, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.286 (Jan 24, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.283 (Jan 23, 2012)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.270 (Nov 5, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.269 (Oct 31, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.268 (Oct 12, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.265 (Sep 26, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.262 (Sep 15, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.260 (Sep 12, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.259 (Sep 12, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.258 (Sep 12, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.257 (Sep 12, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.256 (Sep 12, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.255 (Sep 12, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.254 (Sep 12, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.253 (Sep 12, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.252 (Aug 12, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.249 (Aug 8, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.248 (Aug 2, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.247 (Aug 2, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.244 (Jul 29, 2011)

  • 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)

New in D2X-XL 1.15.242 (Jul 24, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.241 (Jul 22, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.240 (Jul 9, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.239 (Jul 4, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.235 (Jun 25, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.233 (Jun 21, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.232 (Jun 10, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.231 (Jun 9, 2011)

  • 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.

New in D2X-XL 1.15.228 (Jun 7, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.222 (Jun 2, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.218 (May 28, 2011)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.124 (Jan 18, 2011)

  • 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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.71 (Apr 23, 2010)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.15.70 (Apr 23, 2010)

  • 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.

New in D2X-XL 1.15.69 (Apr 20, 2010)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.14.202 (Jan 13, 2010)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.14.60 (Jul 20, 2009)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.14.19 (Apr 19, 2009)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.14.18 (Apr 19, 2009)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.14.17 (Apr 19, 2009)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.14.16 (Apr 19, 2009)

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

New in D2X-XL 1.14.15 (Apr 13, 2009)

  • Rendered Descent 1 exit sequences weren't played anymore.
  • Changed a few menu hotkeys to remove ambiguities.

New in D2X-XL 1.14.1 (Apr 3, 2009)

  • Removed the April fool's prank code
  • Robots weren't properly lit

New in D2X-XL 1.14.0 (Mar 31, 2009)

  • Vastly improved memory management.
  • Full modding support for Descent missions.
  • Massively simplified and improved UI.
  • Greater stability due to refactoring of a lot of code to C++.
  • Painless multiplayer.

New in D2X-XL 1.13.84 (Sep 17, 2008)

  • Fixed: A bunch of errors and warnings appearing in OS X compiles
  • Fixed: All changes made for v.83 had been gone and had to be redone
  • Fixed: Player ships didn't wiggle in nostalgia mode if wiggling had been turned off in non-nostalgia mode
  • Fixed: Descent 1 briefings weren't properly displayed in nostalgia mode
  • Fixed: Displaying robots in Descent 1 briefings crashed the program
  • Fixed: If a level contained several boss robots and multiple boss robots were disabled or the level was a standard level, only one of the bosses behaved like one (i.e. cloaked, teleported and created robots); also, killing one boss didn't kill the others
  • Fixed: Most shader programs had gotten messed up in the previous release, leading to dysfunctional hardware headlight and per pixel lighting
  • Fixed: Parts of objects behind semi-transparent faces weren't rendered
  • Fixed: Menus weren't displayed in nostalgia and pureD2 mode
  • Fixed: The Toggles menu looped infinitely in nostalgia mode when the user tried to check an option there
  • Fixed: If the HUD had been turned off in standard mode, it wasn't rendered in nostalgia mode either
  • Fixed: The radar was rendered in nostalgia mode
  • Fixed: All flawed textures of the shadow proof robot models (thanks to Yokelassence) - install the latest d2x-xl.hog
  • New: AI aggressivity can now be increased via a slider in the gameplay options menu
  • Fixed: Removed the recent AI fix as it made the AI insanely hard
  • Improved: Robots (particularly charging ones) will not get stuck behind ledges when trying to attack and be easy prey anymore
  • Fixed: Built in guns and equipment checked to be available in-game weren't added to the player ship
  • Fixed: The program crashed when trying to enable energy spark rendering in the effect options menu
  • Fixed: The player only received one mercury missile when picking up a pack of four mercury missiles
  • Fixed: Addon sounds (like the Gatling spin sound) were distorted after entering or leaving slow motion or bullet time
  • Fixed: When rendering transparent faces with a decal, other transparent items could get miscolored or not be rendered at all
  • Fixed: Faces that had a transparent base and opaque overlay texture were erroneously considered transparent
  • Fixed: Disabled some (flight path smoothing) code that could cause robots to get stuck when trying to approach the player
  • Fixed: A bug causing a dead lock occuring when rendering damage lightnings for cloaking objects with multi threading enabled
  • Fixed: Transparent faces sometimes weren't properly rendered when mesh optimization was enabled and cloaked objects were visible
  • Improved: Added some code to avoid divisions by zero in the slow motion sound handling
  • Fixed: Do to too rigid error checking, D2X-XL wasn't always reading all custom textures from POG files
  • Fixed: Powerups could be seen through walls
  • Fixed: On Linux and Mac OS X the wrong folder was used as texture cache root folder
  • Fixed: If built-in equipment had been added after saving a game, it wasn't given to the player when restoring save games
  • Changed: If -nobotai is set in d2x.ini, the player will not be awarded points for destroying robots or reactors
  • Fixed: Depending on mine geometry and view angle, visible parts of a level weren't rendered (often resulting in a brief black flickering when moving around)
  • Fixed: Some 3D hires powerups (guns, equipment) spun wildly when powerup shadows were enabled
  • Fixed: When picking up proximity or smart mine packs, the player only received one instead of four mines
  • New: Added an option to get rid of any thieves in a level to the gameplay menu (only single player and coop)
  • Improved: Edge softening can now be enabled separately for sprites (e.g. explosions, gun shots), energy sparks and smoke
  • Improved: D2X-XL will now prefer custom models over hires models
  • Fixed: The sound system wasn't properly reconfigured when entering slow motion or bullet time
  • Fixed: The audio thread wasn't started at program start if audio multi threading was enabled
  • Fixed: Transparent faces weren't rendered anymore
  • Fixed: Gun shot light trails were white instead of properly colored when smoke was rendered
  • New: Energy sparks can now slowly move around (enable in the effect render options menu)
  • Changed: The spark rendering method (resulting in a 5 to 10 percent speed up). You will need to update to the latest d2x-xl.hog
  • Fixed: Solid light trails were a solid white when smooth particle rendering was enabled
  • Changed: Light trail particles and Gatling gun bullet cases won't be smoothed any more
  • Fixed: D2X-XL created folders named '64', '128' and '256' in the game's drive's root folder instead of the model folder
  • Fixed: Smoke was regularly briefly turning black for a few frames if per vertex lighting with lightmaps was used
  • Improved: Particle life time is now also taken into account when computing static smoke's maximum particle count (before, instead of being constant smoke density dropped with increasing particle life time)
  • Fixed: Smoke effects got messed up when loading save games of levels containing static smoke
  • Improved: Tweaked smoke density/speed balance further
  • New: Added soft particle rendering for smoke, explosion effects and other sprites like e.g. 2D gun shots
  • Fixed: The program could crash when using multithreading due to an internal cache being overwritten by concurrent threads
  • Fixed: Static smoke density wasn't properly balanced against its speed
  • Improved: When a player ship isn't moving, the thruster smoke trail drifts a little away from it
  • New: The gatling guns now have a smoke cloud at their muzzles when firing
  • Fixed: Transparent faces frequently weren't properly rendered when transparent decals were rendered, too
  • Fixed: The transparency renderer now finally handles transparent open doors (masks) and textures with decals properly
  • Changed: The 'temp' folder has been renamed to 'cache'
  • Changed: Compressed textures will now be stored in subfolders named '256', '128' and '64' of the texture base folders ('textures', 'textures/d1' and 'models')
  • Fixed: Transparent walls with a decal still weren't rendered transparent in the per pixel and pure per vertex lighting paths
  • Fixed: Transparent walls became opaque when lit with the hardware headlight
  • Fixed: The hardware headlight doesn't affect particle light and gatling smoke trails anymore
  • Improved: Until now, transparent walls that had an overlay were rendered opaque. Instead, only the overlay texture will now be rendered transparently
  • Fixed: Custom models using more than 12 different textures could crash the program (hard coded limit from the original Descent 2)
  • Fixed: Loading high resolution models could cause program crashes due to buffer overflows occurring if the requested model wasn't actually available
  • Fixed: D2X-XL sometimes removed the transparency information (alpha channels) from hires textures it scaled down
  • Fixed: The Monsterball sometimes drifted away from its spawn position
  • Changed: Disabled the old render path
  • Changed: Damage lightnings won't light the environment anymore more
  • Changed: You now have to push the Monsterball in the opposing team's goal to score
  • Improved: The Monsterball is now placed at the exact location where the level author placed it (and not in its segment's center anymore)
  • Improved: Sound multithreading can now be controlled via the multithreading options menu
  • Improved: Forcefields can now have a key property and be team specific
  • Fixed: Descent 1 robot briefings didn't work anymore
  • Fixed: Hostage scores wasn't always handled properly when returning from a destroyed secret level
  • Fixed: Some sounds played at level start could be muted because audio system configuration which is running in a parallel thread took too long
  • Fixed: Custom robot boss AI settings were reset to default values when loading a level

New in D2X-XL 1.13.48 (Jul 21, 2008)

  • Fixed: Indestructible ghost ships could appear during multiplayer matches (not sure whether it's really fixed, but I hope so)
  • Fixed: The game could freeze during multiplayer games
  • Fixed: Transparent faces sometimes weren't rendered if per pixel lighting was enabled

New in D2X-XL 1.13.44 (Jul 14, 2008)

  • Fixed: UPD default port still was wrong
  • Fixed: Some wrong arithmetic (multiplication instead of addition) applied to a timeout value lead to severe connection problems
  • Inproved: Now supporting up to 7 simultaneous join requests

New in D2X-XL 1.13.39 (Jul 11, 2008)

  • No change notes available.

New in D2X-XL 1.12.43 (Feb 27, 2008)

  • Introduced a new model file format giving great flexibility to modelers and
  • better in-game models.
  • Added support for a new player ship that shows the actually equipped weapons and missiles.
  • Improved model hit sphere/box handling.
  • Improved automap handling.
  • Added spawn markers (special marker where you will respawn at when dieing).
  • Added a 3D spark effect for fuel and repair centers.
  • Improved light effects and lighting.
  • Reduced in-game lag occurring when seeing new robots, weapons or powerups for the first time.
  • Many small tweaks and fixes.

New in D2X-XL 1.12.43 (Feb 26, 2008)

  • Missiles were launched from the ASE Pyro in front of their mounts.
  • Missile thruster flames are now rendered properly during missile launch from the ASE Pyro.
  • Robot and player shields now will blink on and off while the object is cloaking or decloaking.
  • Some powerup coronas were constantly flashing white.
  • Tweaked OpenGL lighting a little more.
  • Shrapnel now has more different directions.
  • Message boxes sometimes weren't displayed, particularly after multiplayer connection failures.
  • Faces with a great difference in width and height weren't lit even if they had light sources sitting right on them.
  • Improved multiplayer connection handling.
  • Spawn markers now can only be set in singleplayer or coop games and when the player is alive.
  • Fixed a bug in the AI that could cause the program to crash.
  • Fixed a problem in sniper AI.
  • Removed lag that occurred when seeing a shield sphere for the first time after a level had been loaded.
  • Disconnecting players dropped built-in lasers and super lasers.
  • Made lava falls less transparent.
  • Not all weapon states were reported to other players in multiplayer games.
  • Improved the custom level music handling (level songs are now specified in a text file .sng - one song per line, empty line if midi level song should be played).
  • Increased the maximum number of missions per hog file to 100 and the maximum number of secret levels to 20.
  • The program crashed when the player encountered a certain kind of robot (snipers).
  • Robots with charge attacks (like e.g. the Diamond Claws) didn't charge the player.
  • After using the performance settings menu, mines occasionally were completely dark or foggy.
  • No bullet casings were ejected from the player's ship unless external view was enabled.
  • Added an option to have standard or super lasers at the wing tips depending on what the player has.
  • Robots with kamikaze or melee attacks and no guns didn't start to chase the player after they had lost and regained sight of him.
  • When a missile is launched and weapon display is enabled, the missile's mounting point will stay empty for a short while.
  • The Omega cannon wasn't recognized as fuselage mounted, hence the inner lasers weren't rendered if the Omega cannon was equipped and lasers were selected for the wing tips.
  • High resolution muzzle flashes weren't rendered properly.
  • Improved additive explosion and fireball rendering.
  • The ship had blue instead of white stripes in singleplayer games.
  • If the player didn't have quad lasers, no lasers were rendered at the wing tips even if they were selected as wingtip models.
  • Increased Vulcan and Gauss barrel rotation speed.
  • No inner wing guns were shown if laser wingtips were selected and the spread or helix gun were equipped.
  • When saving a game while in spectator mode, the spectator's instead of the player ship's position was written into savegames.
  • Spatial Vulcan/Gauss bullet case orientation varies stronger.
  • Models consisting of only one submodel didn't have hitspheres and hitboxes (which made them rather hard to hit :P)
  • The player ship was always rendered at the viewer position in spectator mode when it was cloaked.
  • The ASE hostage model was far offset from the coordinate origin and hence had a huge hitbox and floated in the air.
  • Added support for new ASE pyro with switchable gun models.
  • You can now specify a launch speed for missiles, making them launch slower and not at full speed.
  • Vulcan and Gauss gun now have an optional dropping bullet shell effect.
  • Vulcan and Gauss now have rotating barrels when using the new ASE pyro.
  • Diameters of models with submodels (i.e. many robots) still weren't properly computed.
  • The program crashed when hires models were enabled and non-ASE models were used.
  • '2.00' was shown in the the HUD when a robot fired its guns.
  • Proximity and smart mines exploded almost immediately after having been dropped.
  • Model diameters are properly computed when using 3D powerups, hires or custom models.
  • Tweaked particle light trails.
  • Tweaked Omega lightning source position.
  • Added support for switchable gun models on MetalBeast's new hires pyro.
  • Added support for team-specific coloring of MetalBeast's new hires pyro.
  • Robot AI was messed up a little (robots didn't evade shots well, the thief didn't flee when being shot at, ...)
  • D2X-XL now utilizes thruster submodels from ASE missile models for thruster flame positioning.
  • Players could hit their ships right away when firing the Phoenix or guided missiles in slow motion or bullet time modes.
  • Tweaked shot coronas and light trails some more.
  • The program constantly crashed w/o apparent reason.
  • Low resolution doors disappeared when not completely closed while the hardware headlight was turned on; ditto coronas.
  • Picking up slow motion or bullet time devices still wasn't accompanied by a pickup sound.
  • Laser light trails didn't have the right colors.
  • Depending on explosion type, explosion objects were converted to some 3D object if 3D powerups were enabled.
  • Depending on explosion type, some regular texture was rendered for an explosion object instead of the proper explosion animation.
  • Light trails weren't colored anymore.
  • Tweaked light trails a little.
  • No thruster flames were rendered for ASE models.
  • When entering the same secret level from two different levels, the player was dropped in level one when leaving the secret level after having entered it from the second level.
  • Gun shot models (lasers, fusion) will now be pre-loaded too, further reducing in-game lag when first seeing these.
  • Thruster flames were too far behind missiles.
  • Model preloading could crash the program when loading a level after having played another level.
  • Turning off light trails turned off gun shot coronas.
  • If the 3D energy spark effect was turned on in-game, the spark textures still were rendered together with the 3D sparks.
  • Addon bitmaps weren't properly restored after changing the screen resolution or toggling fullscreen.
  • Particle light trails were rendered even if light trails had been turned off.
  • Increased the brightness of gun hit explosions.
  • The hires robot model #82 (Omega Defense Spawn) wasn't loaded by D2X-XL.
  • Trigger messages were shown in auxiliary windows and not just in the main view.
  • Boss robots with spawn bot triggers pointing to properly setup robot generators still spawned their standard robots.
  • Turning the textured automap on in the automap menu crashed the program.
  • The object model pre-build step could crash the program.
  • Spark effects were rendered for level areas not visible for the viewer.
  • Object lightnings were rendered for objects areas not visible for the viewer.
  • No spark effects were rendered in the textured automap even if requested.
  • Demos containing static objects weren't played back.
  • Demos weren't played back because the frame timer wasn't properly reset when starting demo playback.
  • Added a three dimensional spark effect for energy and repair centers (toggle in effect render options menu).
  • The automap wasn't always displayed correctly in very huge levels.
  • Changing the automap view width now works faster (10 percent steps).
  • The automap now shows how many percent of the mine have been explored by the player.
  • Marker numbers hadn't been displayed anymore in the automap.
  • You can now teleport your ship to a marker (select the marker in the automap and press Ctrl T; 25 energy consumed per jump).
  • The rear view window is now properly flipped, offering the point symmetry of a rear view mirror (meaning you will see in the left of the mirror what is to the left behind you).
  • The alternating missile launch points of the new ASE pyro were exchanged.
  • Improved model preloading, thus decreasing in-game lag when seeing new robots, weapons or powerups.
  • Removed a few code flaws causing the program to crash after playing a long time and loading savegames often.
  • Program occasionally crashed when firing missiles in levels with skyboxes.
  • Cameras now have significantly smaller memory requirements at the cost of decreased resolution.
  • Exit door was opened when the first boss or reactor was destroyed in multi-boss levels even if multiple bosses were enabled.
  • Removed a bug in the lightning code that could cause program crashes.
  • Changing automap view range didn't work.
  • Automap view range can now be changed using the keypad minus and plus keys, too.
  • The target indicator calculation for Mega missiles didn't work.
  • Custom ship sound disappeared when turning off music.
  • Custom level music was replaced by midi level song when turning music off and on again while having custom ship sound on.
  • Hires sound channels are reversed and will be reversed back by D2X-XL.
  • Spawn markers weren't removed when starting a new game.
  • The ASE format pyro thruster flames didn't point to the right direction.
  • ASE format models weren't lit properly.
  • You didn't see other players' armed missiles in multiplayer games.
  • You can now set built-in guns and devices for singleplayer games, too.
  • Added support for the new ASE format Pyro with different missile submodels.
  • OGG custom level music playback was stopped when turning music off and on again, or when entering or leaving slow motion/bullet time.
  • Eagle's high resolution Pyro is too large too and will be scaled down appropriately.
  • The program crashed when loading a level containing custom hires models after having played such a level.
  • ASE thruster submodels weren't recognized.
  • Hires model textures weren't properly restored across level loads and screen mode and screen resolution changes.
  • Low resolution model hit spheres, hitboxes and shield spheres were off.
  • The new ASE high resolution Pyro is too large and will be scaled down by the program until we have a properly sized model.
  • Fixed a bug in SDL_mixer causing crashes (particularly if entering or leaving slow motion/bullet time while game sounds were being played).
  • Fixed a bug in SDL_mixer causing crashes during exit sequences.
  • Turning on music could crash the program or start a level song instead of the menu music even if not in a game.
  • Added ASE model format support.
  • Program won't crash any more when using the slow motion and bullet time powerup sprites.