Descent for Windows
Descent on Windows 11, Windows 10, and older
You can play the DOS game Descent with DOSBox quite fine; sound is good, game runs smoothly. But the resolution is terribly low (320x240). However, there's a source port available for Descent and it's called D1X-Rebirth. All information can be found on the project page: http://www.dxx-rebirth.com. You can play Descent with this port on Linux, Windows and MacOSX.
So, in short, what do you need to play Descent on Windows 11, Windows 10 or older in any resolution?
Play Descent with D1X-Rebirth
- Download D1X-Rebirth program files in zip file
- Copy the D1X-Rebirth folder (which is in the dxx-rebirth_xxx-win folder) from the zip file to a folder of choice, for example c:\games, after which the D1X files are in c:\games\D1X-Rebirth
- Download Descent:
- Copy descent.hog and descent.pig game files from the Descent CD or the installation folder or the downloaded zip file to D1X-Rebirth folder, in this example c:\games\D1X-Rebirth
- Read the README-D1X.txt file from the D1X-Rebirth zip file for additional information about addons, multiplayer, etc.
Play Descent multiplayer levels
- Copy chaos.hog and chaos.msn to the missions folder, in this example c:\games\d1x-rebirth_v0.xx.x-win\missions or c:\games\D1X-Rebirth\missions
Start and configure the game
- Start the game with the d1x-rebirth.exe file.
- Don't forget to crank up the graphics settings and resolution in the options menu of the game!
How to play Descent on Windows 10 and Windows 11
About updating Descent to version 1.4a
As of version 0.56 of D1X-Rebirth, the updating of the Descent game files is not necessary anymore. When using an earlier version of D1X-Rebirth, the following applies:
Most of you probably have a 1.0 version of Descent, somewhere. If you use 1.0 files, D1X won't start. And you'll find an error in the gamelog.txt file like "Error: Not enough strings in text file - expecting 621 (or at least 514), found 555". You'll need to update the game to version 1.4a. If you choose to update the game with the official patch, do so in DOSBox. That probably won't work, if you don't have a legitimate copy of Descent. You'll probably get an error when the patch tries to update descentr.exe. That's too bad, because the pig and hog files also need to be patched. In that case use the patch found on the Download misc page of the DXX-Rebirth website (called descent-game-content-10to14a-patch.zip). This patch only updates the pig and hog files. Read the included readme.txt file for instructions.
