Tried this in the DirectX forum, but no one seemed able to answer the question, so I figured I''d try it once more here before I gave up on it entirely. Is there a way to develop and run DirectX applications on a Linux system?

check here
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20020531/
hope that helps

quote: Original post by bluecyclone
Is there a way to develop and run DirectX applications on a Linux system?

Nope.

You can use SDL which is easier to use/learn. But your work will stay under the SDL license.

You can also use DGA (direct graphics access). I''ve never used myself.

Or directly use the GDI routines of xlib.

I forgot to mention OpenGL, which is (I think) the best option if you would like to have hardware acceleration.

Short answer: no.

Long answer: yes, but do not rely on it. There''s a project called WINE (and many child projects) that implement much of the Win32 API (including most versions of DirectX).

There are two ways to use WINE: natively and as a kind of interpretter. Natively means you recompile the application as a real *nix application but still rely on Winelib to provide the Win32 API (this is relatively light weight). If you use it as a pseudo-interpretter, you feed it a PE executable and it pretends to be Windows (slighly heavier, possible buggier).

However, WINE and friends are very much a work in progress. They do not work 100% correctly 100% of the time. If you''re writing a *nix application please do not rely on WINE or Winelib.

I guess you could ask Microsoft to develop a Linux version of DirectX. But it is unlikely to be granted. DirectX applications are only going to work on Windows OSes.

quote: Original post by xaxa
You can use SDL which is easier to use/learn. But your work will stay under the SDL license.

That is not true. If you makes any changes to SDL (which is very unlikely) you have to release your changes under the LGPL license, but everything you code using the SDL lib can be as closed source as you want it to.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
That is not true. If you makes any changes to SDL (which is very unlikely) you have to release your changes under the LGPL license, but everything you code using the SDL lib can be as closed source as you want it to.

Thank you, I didn''t know that. Seems to be that I misreaded the license.
Sorry OP.

There is actually a project to map DirectX calls for Linux. WineX.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/winex

I''ve heard some good things and then some bad, but personally have never tried it.

Since you''re developing, you can give it a shot and see how you like it.

Interim

Wow, I''m getting a ton more information already; guess you just have to know where to look.

I had heard of Wine and WineX. Wine''s documentation says that it supports quite a bit of DirectX but does not support Direct3D. I''m not quite certain about WineX; it seems to be that you can download it for free, but certain features require that you subscribe (i.e. pay them money), but they are really fuzzy about that.

I''m considering going with OpenGL, but I''m not exactly sure what the benefits/disadvantages would be, other than cross-platform capabilities. Help with that or book suggestions (especially ones related to game programming/development) would be nice.

OpenGL or DirectX is the question. Many people have fought about it but it just is one more religious type question. If you want to make games, picking one or the other doesn''t really matter. They both provide you with what you need. They both with just a little work can be used as you want to use them. It is a matter of flipping a coin really but if you want your program to be cross platform then head to openGL but remember that just this won''t make it cross platform, there is much more that you need to be careful of.
I personally am currently using DirectX and will be using openGL in a few months to give myself a reason to head back to my game engine, and edit what needs to be edited as well as make the engine more powerful and flexible.

You want cross platform go with openGL, you want to only develop for windows and not be depended on outside libraries for your game then use DirectX as it can also provide you with network/sound/input support while if you were using openGL you would have to use some other sort of libraries to be able to achieve that.