Hi I am a complete newbie and I have a question (really, I have millions). I was told that if I want to create a videogame and sell it, I'd have to pay royalties to Microsoft if it uses Direct 3D as graphic library. Is that true? Regards.

No.

Thanks

Thats like saying you have to pay royalties to Dev C++ just cause you used their compiler!

Anyways, no its not true what that you have to pay them royalties, how ever the person who is using your game already has through the purchase of an MS platform.

Thus effectively they do take royalties on DirectX, consider OpenGL which runs on linux.

The reason that OpenGL runs on linux & windows is why it will rise above DirectX, atleast that is what i believe!

Quote: Original post by dawidjoubert
The reason that OpenGL runs on linux & windows is why it will rise above DirectX, atleast that is what i believe!

More correctly, it is already raised above for all those critical applications which really cannot be run on win32 and linux is not exactly... well, this is a bit off topic so I'll stop here my consideration.

I wonder if this is going to start a flame war. It seems that most D3D threads attract trolls as nothing else.

Quote: Original post by Krohm
More correctly, it is already raised above for all those critical applications which really cannot be run on win32 and linux is not exactly... well, this is a bit off topic so I'll stop here my consideration.

I wonder if this is going to start a flame war. It seems that most D3D threads attract trolls as nothing else.

Flame war, not a chance, a onesided flame doesn't live long.

An interesting note, D3D is only used on about half of all windows games, all other (3D)applications and games use open gl exclusively.

Quote: Original post by dawidjoubert
Thats like saying you have to pay royalties to Dev C++ just cause you used their compiler!

Dev-C++ is not a compiler and neither does it have a custom made compiler. It uses mingw - http://www.mingw.org/

The "royalty" you pay for using DX is that it is only windows compliant. So for anyone to use the product, they must have windows(which is paid for, as mentioned above). Not to start a flame war, but if compatibility is what you want, you need OpenGL, or something like it(SDL, etc...). If you don't mind using only windows, there is nothing wrong with directX. I use OpenGL for graphics, just because I like it better, but for sound and input, I use DX, since I develop for windows.