I just read about dx8, overall it sounds really cool. A few things bother me though. Merging directdraw and direct3d seems like the logical thing to do, but I hope it doesn''t add to much bloat to my 2d apps, COM should help keep it to a minimum? (Like wise dsound and dmusic merging might worry some.) "The front buffer - which actually contains the displayed image - won''t be directly accessible any longer." Is it just me or does this sound like it might suck I suppose as long as their non-direct access to the primary surface is just as fast as working with a pointer to it I wont get mad! One person said that the games industry is "a transfer of funds from the rich to the lucky"

Very few actually work with the primary buffer. Taking advantage of flipping/blting from buffer to eliminate flickering, I haven''t seen anyone who actually access the front buffer directly.

Ya good point
I usually end up triple buffered. But I still don''t see why they should hide access to it from programmers, what could it hurt them? It would only allow programmers to hurt themselves.

One person said that the games industry is "a transfer of funds from the rich to the lucky"

A while ago I was looking at the Snes9x source. I''m pretty sure that it directly accesses the front buffer.

I''ve seen some software fading and transparency effects that use the primary surface as well.

I use the primary surface in windowed mode for debugging...



Mike

The thing about software fading and transparent alphablending is *ack* extremely slow on video memory! And DDraw primary surface is definately in the video memory!

The time it takes to actually switch the front surface is quite minimal. I see very little point in using it directly, since it requires really good timing to hit the refresh that way.

Yeah, but if you''re making a silly little app it''s more work to set up page flipping or double buffering. =)

I''d have to agree with those that feel they''re losing something when DirectX looses direct primary buffer access. It just doesn''t seem like something the DirectX people should waste their time removing/forbidding. I don''t think that merging will add any code bloat, really, though I don''t think it''ll have a single thing to do with stupid COM.

COM is a stupid thing for things that need to be lean-and-mean like multimedia apps.

Is it just me or does Microsoft just keep making Direct3D more like OpenGL?

DirectMusic and DirectSound merging, though... Why? I can understand DirectMusic internally using DirectSound code... Or is there something I''m missing here?

Hey atavist, where did you read this stuff on Directx 8?


Mike

Everything that you can do with the primary surface you can do with the secondary surface. The way I see it, is they found a way to optimize DirectX at the cost of something programmers shouldn''t be doing anyway. For debugging, just change it to blit to the secondary surface. That is what I do.


Rock on,
- Tom