DirectX SDK

Sir Camehan · Post by **Sir Camehan** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 8:46 am

I'm not sure if this question fits anywhere else but here. but anyway.
I am just wondering if the DirectX 9 SDK comes with also the DirectX8 SDK as well, as I can't find any place on the Net to download it.

I am asking this as I want to be able to make my own custom build of
ZSNES, as I already have Visual C++ 6 and NASM. So I'm asking about the SDK as I don't want to waste time downloading a 222MB SDK.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 4:54 pm

Yes it does. Getting the DX9 SDK will allow you to compile and code for ANY previous version of DirectX.

The only side effect is the documentation will be updated for DX9. Look around a bit more.

Sir Camehan · Post by **Sir Camehan** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 11:02 pm

Thanks a lot for clearing this up, Nightcrawler.

magno · Post by **magno** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 10:26 pm

where can be that Dx9 SDK found? Maybe in the Microsoft homepage?

It could be a great thing to begin messing uo with DX9

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Sat Sep 04, 2004 11:18 pm

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/defau ... irectx.asp

Although, I beg you, if you get into 3D graphics, use OpenGL.

burning shadow · Post by **burning shadow** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 11:33 pm

If you do not want to download whole DX9 SDK, you can get just headers and libs. This is all you need to compile ZSNES. Get it here. This is a RAR archive, so you'll need WinRAR to unpack.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 1:19 pm

Noxious Ninja wrote:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/defau ... irectx.asp

Although, I beg you, if you get into 3D graphics, use OpenGL.

Why? Give me some specific examples of why OpenGL is better?

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 1:05 am

Two words: cross platform.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 1:11 pm

What, so 5% more people can use your program? I'd just as well expect them to get a PC emulator or dual boot windows to the same degree you'd expect someone to code 3D in OpenGL just for them.

Should the coder choose a specific API to cater to 5% more people or should the 5% of people cater to the coder and find a way to get the program to run on their system if they want to run it?

Bahamut_ZERO_Clue · Post by **Bahamut_ZERO_Clue** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:41 pm

OpenGL comes with just about every compiler and is way smaller of an API to use. Plus it has just as much capability of DirectX.

Noxious Ninja · Post by **Noxious Ninja** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 9:56 pm

Bahamut_ZERO_939 wrote:Plus it has just as much capability of Direct3D.

Fixed.

Post by **Nach** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 10:10 pm

Nightcrawler wrote:What, so 5% more people can use your program? I'd just as well expect them to get a PC emulator or dual boot windows to the same degree you'd expect someone to code 3D in OpenGL just for them.

Should the coder choose a specific API to cater to 5% more people or should the 5% of people cater to the coder and find a way to get the program to run on their system if they want to run it?

If you want 5% more sales...

You'd be suprised how many of the hard core FPS players do not use Windows, which probably would make it more like 10%.

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:15 am

Nach wrote:
Nightcrawler wrote:What, so 5% more people can use your program? I'd just as well expect them to get a PC emulator or dual boot windows to the same degree you'd expect someone to code 3D in OpenGL just for them.

Should the coder choose a specific API to cater to 5% more people or should the 5% of people cater to the coder and find a way to get the program to run on their system if they want to run it?
If you want 5% more sales...

You'd be suprised how many of the hard core FPS players do not use Windows, which probably would make it more like 10%.

There isn't a linux half-life client, so no CS players use a non-windows platform.

Post by **Nach** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 6:24 am

Maybe not half life. But go see who all the unreal people are.

See if they made Half Life for Linux, I can gaurantee they'll have a lot more sales.

It's not really a big deal today to make something portable. Use Standard C++ as far as it goes, Open GL for graphics, and the rest of the portablization work should shouldn't be too big of a deal. There's portable stuff out there for sound and input, but it's not as popular.

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:14 am

Don't forget SDL or OpenAL for sound, and SDL for input.

... but I still think you're full of shit about "a lot more sales." I'm sure a lot of geeks would also be happy if Barnes & Noble stocked spank mags, but that's not likely to happen either.

Post by **Nach** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:21 pm

That would depend on your definition of a lot more sales.

Perhaps I should have said a few thousand more sales.

Post by **grinvader** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:59 pm

There was a big thread at slashdot. You can search for it, 95% of the posts are 'If it was made for linux, I'd buy it. But it's not, so screw it'.

parasyte · Post by **parasyte** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:02 pm

grinvader wrote:There was a big thread at slashdot. You can search for it, 95% of the posts are 'If it was made for linux, I'd buy it. But it's not, so screw it'.

Take what you read at Slashdot with a grain of salt.

Also, using Direct3D doesn't exclude the use of OpenGL. It's not a particularly Herculean task to make an app use multiple renderers if necessary. Epic's Unreal series has done it for a long time, Half-Life had not just D3D and OGL renderers, but also a software renderer, and even some open-source projects like StepMania can switch renderers between D3D and OGL.

As far as choosing one to learn, I would guess OGL would be only slightly more important because of the cross-platform issue. Learning to program for a modern console would likely use either OGL or a custom rendering library, unless said console is the Xbox (and possibly its successor) where you'd use D3D.

Bahamut_ZERO_Clue · Post by **Bahamut_ZERO_Clue** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:06 am

SDL is pretty much the most cross-platform foundation API and pretty much the foundation API of choice on many OSes as well. SDL covers just about every API acrosss MacOS, Win32, Linux, and BSD based systems. Even the PS2's Linux package has a special port of it.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:53 pm

Yeah.. SDL has come a long way as far as being widely supported.

Nonetheless, no matter how good SDL and OpenGL get, I don't see DirectX going anywhere anytime soon. It's support is difficult to match since it's backed by Microsoft.

Post by **Nach** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 3:32 pm

Not to say Direct X is going anywhere in the near future.

But if you decided you want to get into multimedia programming, you should learn SDL instead of Direct X.