Directx 8 removed from Ogre?

Zamboni · Post by **Zamboni** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 7:07 pm

Hello all,

I apologize is this is a stupid question.

I saw on the Ogre website that support for directx 8 has been removed from Ogre. My concern is what impact that will have on 3D game creation in PureBasic?

For example, my graphics card supports directx8.1. So, will I be limited to directx 7 features until I upgrade my card to a directx 9 card? I assume that would be the case but just need some clarification.

I searched the forum here but did not find any information that addressed the removal of directx 8 support.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 8:36 pm

Where did you find that on the website? I dont see it. If it means they totally removed directx from ogre and went completely OpenGL, then this is a very good thing.

Zamboni · Post by **Zamboni** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 8:57 pm

I just went back to their forum and read the info again. Here is a portion of it but I see they are talking about the Direct3D8 render system plugin (whatever that means)

Hi folks, this is just an advance notice that we intend to drop support for the Direct3D8 render system plugin in the very near future.

This is because:
1) There is no needs for it now the Direct3D9 render system is maturing and as more people upgrade to it
2) MS made some design flaws in Direct3D 8 which cause all sorts of problems when abstracting compiled vertex buffers and vertex shader support. D3D8 is a transitionary version which we'd have to bend over backwards to support, which is a waste of our resources

For those who don't want to use the latest features, and want to target old cards, we'll continue to maintain the Direct3D7 support. However, this will not support some of the new features we're introducing because they cannot be done in that version, such as Cg and hardware skinning.

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 9:22 pm

Oh man, that sucks hardcore. Basically, they are moving from Directx8 to Directx9, however they are supporting DirectX7 for "older video cards".

At least they support OpenGL. I wonder which one PureBasic uses? Or does PB lock you to DirectX? Hope not, as I am aiming for cross-platform. Any news?

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 9:35 pm

PB version runs in DX under windows....

And DX 7 is required... My NT4 machine does not run any 3d examples...

dmoc · Post by **dmoc** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 9:45 pm

Me thanks myself for not relying on Ogre, PB's implementation or dx

Dreglor · Post by **Dreglor** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 9:47 pm

i think the onyl problems well see if any one doesn't have a dx9 card is slower speeds or in some case disabled features

proably becasue since the card doesn't surrport it so either software take over or the feature will be completely taken over

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Mon Dec 22, 2003 10:04 pm

dmoc, what engine do you use? There is no way im going to limit myself nor the PB multi-platform language to a very rigid single-platform engine implimentation. As it makes totally no sense.

dmoc · Post by **dmoc** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 1:47 am

My own opengl engine

Elleomea · Post by **Elleomea** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 3:06 am

I'd assume that the 3.81 Linux release would use OGRE's OpenGL functions and keep the change practically invisible from the PureBasic user (So compiling under Windows and Linux would work just as well on either, it'd just automatically use DirectX under Windows and OpenGL under Linux).
But this is pure speculation, maybe someone who knows more about how the latest Linux version is being implemented could shed some more light on the issue?

Post by **Fred** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 11:06 am

Elleomea is right and OGRE on linux use OpenGL, but it doesn't impact the pb code at all. On Windows, DirectX is and will be the official game development plateform and nobody discuss this fact. There is some discussion about the last DirectX9 release and it seems to brings much more power in standardized form than OpenGL actually do. The OGRE team decided to stop DX8 support because DX9 support all the functionnality of DX8, so if you have a DX8 card only, just install DX9 and it will work the same. The same apply if you have a DX7 card only, you can still install DX9. About an alternative support of OpenGL, it could be done, but would be break lot of connectivity with 2DDrawing/Sprite/Sprite3D library.

Shannara · Post by **Shannara** » Tue Dec 23, 2003 5:10 pm

Hmm, thanks for the info.

dmoc: Are you planning on distributing your engine for a fee or so? Im looking for an OpenGL engine for windows. I don't like directx-bloatware.