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General Program Compatability Question

Started by hankjrfan00 Sep 24, 2006 at 2:38 AM 1 reply 750+ views

Original Post

Sep 24, 2006 at 2:38 AM

Long time reader first time poster. Up until this point I have only written a console apps and a few win api apps. I have been reading up on direct 3d progaming and I am about to jump in head first. The question I have is dealing with compatability. I would like to know how to make sure that my programs will be compatable with earlier versions of windows back at least to windows 98. Do I have to use an old version of direct sdk and platform sdk? Do I need to set certain compiler flags? I believe that Windows 98 supports up to Directx 9. I am thinking that I can still use the the directx 9 funtions even in later directx versions. Is this correct? (and yes I do know that the current version is still 9 but I am looking toward the future) And I have no idea about compatability with the platform sdk. Thanks in advace.

IFooBar

119

IFooBar

Sep 24, 2006 at 4:20 AM

well you don't need any special flags or anything, and you dont need to use an older version of dx9, as win98 supports dx9.

And no you will not be able to use the same dx9 funtions int he next version of dx (i.e. dx10). The API changes from dx7 to dx8 were quite huge, the difference between dx8 and dx9 was negligible. But dx9 -> dx10 is not going to be so negligible. Plus, dx10 will only be compatible with the next windows (Vista).

Vista will however run a version of dx9 called dx9L or something. So sticking to dx9 for now shouldn't be a problem for a long while ... though dx10 does have some pretty sweet features...

click1
click2

Also IIRC, there's an article here on gamedev that i can't bother finding right now on the differences between dx10 and dx9.

jollyjeffers

245

jollyjeffers

Sep 24, 2006 at 5:33 AM

I'd imagine you're more likely to have problems my incorrectly linking against updated platform components. I'm not 100% clear on the details, but later PSDK's tend to be targetted at XP-SP2 by default.

Quote:
Original post by IFooBar
Vista will however run a version of dx9 called dx9L or something.

DirectX for Windows Vista [smile] The "9L" name referred to "DirectX 9 for Longhorn" which was dropped when the name Vista was revealed, there are a few references to it being D3D9Ex but I'm not entirely sure how important/relevant that name is.

Quote:
Original post by IFooBar
Also IIRC, there's an article here on gamedev that i can't bother finding right now on the differences between dx10 and dx9.

This one?

Jack

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