I have been an NT gamer/programmer for several years now. DX3 does work, but remember that most of DX is emulated in NT. Also don't trust the DX "patches". I had minimal success by hacking in the DX5 DLLs.

Sometimes with games, they say DX5, but don't use DX5 features. Your best bet to to try them and see if they crash. You never know when they will work.

The OpenGL is the standard OpenGL. The Quake series runs great, along with all other OpenGL games.


Win2K on the other hand, will support everything. DX7 is built in and OpenGL is just as good if not better than NT4s. Currently with Release Canidate 2, the only problem is getting drivers that support everything.


Hope this helps. NT could be a great gaming OS if they gave us more than DX3.
BlueNexus

DX3 is emulated in NT? Geeez, as if DX3 alone weren't bad enough.

How might DX5 work if it can't be installed? If I try running a game, NT screams about all the missing DX5 dlls.

OK, so OpenGL works (thank goodness). What is used for input? Do Quake and other games use the Win API for input, or at least for keyboard input?

Rock

Well, I use DirectInput, actually, and it works just fine. The only caveat is that you have to use "#define DIRECTINPUT_VERSION 0x0300" so the compiler will generate DirectX 3.0-compatible code.

Really? Wow, I didn't know that. I was going to compile a binary of my project game for a friend with NT, and I thought I'd have to rewrite all my DirectInput routines, since when he tried to run it with standard DI it complained about not being able to find the dinput.dll file.

do you loose any functionality doing that? I'm not too clear on what DX5/6 has that DX3 doesn't in terms of DI.

-- Remnant

OK, I'd like to get the facts about what will, might, and won't work on NT. I've seen so many conflicting rumors about running games on NT that I don't know what works. And many profesional games basically say "your NT mileage may vary".

Basically, what WILL work on NT4, what MIGHT work on NT depending on user's hardware, and what WON'T work at all under NT.

From what I've pieced together, DX3 WILL work on NT, but no DX version after that, period. Somebody said that taking the Win2000 DX dlls and copying them to NT4 allows DX7. It would nice to know if this really works, but I'd like to talk about what comsumers currently have, which is NT4 plus whatever service pack. I've heard OpenGL might work, and I know OpenGL has always been a part of NT, but I think that's a different implementation than the OpenGL we all love.

So what's the real story (and please, if you're not sure about it, say "I believe ..." or something. I'm trying to weed out the false rumors). What APIs (video/input/sound/...) must a developer use to get a game running, or at least possibly running, on NT?

Rock

Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Dinput 3 only allowed use of the Joystick. And even that was half integrated with the Win API. I really want to keep access to the keyboard via DirectInput if possible. Do professional games really still use DX3 for input?

Anyway, does anyone happen to have a copy of the DX3 help file, or know where it is?

Rock