I'm out of the loop a bit with third party libs. I previously used CDX 3.1. (DX 7) It was great for me but as it was build around DirectX7 it's time to update my app/game to make use of directx9. It doesn't look like CDX is going to updated any time soon. Although my game is currently 2D I may add some 3D stuff. My game only needs to run under Windows. Anyone know of a similar (free) Directx wrapper? I'm using VC++6. Cheers, Zoo

Is there any particular reason why your app has to use DX 9 if the current CDX library suits your needs why not keep using it?

Alternatively if you actually need new stuff that DX 9 provides why not use DX 9 directly? I've only got experience with using DX 9 but I've heard it's improved greatly from DX 7 in terms of ease of use.

Thanks for the reply. I have very little time to write my own wrapper and (as the last DX coding I did was with DX2 or 3!) I would have a lot of learning to do.

The reason I'm looking to change is partly because I'm woried about future compatability with DirectDraw - I have heard rumours that there may be problems on Longhorn?? Also I will need to add 3D at some point and require access to GFX card 3D hardware.

Well DirectDraw doesn't exist in DX 9, you're meant to do everything using DirectX Graphics. You draw things like 2D sprites by drawing quads to the screen (i.e. using D3D interfaces), the D3DX library has a sprite class which can help handle this for you. Sorting out a basic framework for 2D games shouldn't take too long and could be your only choice.

However Longhorn is not going to be released for a while yet (I've heard it's going to be out sometime in 2006) and I doubt MS are just going to drop all support for legacy applications from it so I wouldn't be surprised if DX7 apps still worked fine in Longhorn.

There's also ClanLib which looks like it may suit your needs.