Descent 2 (273580)

[dreamer]

Compatibility Report

• Link to SteamDB: https://steamdb.info/app/273580/
• Link to ProtonDB: https://www.protondb.com/app/273580

System Information

• DOSBox: 0.74-3

Report

Note: use development version of steam-dos from master branch

The game does not load for a stupid reason: paths in .CUE file included with the game are supposed to be relative to the DOS directory (and that's why you are "supposed to" mount C drive and change directory to e.g. C:\ before invoking imgmount inside DOSBox), which would imply that those paths are case-insensitive.

In reality in DOSBox those paths are relative to DOS directory, but paths are case sensitive, as on Linux host.

There are 4 ways to fix/workaround this:

• Improve .cue handling in SDL_Sound 1.2 (not even sure if this is possible at this point - does SDL 1.2 still receive feature updates or is it in hard maintenance mode?)
• Improve .cue handling in relevant SDL2 library and port DOSBox to SDL2 (dosbox patches to use SDL2 are waiting for inclusion for yeaars… TODO link to discussion on Vogons forum)
• Implement a fix in DOSBox (I expect it to be refused by upstream)
• Introspect into .cue files and fix paths inside in steam-dos. This is the fastest option to implement, but maybe not the best one.

Not sure which path to pursue at this point.