Clootie's Translated DirectX Headers Update

[WILL]

Clootie has made yet another update to his popular translated DirectX Headers.

This time around he has focused on including many Windows Vista features and specifications. Along with the updates he has also included many new samples of how to work with the Direct3D 9 model under Vista.

"This release of DirectX headers adds support for Vista extended version of Direct3D9 known as Direct3D9Ex or D3D9.0L. While it's not included in bi-monthly MS DirectX SDK releases (it's only available in Windows SDK) - I've decided to add it to for your pleasure! Vista Direct3D9 additions mostly mirror requirenments of it's new 3D display composition engine. But all these new features can be used in your applications! So if you, for example, hate DeviceLost events - D3D9.L is for you!"


Get more information about Clootie's latest DirectX Header updates at www.Clootie.ru (http://www.clootie.ru/)!

[cronodragon]

Great work Clootie! :D

EDIT: BTW, is it true that d3dx9_31.dll can't be distributed along with applications? I read that somewhere. If so, what can we do?

[chronozphere]

wow.. good job :razz: This is very good news, especially because this version is Vista proof. :)

For now.. i am still busy with DX8.1 but in the future, i will upgrade my engine to a higher DX version.

I have one question... is it hard to upgrade a game-engine to this DX9 (october release), or is it just a matter of changing a few method names and maybe adding some parameters???

[cronodragon]

Hi chronozphere. The translation from DX8 to DX9 is almost straight forward. It's mostly on chaging types. I made a translation from DX9 to DX8 for backward compatibility, and had to disable just 1 or 2 things DX8 didn't supported. Then you won't have many problems. Also DirectInput and DirectSound are the same from DirectX 8.

[Clootie]

Great work Clootie! :D

EDIT: BTW, is it true that d3dx9_31.dll can't be distributed along with applications? I read that somewhere. If so, what can we do?Probably you've read this in readme.txt I've placed in archive :D

Well, officially you have include DirectX runtime redistributive with your application and call it during setup. Full package is ~35Mb. It can be reduced by removing unneeded components to around 1Mb overhead for only d3dx9_xx.dll. Other way is to supply Web-based redist what is around 100Kb (may be I'm wrong about this size) and it will download required components from MS site.

More information is available in MSDN. You can look for DirectSetup, windows installer topics, etc under DirectX SDK documentation. IIRC there was special article describing steps to reduce DX redist size.

[Clootie]

I forgot to add what this is official way.
But too much AAA game titles released patches that required newer version of d3dx9_xx.dll and failed to supply it or right directX setup with patch. And I have not heard about MS complaining...

... so... :roll: