DX8+

[Da Undead]

I think that there should be an upgrade for the DirectX because I herd that if you get a better 1 then you can have way better graphics which would be cool. So just wandering also if anyone has DX8+ or sometin

[Matt]

Why was my post deleted? All I said was if he wanted to do it for his game, he could. But it's not easy to do.

[Robin]

Erm, yes is it

[grimsk8ter11]

It actually isn't though. There is alot of changes.

And VB is only supported until DX8, 9+ aren't compatible, or at least said not to be.

[Matt]

Has anyone ever tried to get it working? And if so, what happened?

[grimsk8ter11]

Yes I did, and it worked fine

just takes some fiddling around

[Matt]

Sorry, I meant DX9. Lol. Forgot to specify. Although I was pretty sure I did. I think I'm going senile at a young age.

[funkynut]

I thought you couldn't use dx9 in vb6...

[Robin]

I don't think you can...

But, DX8, if programmed properly can be even more convenient than Direct Draw.

After looking around, I was linked to Lucky's VB Game Tutorials, and using the tutorial to init DX8 (Part 1 Part 2), a small piece of code from the tutorial on 2D Game Design in DX8 (Here) and for menu backgrounds (my entire engine is DX8) I used the tutorial on loading large textures onto a surface (Here) and then made a few functions and subroutines, added a few scripted files so you could easily change textures, sizes, sprites etc. without having to edit the game engine (all textures need to be in multiples of 2 (32x32, 64x64, 96x96, 256x256 etc. etc.) so it is hard to hard code (*hint @ pun*) the entire graphics engine) and then a few automated services and it works even better than Direct Draw (Faster (if you have a 3D graphics support ), alphablending, rotation and less CPU usage (Personally I can load up to 1500 sprites onto the screen, whilst having them rotated, alphablended etc. and still have my FPS 4 above my monitor refresh rate))

Wow. I do believe I used little to no punctuation there. Ah, shoot me.

[Matt]

*Shoots Robin*

You make it sound easy. Lol. Oh well. One of these days I may look into what you just posted, who knows?

[funkynut]

Well I found it as easy as what Robin says, I also used Luckys vb Game tutorials

[Spodi]

I personally find Direct3D faster than DirectDraw, too. It may just be since I was more noob using DirectDraw, but you can take the 3d optimizations to a ridiculous level of obfuscation for power. Cards these days just support 3d better than native 2d (the straight copy of one surface to another). Strange how it works that way, though, since you would think copying from one surface to another would be the easiest thing you could possibly do.

[Da Undead]

Well it be cool if we can get some tuts .

[funkynut]

http://rookscape.com/vbgaming/

[Obsidian]

Actually i think you can use DX9 with VB6... i think there was an SDK developed to allow it to be used... but i have been wrong before. I think shan was actually working on a VB6 project using DX9 at one point...

[grimsk8ter11]

To my knowledge, and a quick internet search, DX9 has no way to be interfaced with VB6, just because Microsoft said so, and I couldn't find it, doesn't mean its not possible in some shape or form, since DX9 also contains DX8 and DX7.

[Matt]

I'm pretty sure Unformed uses DX9, but it's also not VB. Shan doesn't use VB anymore, he uses PB (Pure Basic). That could be what you were thinking of Obsi.

[Spodi]

Well you can probably create a DLL to wrap the DirectX calls in another language, then call that from VB, but I see absolutely no point in doing that. It'd just be a waste of time. If you want to use a tool that doesn't work with your language, learn a new one. :wink:

[grimsk8ter11]

Well you can probably create a DLL to wrap the DirectX calls in another language, then call that from VB, but I see absolutely no point in doing that. It'd just be a waste of time. If you want to use a tool that doesn't work with your language, learn a new one. :wink:

exactly.

and besides if you know enough to make a porting wrapper for VB in another language, why not use that language

[Da Undead]

xD, well anything thats better then the DX7 right now thats compaitble would be good in tut :o

[Robin]

Writing a tut is pointless because by simply following a tutorial on putting it into Mirage, you shoot yourself in the foot.

You won't be able to manage to code, debug the code, edit the code, create add-ons for the code, etc. etc.

[William]

You both are right. Creating a DLL wrapper for DX9, to be called from VB, was what I was working on at one point using PB. But yeah, it's better to just learn another language.

But what's the point? To have the benefits of DX9, and soon 10, in VB6.

[Robin]

But have we got to the point where using DX9 and DX10 is a serious advantage for the games we are creating?

[William]

Unless the game your creating is in 3D, or you want/need the extra speed ... nope.

[Robin]

So we shouldn't really be worrying about the need to render more than 1000 sprites (which I can do in DX8 without my fps dropping below my monitor refresh rate). So is the extra work and language knowledge needed to use DX9 and DX10 really worth it, even in a 3D game? Because I don't think anyone programming in VisualBasic will need anywhere near that amount of Sprites on screen at the same time, even in tandem with 3D models.