We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Thanks to Descent 3 being officially open source, developers can do almost anything with it now and this has given rise to the Descent 3: Piccu Engine.

Forked from the open source Descent 3 game engine the Descent 3: Piccu Engine, it includes "almost every change from InjectD3, among many more". You might think, well why not submit to the original open source project? But this is the benefit of open source isn't it! People can do whatever changes they want.


Pictured - Descent 3 from Steam

This includes enhancements like:

  • Centered window mode.
  • Scaling in window and fullscreen mode.
  • Fullscreen which does not change desktop settings (multi adapter support forthcoming).
  • New mouse code.
  • Adjustable FOV, with automatic expansion for widescreen.
  • Missing features in OpenGL restored, including specular highlights and the ability to control mipmapping.
  • Cockpit actually works in widescreen, unlike InjectD3.
  • Faster iteration when many missions are present.
  • Smoother UI (FPS limit raised to 60).
  • OpenAL sound system with no crackling and environment reverb support.
  • Many bugfixes.

Currently though according to the GitHub page this version of the code is only set up for Windows, but the developer hopes "to change this shortly".

You do need a copy of the game to run it which you can get from GOG and Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
12 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
See more from me
7 comments

I played the hell out of Descent 1 and 2 from shareware and demo discs. But never decent 3. Is it as good?
skaplon Oct 9
It's a bit different than 1 and 2 but very fun imho
d10sfan Oct 9
I'll look into adding this for luxtorpeda. The source release I added a while back ,but this looks like it adds some nice features.
QuoteAdjustable FOV, with automatic expansion for widescreen.

Lets goooo!!!!

--

I seriously hope this gets the Caesar 3 treatment where they got Julius and Augustus

The opportunity for ray-tracing like lighting updates and texture and model swap ins would be insane.

I know a lot of people have a lot of feelings about AI too but I can't help but think it would be fascinating to generate some replacements like those lights in the header and so forth -- it could get really interesting really fast.
Leahi84 Oct 9
I loved Descent and Descent II back in the day when they came out. I bought Descent 3 back then but couldn't get it working on my Pentium 2 PC, even though I had a Voodoo 2. I never had luck even getting it to run relatively recently, so I'm very grateful to the guy who released the source code that allowed these projects. I can finally play it!


Last edited by Leahi84 on 9 October 2024 at 8:51 pm UTC
ugly Oct 13
Quoting: Leahi84I loved Descent and Descent II back in the day when they came out. I bought Descent 3 back then but couldn't get it working on my Pentium 2 PC, even though I had a Voodoo 2.
I'm not sure if you could come up with a more 90s PC gaming sentence if you tried.
DMJC Oct 14
I'd like to see VR added to Descent 3. I reckon it's a prime candidate for it.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
Login / Register


Or login with...
Sign in with Steam Sign in with Google
Social logins require cookies to stay logged in.