Descent Freespace Demo not running in DX mode \ VOGONS

Descent Freespace Demo not running in DX mode

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First post, by Gahhhrrrlic

Posted on 2023-05-21, 20:03

Gahhhrrrlic Offline

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Finally I'm starting to have some good success with my Rage II card, getting it to run 3d games and even overclocking it with PowerStrip. I've got TR1, Mech2, Starcraft, Wipeout, Forsaken, F22 Raptor, all running well on the card. Not lightning fast but definitely playable.

Descent Freespace should be 1 of those game but for some reason it just won't detect anything the 3d card tab. Now this is the demo so I don't know if it's an older exe or something that didn't pick up all the cards at the time... but I've read that the Rage II is a supported chipset and we know it can do the DX feature set that Freespace would need... so question is why isn't it detecting?

Any way around this or to force it or maybe a different demo version or anything like that?

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

Reply 1 of 5, by leileilol

Posted on 2023-05-21, 23:08

leileilol Offline

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FSdemo was a month earlier and glide only, and the readme doesn't mention any Direct3D support. The full version had Direct3D

long live PCem

Reply 2 of 5, by Gahhhrrrlic

Posted on 2023-05-21, 23:36

Gahhhrrrlic Offline

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Seems I've heard this story before. Games in the 90s really were on the bleeding edge of progress if a month delay until the retail release would mean the difference between your card being supported or not.

Thanks for putting that to bed.

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

Reply 3 of 5, by leileilol

Posted on 2023-05-22, 01:36

leileilol Offline

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It's possible they've had support coded in at that point, but hadn't done anywide hardware testing runs to assure it'll work in time for the demo, especially in the case of the 1st/2nd generation of 3d hardware with wildly varying capabilities so they can only be surely certain for 3dfx users.

long live PCem

Reply 4 of 5, by akula65

Posted on 2023-05-22, 10:32

akula65 Offline

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The demo was updated twice, so there may be additional graphics support in later versions.
Version 1.1 Patch: https://web.archive.org/web/20010510082342/ht … sdemo10-11u.exe
Version 1.2 Patch: https://web.archive.org/web/20010510084403/ht … sdemo1x-12u.exe

Reply 5 of 5, by Gahhhrrrlic

Posted on 2023-05-22, 22:27

Gahhhrrrlic Offline

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Dude that did it! But why couldn't I find it when I searched? Because this did occur to me and I started typing in FSDEMO11.exe, FSDEMO12.exe, etc trying to find a patch but couldn't.

Bit of a shame I couldn't find another way to force the support, as that'd be far more valuable to others than just locating the correct file but I certainly do appreciate it! Now I have 1 more game running on my happy ATI card 😁

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

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