Defcon Beta Update Announcement
We would like to announce that, thanks to the hard efforts of Defcon fan, volunteer and skilled developers, Keiron McPhee and Jasmin Brumme, we have a new build of Defcon to test!
The core experience remains pure DEFCON, but under the hood much has changed. There is a new graphics (DirectX, Metal and Vulkan) and sound subsystem (FAudio), hundreds of performance enhancements and bug fixes, and not least, native support for 64-bit cpus. Windows, Mac and Linux builds are available.
We have put up a build for testing on the "beta" branch. You can switch to it by right clicking DEFCON in your Steam Library, Properties, and then selecting the "Beta" branch from the "Game Versions and Betas" tab.
Please try it out and post any issues in the Steam Forum. Please include the word 'BETA' in your topic subject.
More detailed technical notes:
- System requirements changes: your graphics card needs to support at least one of: OpenGL 3.3+, Direct3D11, Metal, or Vulkan.
- Linux users may want to note that while we are providing a Linux-native build of the game, the Windows builds of the game are Proton-compatible, in case the Linux-native build breaks for any reason. If needed, to force enable Proton, right click on the game in your Steam library, click Properties > General > Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool, and select the desired version.
- The software sound rendering has been much improved and is now the sound system used on all platforms. The DirectSound sound system has been removed.
- Improved DPI scaling for high DPI screens. The User Interface should scale to be comfortable at all DPIs and resolutions.
- Window Management, Full Screen, Multi Display support much improved. The game is now playable on ultrawide monitors.
- High Dynamic Range (HDR) rendering is now supported.
- Frame rate and performance should be improved across the board.
- Automatic crash reporting is now enabled on all platforms.
- For older hardware or OSes that don’t meet the system requirements, the current version of the game will continue to be available on the “legacy” branch in Steam. That branch will remain after the beta ends and the new code enters the release branch.