Descent 3 Tips

Install the game as normal, into it's own bottle using the winXP bottle profile.
Allow the installation to complete -- do not launch the game at this time, just
exit the installer.

Game requires a native fullscreen display resolution of 640x480, and all the
screen resolutions available ingame are designed for a 4:3 aspect display device.
If you are using a widescreen or 16:9/10 aspect display device, this means
you will have to use crossover/wine windowed mode (emulate a virtual desktop);

Use cxsetup to configure the bottle using winecfg to run in windowed
mode ('Emulate a virtual desktop');


0. Start  cxsetup

1. Highlight the bottle you installed the game into

2. Click on 'Configure' => 'Control Panel' => 'winecfg' -- the Wine Configuration GUI will appear





3. Now click on 'Graphics' tab => tick  'Emulate a virtual desktop'





4. After enabling virtual desktop mode, you will see 'Desktop size' element becomes active => change this to 640 x 480





5. Click on 'Apply' => 'Ok' => 'Ok"
6. Exit  cxsetup


Now start the game -- the first time you start the game, you will be presented
with the game setup GUI  -- (see screenshot) -- you can call this setup GUI
by clicking on the 'SETUP' option in the game launch screen anytime, but for
the first time start, it is automatically launched. In linux, I was getting better
textures and performance with graphics, using the OpenGL rendering driver,
but the setup GUI is less than intuitive and has a small glitch - here's how
to get around this bit --

1. In the Descent 3 Setup GUI, click on the 'Video' tab -- at this point, things
may appear to freeze/lock-up :: hit your keyboard escape (Esc) key to clear
this small glitch.

2. Click on the 'Redetect Available Rendering Devices' button. Another window
will appear - make sure the Direct3D and OpenGL boxes are ticked, then click
on the 'Scan for the Selected Video Devices' button -- it will tell you it found
more than one device, and that you need select one.

3. With the selector drop-down box under 'Currently Selected Rendering Device',
select the 'OpenGL' device detected, and then click on okay. With this finished,
click on the 'Play' button to continue.


Notes:  All movies/cutscenes and the game menus themselves are hardcoded to
run at 640x480, and typically steal your mouse focus. However, you can change
the game resolution (or resolution/window size if using an emulated desktop), via the
'OPTIONS' in the game's start menu (see screenshot). Believe me here -- you want
to change the control settings before you start playing the game (or become familiar
with the defaults), else you will have a very frustrating experience...you have been
warned!!... (;  Btw, if your mouse gets stolen and you want to get it back, the only
clean&easy way I found of doing that, was to switch desktops in your window-manager
of choice (in XFCE, the key sequence is Crtl-Fx (where x is the number of the desktop
you want to switch to).

Controlling devices:  When it was released, one of the things Descent3 became rather
imfamous for, was the number of actions and complexity of the game's input control layer.
You only need one look at the control setup options in the game, to get the picture here.
For example, if you use keyboard&mouse, you'll still end up wishing that you had a third
arm growing out of your chest, with an extra hand to get at everything all at once..and a
keyboard map overlay to visually remind you of keys you keep forgetting about. As they
seemingly modelled the controls relative to the capabilities of the fictional vehicle you're
controlling in the game, one of the best setups would be 2 joysticks (one for each hand),
4 buttons & HAT on each, and a pair of foot-pedals...and then drive it like an earthmoving
'Bobcat' machine, that can fly, and is heavily armed...

In linux, analog joystick via gameport/USB interfaces works fine (YMMV), but they're actually of
limited use in the game (unless you can do something like I mention above ;).