Okay....took me a while to get back to this - there are a number
of things to consider here...
The GOG version is a 549mb downloadable installer file, containing
both Descent I & II + DOSbox (to actually run the games, looks like
DOSbox version is 0.72) If you check the DOSbox website, you'll see
that GOG.com gets a plug for all older games like this. which GOG
employs, as part of their rerelease for such games to get them running
under things like winXP....
The GOG version installs correctly as an unsupported game, into it's
own bottle using the winXP profile. The games themselves are hoisted
by DOSbox running under COG's wine environment -- that is, they are not
running natively in wine, but as guests to DOSbox running natively in
the COG/wine environment...(I hope that makes sense to the reader ;)
Check tips&tricks for any further detail.
It is my understanding that both these titles were also originally
released on CD media (containing both Descent I & II), and if you
have this original media, you will likely need to use DOSbox to get
them to run -- that might be the native DOSbox port for your OS &
platform, or else running DOSbox with COG instead -> see;
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=5949
Now...the GOG installer has a useful and interesting feature -- you
can click the 'Options' button on the installer GUI, and it allows
you to deselect the installation of DOSbox ; if you do that, another
path selector appears, allowing you to select the version of DOSbox
you might already have installed. Very handy, considering DOSbox also
evolves and gets better over time, allowing you to effectively update
your DOSbox installation to the latest&greatest, and take advantage of
any improvements in/with DOSbox to runs these titles better.
Do note however, the above paragraph refers to the windows DOSbox port,
and this must be (pre)installed into the crossover-games bottle you are
going to install Descent into -- that's how it works. If you are going
to use your OS/platform native DOSbox port, you wouldn't be using COG at
all -- however, you could still use the installations provided by the
GOG.com installer, if you point your native DOSbox port to those installed
directories (or copy them to somewhere else).
This interoperability with DOSbox, is further enhanced with the GOG.com
release, by their inclusion of a helper-app "Graphics mode setup.exe",
which at a guess, makes it easier to pass runtime variables to the DOSbox
commandline 'automagically' when you launch the game - I'll include a
screenshot of this bit. Like I say, there's a bit to consider here (;
Descent_I : Game has only one resolution - 640x480 ; if you don't have
display hardware capable of this, you will need run COG in windowed mode.
('Emulate a virtual desktop' in winecfg). All works as expected.
Descent-II ; Intro movie works, ingame options menu gives you a choice
of graphics - 640x480 works fine, trying 800x600 w/o cockpit ran very
poorly, other than that it all works as expected. Again, use windowed
mode if your display hardware isn't capable of these native resolutions.
Both titles steal you mouse, and, when moving the mouse, audio output
is interrupted...but I think this is an artifact of the DOSbox process,
and nothing to do with COG itself. Use keyboard or joystick (which works
in linux) to play the game instead.