D3D v. 1.30 -- LCD glasses driver for use with Descent

(C) Copyright 1995, 1996 Donald Sawdai
All Rights Reserved
All products mentioned in this documentation are trademarks of their respective
owners.


For terms of use, see LICENSE.TXT.

Program description and use
---------------------------

D3D is a batch file used to call LCDBios and Descent/Descent 2.  You may pass
command-line options either to LCDBios or to Descent on the D3D command-line.
Any command-line option recognized by LCDBios will be used by LCDBios; any
other command-line options will be passed on to Descent.

D3D comes in three versions.  D3D14A.BAT runs Descent registered version 1.4a.
LCDBios will not work with earlier versions of Descent.  D3D15.BAT runs
Descent registered version 1.5.  D3D2.BAT runs Descent 2 Interactive Demo
and the Descent 2 registered version.  All of these batch files, by default,
are set up to use stereoscopic glasses on COM3:.  To change this default,
edit the batch files.

Note that, at the time of this document, the best versions of Descent to
use with LCDBios is Descent 1 registered version 1.5 and Descent 2 registered
version.  Descent version 1.5 has a newer 3D engine than the Descent 2
*Interactive Demo*!  I find that the 3D in the registered versions
Descent 1.5 and Descent 2 is more realistic and produces much less eye
strain than the other versions.

To install D3D for use with Descent, copy the D3D*.BAT files and LCDBIOS.EXE
into the Descent or Descent 2 directory.  Then just type D3D14A, D3D15, or
D3D2 (as appropriate) to play Descent in 3D!!  D3D automatically installs
LCDBios, runs Descent, and then removes LCDBios when Descent exits.

If you use LCDBios with the registered version of Descent 2, be sure
to run the setup program for Descent 2 and tell it to use "LCDBios"
as the VR Device.

To see the syntax and command-line options for LCDBios, type
      D3D14a /?

To see the syntax and command-line options for Descent, type
      D3D14a /HELP

By default, D3D passes the following options to LCDBios:
      /COM3 /LCDCtl:fc020100 /HRefresh /LCDRun:descent
These options indicate serial-port glasses on COM3:, an increased vertical
refresh rate (to reduce flickering of images), and to run the program or
batch file "descent" (or "d2" for D3D2.BAT).

By default, D3D passes the following options to Descent 1.4a:
      -3dmaxlo
This option indicates that LCDBios is being used to emulate 3D-BIOS.

By default, D3D passes the following options to Descent 1.5 and Descent 2:
      -lcdbios -JoyNice
These options indicate that LCDBios is being used and that the joystick
routine should not hog too much time (which may interfere with LCDBios and
cause flickering).

For optimizing performance of LCDBios, please see the LCDBios documentation.
The two best sets of options (on my computer) are
      /HRefresh                         -- fast but may have a black band
                                           at the bottom of the screen
and
      /HRefresh /FastInt:1 /LockFlip    -- slower but no black band.
Tweaking these setting my produce better results on your computer.

To minimize image flicker, be sure to set your video card to the highest
possible refresh rate that both it and your monitor can support.  Descent
is great in 640x400 at 120 Hz!


Special options for Descent 1.5
-------------------------------
Descent 1.5 has better 3D effects and more controls that Descent 1.4a and
the Descent 2 Interactive Demo.  For a full list of options, run
"DESCENT /HELP" or read the "README.TXT" file for Descent 1.5

One major improvement for Descent 1.5 is a better 3D projection for each
eye, which gives a better appearance of depth.  To manually decrease or
increase the stereoscopic depth, press [Shift-F1] or [Shift-F2] until
you like the "look" of the game.  To manually decrease or increase the
interocular spacing (distance between the left and right eyes), press
[Shift-F3] or [Shift-F4].  Press [Shift-F5] to restore the default
settings.

I have found that the default 3D settings are great at 320x200.  At
640x??? modes, I prefer to press [Shift-F2] to increase the
stereoscopic depth to about 17 or 18.

To change Descent resolutions, run one of
      D3D15 -320x100
      D3D15 -320x200
      D3D15 -320x400
      D3D15 -640x400
      D3D15 -640x480
Note that the -640x400 and -640x480 screen modes are VESA modes and
require the VESA SuperVGA BIOS 1.2 or higher to be present (either
available in hardware or loaded in a TSR) prior to running D3D.
You can also decrease either the horizontal or vertical resolution by
a factor of 2 by pressing [Shift-F6] repeatedly during game play.  A great
speed/resolution compromise is 640x200 (D3D15 -640x400 and press [Shift-F6]
once during game play).


Special options for Descent 2 (registered version)
--------------------------------------------------
The Descent 2 registered version has great stereo effects.  To use
LCDBios with Descent 2, be sure to run the Descent 2 setup program.
Then choose "Select VR Device" and then "LCDBios."  Then you can choose
the resolution (320x200, 320x400, 640x400, or 640x480).  Note that
the 640x400 and 640x480 screen modes are VESA modes and require the
VESA SuperVGA BIOS 1.2 or higher to be present (either available in
hardware or loaded in a TSR) prior to running D3D.


Note!!!
-------
At this time, Descent 1.4a and Descent 2 Interactive Demo are not specifically
optimized for use with stereoscopic (3D) glasses.  The quality of the 3D is
not great, and using the glasses with Descent for a long period of time may
give you a headache.  I highly recommend upgrading your version of Descent 1
to version 1.5 (only registered version is available).  The patches for
Descent 1.0 or 1.4a to 1.5 are available for free on many WWW sites,
FTP sites, and BBSs.  The original should be available on the WWW at
http://www.pxsoftware.com or
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dsawdai/lcdbios.html.


Disclaimer
----------
This documentation describes using D3D and LCDBios with Descent.  The
material presented is subject to change without notice.  Donald Sawdai claims
no responsibility for any errors that may be in this documentation or for
anything resulting from using this documentation.

