DX8 (;}-)

Take a look at:

http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/meltdown/

What do you think? Looks very very nice

as far as i know there was no dx4 also sorry to be the be the bearer of bad tidings but there will be no new versions of directdraw

You''re right, there''s no DX4, but there are LPDIRECTDRAWSURFACE4 surfaces, introduced in version 6.0. SikCiv probably got them mixed up.

1) When is DX8 going to be released?
Some say September and some say October.

2) What are some of the new features?
Direct Play Voice and some weird others. The info is all over the place

3) Where can I find an article on it?
See #2

4) Does anyone have the Beta2 version? If so can u send it to me?
you can go looking around. I''ve seen beta downloads around, but they are illegal.

5) I cant seem to find any information on the MS web site.
yup


6) Is anyone using DX7 Surfaces? If so, have u noticed a performance decrease (lower FPS) compared to DX4 Surfaces?
Not in VB. Then again, Patrice Scribe did the .tlb files for DX3-6

7) Lets hope the DX8 DDraw system is *better*...!!!!..., hey, maybe alpha blending will be a solid feature in DX8!!!! Cant wait..
There is no Direct Draw or at least I think there isn''t Direct Draw. It''s Direct Graphics now.

I tried D3D 8 Beta and i must say it gets better and better.
The main hilights:
1. One call initialization. Finally!
2. Mighty one call texture creation: no more enumerating texture formats and other crap. Reads many graphic formats, from file or from memory, and converts it to any texture format (1555,565,8888, etc); Automatically creates mipmaps; To make a texture "render-target" just specify one flag.
3. Pressure to use vertex buffers and FVF (as oppose to C arrays of D3DVERTEXes or D3DLVERTEXes): that allows vertex buffers to be cached and optimized on T&L cards.
4. Mini-assembly language to code vertex shaders and pixel shaders. This language is executed natively by card''s GPU if present. WOW.
5. Cube textures, volumetric textures, N-patches and some other funky stuff.
6. Ability to create 3D font models (D3DX).
6. No longer can gat a DC of a surface... That''s kinda sad.
7. THAY GAVE IN HUNGARIAN NOTATION!!!
Overall API improved greatly. I find it become both simplier to use and more powerful. Still, there are some quirks and knowing MS thay will be addressed in DX9.

I tried D3D 8 Beta and i must say it gets better and better.
The main hilights:
1. One call initialization. Finally!
2. Mighty one call texture creation: no more enumerating texture formats and other crap. Reads many graphic formats, from file or from memory, and converts it to any texture format (1555,565,8888, etc); Automatically creates mipmaps; To make a texture "render-target" just specify one flag.
3. Pressure to use vertex buffers and FVF (as oppose to C arrays of D3DVERTEXes or D3DLVERTEXes): that allows vertex buffers to be cached and optimized on T&L cards.
4. Mini-assembly language to code vertex shaders and pixel shaders. This language is executed natively by card''s GPU if present. WOW.
5. Cube textures, volumetric textures, N-patches and some other funky stuff.


youve just described opengl from a few years ago hehe sorry couldnt resist

NOt quite one call initialisation, you still need to create the device and the viewport and the zbuffer.

------------------------------
#pragma twice

OpenGL doesn''t have that pixel and vertex shader language cool thingy.

------------------------------
#pragma twice

So, with this changes DX8 will rule the world!!!!!!

I think, they may need to new drivers for some hardware (especially for 3d-video)

But, if the step for initialize is very short, then it is very difficult to personalize the initialization.




-eng3d.softhome.net-

if you can no longer get the DC, are there other methods of interacting with a surface via GDI? it made things real easy for screenshots. that''s about all i used it for, though.


crazy166
some people think i'm crazy, some people know i am

No DC to the surface? That sounds pretty lame!

How do you manipulate the data? For that matter, how do you get data onto the surface in the first place?

"OpenGL doesn''t have that pixel and vertex shader language cool thingy."
ok opengl only had this for about a year not years
have a look here scroll down, the first d3d demo is the eight one on the list!! why? I cant believe gl is advancing so much more rapidlly then d3d.
with WitchLord on holiday me post might last a day

um. You aren''t supposed to disclose that information

Who cares ?!

BREAKIN THE LAW !!! BREAKIN THE LAW !!!!!!!