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Softpedia has tested the Mac OS X version of D2X-XL and found it 100% spy- and malware free. Well, as you can always download the source code and check it for yourself, I consider D2X-XL pretty safe, but having an 'official' statement by an independant third party is not a bad thing, so I thought I'd mention it here. Although not tested by Softpedia, the Linux and Win32 versions are just as safe - no wonder, it's the same source code. Click the image for detail info. Introduction D2X is a port of Descent 2 to OpenGL. It is an open source project and has received a lot of enhancements compared to Descent 2. My work on this project would not have been possible if hadn't been for the people who initially implemented the OpenGL and SDL code in D2X, so my thanks to them: It is for them that we can still play this great game on modern hardware. My thanks also to the many people who have provided input for this project, be it in the form of bug reports, great ideas, logos, encouragement, or other. Descent 2 is a pretty old game, and further development has slowed down; so there are a few issues - some still stemming from the original Descent 2 - that have never been adressed or solved in D2X. As I still like Descent 2 pretty much, I was always looking for a way to get rid of the things that plagued me most in Descent 2. Getting hold of the D2X source files and being able to create a MS Visual C++ 6 project for D2X finally enabled me to fix these annoyances. Backwards Compatibility Although D2X-XL contains a lot of enhancements and new features, it is still fully backwards compatible to every other Descent 2 version and particularly to D2_Win98 and d2_3dfx (which constitute the reference for every other D2 version). As many fixes simply restore features of the original Descent 2 that were missing in D2X (like availability of all cockpit views, or working mouse steering), it is even closer to them than D2X itself. Keeping full backwards compatibility is my concern, and where I break it, it happens accidentally and will be fixed as soon as I notice it, or get notified of it. In multiplayer games, all game-relevant features of D2X-XL (e.g. mouselook, dual missile launch, or the cockpit window 'radar') are completely turned off if the game host does not use D2X-XL. If the game host uses D2X-XL, he has full control over these features and can turn them on or off at his free disposal. Bug Fixes And Improvements D2X-XL fixes virtually all bugs found in D2X 0.2.6 and adds a plethora of new features.