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DirectX with Visual Basic 6

Started by SanderKn Dec 26, 2006 at 5:23 PM 4 replies 6.8k views

Original Post

Dec 26, 2006 at 5:23 PM

Hello. I'm trying to start using DirectX with Visual Basic 6, but I'm having some problems on what exactly I have to download. I don't need to use DirectX10. DirectX9 or even DirectX8 would be good enough. I have no clue on what exactly to download though. A search for DirectX8 on MSDN only results in run-time downloads and 'extra's'. No exact SDK's for using DirectX8. I'm also not sure if the latest DirectX SDK, December 2006, is what I need. The description with the download only mentions C++/C#; no VB6. Can anyone give me a hint to what exactly I need to download to get me started using DirectX with Visual Basic 6? Help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

idloco

Dec 26, 2006 at 9:40 PM

First of all, why Visual Basic? and why the version 6??

Other than that you could check the articles by jollyjeffer on this site:
DirectX Graphics for Visual Basic Part 1
DirectX Graphics for Visual Basic Part 2
DirectX Graphics for Visual Basic Part 3

My advice is that you look in other direction, like C# and XNA if you want to start in DX or something alike.
Try using the express versions of Visual Studio, they are really good, and far better than VS 6.

Edit:
I think the DX SDK have all the older libs, so downloading the DX SDK should do the trick, tho i dont know if VB 6 its supported, (VS:C++ 6 is not supported)

Kaze

Dec 26, 2006 at 11:11 PM

i haven't used direct x since a couple of versions ago but even then support for vb6 wasn't very good, and i doubt the later version are supported well either.

if you can you may want to consider changing to vb.net, the syntax should be similar, i don't think xna is supported as well as C# but the directxsdk should work fine

DvDmanDT

Dec 26, 2006 at 11:26 PM

I think they dropped VB support sometime late 2005.. October or December 2005 IIRC..

So you can either go find an earlier release (august 2005 for example), or consider changing language (HIGHLY recommended, at least to VB.NET)

Texas Brigade

Dec 27, 2006 at 10:10 AM

Quote:
Original post by DvDmanDT
... or consider changing language (HIGHLY recommended, at least to VB.NET)

I second that. VB.NET is a pretty good language. First, it will be more familiar to you, having done VB6, so hopefully the learning curve won't be too steep. Second, it's a lot more powerful than VB6. I've been programming with Managed Direct X and VB.NET and it's pretty simple. You can also use XNA with VB.NET. If you do decide to upgrade, The Z Buffer and the Game Programming Wiki are good resources. Actually, the link from GPWiki has tutorials for VB.NET and VB using DirectX 7, so if you want to stay with VB6, here's some help on that too.

SanderKn

Dec 27, 2006 at 11:49 AM

Yeah, VB6 is rather outdated, but at this point it's the only language I can use to work with DirectX. I'm using a game engine to work on my game that, at this point, only allows plugins created in VB6. Support for C++ will be added later, but I thought I'd have a go with VB6 first. I didn't expect this much of a hassle, so I'll just wait for the C++ support.

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