New Release D3D9Client Development

[igel]

Yup! Luckily, I raised very same question recently, resulting in great and very helpful discussion - thanks again everyone!
Just to remind - it is indeed a "flattening" feature, not "landscape-building" feature. Very hard to do any intricate and accurate land shapes. But for flattening - piece of cake!

 

[Nikogori]

Seemingly DirectX 9.0c download has been dead for a few days.
I couldn't find official announcement from Microsoft. I hope this is only temporary, not permanent...

Download DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) from Official Microsoft Download Center

The Microsoft DirectX® End-User Runtime installs a number of runtime libraries from the legacy DirectX SDK for some games that use D3DX9, D3DX10, D3DX11, XAudio 2.7, XInput 1.3, XACT, and/or Managed DirectX 1.1. Note that this package does not modify the DirectX Runtime installed on your Windows...

www.microsoft.com

 

[jarmonik]

Seemingly DirectX 9.0c download has been dead for a few days.
I couldn't find official announcement from Microsoft. I hope this is only temporary, not permanent...

Download DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) from Official Microsoft Download Center

The Microsoft DirectX® End-User Runtime installs a number of runtime libraries from the legacy DirectX SDK for some games that use D3DX9, D3DX10, D3DX11, XAudio 2.7, XInput 1.3, XACT, and/or Managed DirectX 1.1. Note that this package does not modify the DirectX Runtime installed on your Windows...

www.microsoft.com

Ok, thanks for letting us know. After looking at the error message I got a bad feeling that this might be permanent. Am I gonna be in a trouble if I upload the package on my site ? Do we need all the files or just the June2010_*.cab ?

 

[jarmonik]

Am I gonna be in a trouble if I upload the package on my site ?

Obviously not since the files are meant to be redistributed along with the software that uses them.

 

[Nikogori]

DirectX Installs with every game - Steam Support

Microsoft's licensing terms prevent anyone from distributing the files directly, the only way to distribute them is to run the installer, that's also the only supported method from Microsoft to check that the correct version installed.

I suppose we can distribute the installer package but not individual files?

Download link from Internet Archive

 

[Ripley]

Hi Jarmo,
while you're at it, could you correct the typo at "June 2010 RedistibuRables"?

 

[kuddel]

I don't get it, why Microsoft is doing this.
I can understand that they don't want to support every old version of everything they published, but removing the "official" link only opens doors to many "virus-patched"
versions all over the net...

@Nikogori : Thanks for that information!

@jarmonik : If we are allowed to distribute the installer (CAB-file?!); should we include it in the D3D9Client zipfile, or should we provide the installer on the D3D9Client site for download and change the link in the documentation (PDF)?
My opinion: It depends on the size ...

 

[kuddel]

I have a directx_Jun2010_redist.exe (100.273.008 Bytes) with an MD5-sum of 4e41372e8775e8025be013480b0629b3 and
I have a directx_Jun2010_redist.exe (100.271.992 Bytes) with an MD5-sum of 7c1fc2021cf57fed3c25c9b03cd0c31a.
What's valid?

The first one was downloaded Nov. 2010, the 2nd is from "Internet Archive", so from Feb. 2021 (more or less )

 

[Face]

I don't get it, why Microsoft is doing this.
I can understand that they don't want to support every old version of everything they published, but removing the "official" link only opens doors to many "virus-patched"
versions all over the net...

I think this is exactly their point: to highlight that the product is dangerously outdated and therefore needs to be shunned. Forcing people to change the running system by means of framing it as security nightmare is a well established strategy for Microsoft, so I'm not surprised here.

I'd also not be surprised if one of those enforced Win10 updates will render DX9 unusable in the future. That would be one sad day for Orbiter.

 

[N_Molson]

Is it possible to somehow "upgrade" a Graphic Client from DX9 to say DX11 ; or does it mean you have to rewrite everything from scratch ?

 

[Face]

Is it possible to somehow "upgrade" a Graphic Client from DX9 to say DX11 ; or does it mean you have to rewrite everything from scratch ?

We tried that before, and I must say that it is probably easier to start from scratch. Then again I am not so deep into graphics engine development, so you have to take my opinion with a grain of salt.

 

[kuddel]

100% the same here. I surely can develop all the "framework helpers" like ConfigFileRead, FileIO, RessourceHandling / MemoryManagement, etc. pp.
But when it comes to DirectX, I am not even able to render a single vertex[1]
Setting up a repository with a Visual Studio 2017 Solution to build a DLL is something I also did once (greetings Face , I assume that's something we both did ),
but that doesn't count as a "GraphicClient" in my view.

[1] yes I know that usually 3 of them are needed to render at least one face, but still

 

[DaveS]

Well, we do have this: https://www.orbiter-forum.com/threads/d3d11client-download-and-installation-instructions.23925/

Could this be useful to restart?

 

[kuddel]

@DaveS : Sure. But I can not get any bitbucket link to deliver...
Is there another way to get to asmi's code? A fresh start at github maybe?

I know, it's always a risk to settle on one "service" (CodePlex, bitbucket's mercurial support ,...all went the way of the Dodo), but as long as it's open source code, ist's available and it's relatively easy to submit change-requests it is better than nothing.

 

[Face]

I know, it's always a risk to settle on one "service" (CodePlex, bitbucket's mercurial support ,...all went the way of the Dodo), but as long as it's open source code, ist's available and it's relatively easy to submit change-requests it is better than nothing.

I guess github is as stable as it gets nowadays, given that git practically won the SCM war and M$ swallowed github for good now. I think I have Asmi's repo cloned somewhere and should be able to put it up on github, if you are willing to take a dive into it.

 

[kuddel]

[...]I think I have Asmi's repo cloned somewhere and should be able to put it up on github, if you are willing to take a dive into it.

Sure! I would like to peek into that. If you prefer to just send me the file I can PM you my e-mail address.

I was just about to setup a plain D3D11Client repository on github.

Nothing more than a solution & some code like:

DLLCLBK void InitModule (HINSTANCE hModule)
{
  // module initialisation
}

DLLCLBK void ExitModule (HINSTANCE hModule)
{
  // module cleanup
}

If I can get a starting idea on how that would work, this can be a (new) start.

Do we have contact to asmi? I would like to ask him/her about this, as soon as I use some of his/her code.

 

[Face]

Sure! I would like to peek into that. If you prefer to just send me the file I can PM you my e-mail address.

If you have a working Mercurial client, this would not be necessary, as I still keep a repo with various OVP code up here: https://hg.osdn.net/view/orbitersoftware/OVP . It has all OVP projects (I could get my hands on) in it, so you'd have to find your way to the "D3D11Client" and "D3D11Client - Terrain" branch, respectively.

Do we have contact to asmi? I would like to ask him/her about this, as soon as I use some of his/her code.

I've long lost contact to him, I think he left the community for good.

 

[Ripley]

I have a directx_Jun2010_redist.exe (100.273.008 Bytes) with an MD5-sum of 4e41372e8775e8025be013480b0629b3 and
I have a directx_Jun2010_redist.exe (100.271.992 Bytes) with an MD5-sum of 7c1fc2021cf57fed3c25c9b03cd0c31a.
What's valid?

The first one was downloaded Nov. 2010, the 2nd is from "Internet Archive", so from Feb. 2021 (more or less )

I have one too (found in Orbiter main folder - I've put it there I don't know when) which is dated December 2016 with this MD5

7c1fc2021cf57fed3c25c9b03cd0c31a

 

[kuddel]

It has all OVP projects (I could get my hands on) in it, so you'd have to find your way to the "D3D11Client" and "D3D11Client - Terrain" branch, respectively.

Sweet ?

 

[n72.75]

I may have the code, was looking at a few months ago purely out of curiosity. I'll look when I'm home later.