Hi, AS DirectX was supposed to be backwards compatible, why is it that the older DX Does NOT work in say the newer drivers..

Is there a hack to get S3d Working in older DX6,7 games?? IF NOT How would one go about making this work,,ie getting older DX Games to work in S3D??

Sometimes it seems like the 3D Vision driver is trying to do something (you will see the depth OSD) but it doesn't actually produce any stereo. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to get these older games to work with newer systems. Not saying its impossible. People have made wrappers for OpenGL and convert the calls to DirectX (GLDirect) and WINE does the opposite for playing DirectX games in OpenGL. So I guess you could make something similar to convert DirectX7 to DirectX9. But that sounds like a lot of work, and I wouldn't know how to do that.

ya on SimHQ they told me i would need to know C++.. wonder if that would be hard to learn. wonder if there are any guide for dummies in c++ books are available..

Yeah, there are tons of books. But I would be lying if I said it was easy. I've been learning for years and I still feel like a beginner. Well the language itself is not hard, and you could learn the basics in a month (provided you have some understanding of programming concepts). However to actually do anything practical you have to work with a mess of different APIs and they can quickly become overwhelming. Especially something dealing with the low-levels of DirectX. I don't want to discourage you, but its just not an easy task.

Well I will got to the local book store tomorrow and see what books are available and look through them..

like the old addage says if you want something done right do it yourself cause nobody else is gonna tackle this problem.. well off to my notes looking in the web for guides and such..

WEll I havent done any programming on a computer since the vic 20 days lol!!

You don't need to buy anything. Just go to this site:
http://www.learncpp.com/

You can get a free version of Visual Studio from Microsoft (Visual C++ Express 2010):
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/e ... pp-express

thnc for thos e links getting them now..I am going to learn this stuff it will give me something to do with all my free time.. and besides I am bored to death the challenge will give me something to do..

now would this be a good language to learn if I want to recode DX7 to a DX 8 version?? if not what would I need to lear to recode Direct X??

I just wanted to goto the bookstore to see what they had to offer possibly some books with cool programs in them or something..no better experience then just doing learn as i go..

I also found Dev++ is that worth anything??

Well C++ is a very good language to know in general. Lots of stuff you can do with that. And learning something new is always fun.

The DirectX APIs are C++, so its probably the only language that could be used. Its what is used to create the vast majority of PC games out there.

I would recommend sticking with Visual C++, as its the most fully featured editor you will find for free (or even for money). There are other compilers and IDEs out there, but they may be more confusing for a beginner, and don't really offer many advantages.

DX7, DX8, DX9, DX10 and DX11 all have different render pipelines that are called when in use. I learned this when NTHUSIM was being developed and they had to make it compatible for all the render pipelines, just not DX9. A bit of an apples vs oranges type of comparison, but IMHO still applicable to why S3D might work with one render pipeline and not another.

If your older DX6/7 games also have an OpenGL rendering option you can try to use GLDirect, which has been reported to work for some OpenGL games with 3D Vision.

See : GLDirect unlocks 3D Vision support for older OpenGL titles for more details.

I don't think you should waste your time on learning C++ and the DirectX APIs, even for an experienced programmer (here I mean 10+ years) coding a DX7 to DX9 converter is a daunting task.

GLDirect is exactly the type of thing you would want to implement, it was started in 2007 so that's 4 years in development and it's still not working with all OpenGL gaming titles. And it was created by someone who registered on sourceforge in 1999, so with at least 12 years experience in programming.

well the game is not a OpenGL. I jsut thought it would be cool to learn C++.. if I could or couldnt recode to dx9 it still would be cool doing something new.. I have nothing but time..

Then go ahead, you can have a look at GLDirect to see how they did implement their OpenGL->Direct3D on the fly conversion, it should be helpful to do a similar thing for Direct3D 6 or 7 to Direct3D 9 or higher.

Well I Downloaded the Visual C++ 2010 and ran through some classes on youtube and I have succesfully ran 4 programs.. Hello world,, Hello world modified,, a Math program and a test with a beep in it. I will post the code ltr on....
I guess I am on my way.. I also went to the Barnes and Noble bookstore and was looking at some books for C++ Programming.

I think I will buy one of those for reference any suggestions on a good one to get?


[b] here is the code for the beep test..:


// one.cpp : Defines the entry point for the console application.
//

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{


cout << "This is program #2\n\n\n";
cout << "This is an alert: \a\n";
cout << "This is A \Tab\n";
cout << "Website: http:\\\\PortForward.com\n";
cout << "He Said \"Hello\"\n\n\n";

system("PAUSE");

return 0;



}

The best one for a beginner in both programming and C++ seems to be "Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++" by Bjarne Stroustrup (creator of the language). It will teach you modern programming by using C++ as the accompanying language for the course.

I don't think you should necessarily need a paper book to start, you can find a lot of good material on the Web for free. But I can understand that buying a book will place you in good psychological conditions for a start.

Have fun...

well it would be nice having a hardcopy of info to reference.. what would you reccomend for material for C++.. I went to youtube and found some good tutorials there and reccomendations there??

I don't think YouTube should be a valuable source for learning C++ programming, text tutorials are more appropriate. Thinking in C++ by Eckel should give you a good general overview of the language as Cyber said.

Since you seem to have a particular project in head, I think you should try to start from an existing codebase similar to what you want to do like GLDirect (which is C and not C++) and try to understand it and/or learn Direct3D programming (following http://www.codeproject.com/KB/directx/d3d10.aspx or http://www.drunkenhyena.com/cgi-bin/directx.pl for example). For C++ tutorials you can have a look here : http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/ or here : http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html

Btw, what were the DX6/7 games that you wanted to get to work in S3D ?

Well the Main Simulation I would like to get converted is Janes F-18, which is Dx7 made back in 1999..
I would also like to recode dx7 to dx9 to get a higher rez and Triplescreen mode running. It works now in triplescreen but only at 640x480 per screen so that is 1920x480 in triple screen rez .

Also there was a wideview pit made for the game and when in triplescreen and you select the FLIR in the middle MDI the View on the pit gets Zoomed in and ruins the triplescreen effect..

So I would like to run at a higher rez and that would need a ltr version of Dx plus the bonus of that is that S3D should work aas well so I would be killing 2 birds with one stone per say..

here area few screenshots of JF-18 in triplescreen mode..:


By the_nephilim at 2011-06-24







By the_nephilim at 2011-06-25







By the_nephilim at 2011-06-25


Plus as a bonus well no OFFICAIL word but the Source code may have been aquired for this Simulation which as you know means the sky is the limit if true.. Hopefully they have gotten the Source code and someone with more knowledge then myself would want to do something similar with DX version..

By doing a little Google search it seems you can change the default resolutions by modifying the F18.exe file with an hexadecimal editor. You can have a look here for a start :
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/t ... en_Re.html

Problem is DX7 has a hard limitation of 2048 maximum pixel width. To get wider, the client would have to be rewritten in DX9.

tyes TSH already modified the .exe and we have a bunch of new rez's. I need to get a 3072x768 rez and can only be done by recoding the old Dx7 code to Dx9 or higher..

thnx for the link tho

http://tsh.war-fighters.net/

Did you try with DirectX Tweaker ? It seems this software is able to convert DX7 calls to DX9 calls.

You can find an extremely interesting discussion with the author of DirectX Tweaker trying to make Janes work correctly here (63 pages long though) :
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/t ... Post371517

I tried messing with the DX Tweaker they have that incorporated into the TSH Patch.. it seemed to have no effect on enabling S3D..

will look at that thread thos thnx..

A C++ book I'm reading now seems to be pretty good, and doesn't assume you have prior programming knowledge. Its called "C++ Primer Plus (5th Edition)" By Stephen Prata.

I will look into that book as well but had already bought this one "Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++" should be here by the end of the week.

Cybereality are you also learning how to program??

Not exactly. I've been programming for about 15 years, but I like to read programming books so I'm always on top of my game.

ok cool did not know that.. So would it be ok for me to pick your brain ??

Sure, thats why I'm here.

hey have you made any games or some sort of programs?? I would like to hear about them or get a chance to use them and plus get too see the code if that would be ok..


I found the code for a few games like Quake 3 and EECH and another that is good stuff actually getting to see the code..

I also wrote and uploaded my first distributable program abit a basic program I thought it was cool. If you wanna check it out I can ul it to fileshack or something if you want..

Also I ordered the book and I am still waiting for it to get delivered so I can get back to learning programming.

So what do you think is the most difficult in writing a Game or Program?? the math if a 3d game or maybe something else??

Yes, I have made many games but they have been mostly 2D Flash games. Its client work, so I can't share the code or anything. Here is one of them, though:
http://games.adultswim.com/orphan-feast ... -game.html

Looking at the code for Quake3 is good so you can see how massive an application can get, but it will be hard to learn much from that if you don't already have a solid foundation. So you want to make sure you understand the language first. I suggesting reading a book or two, and then trying to make some simple applications. At first just do console (command-line) applications before you get into GUI stuff. A good starting point is a "guess the number" kind of game. In this the computer picks a random number (lets say between 1 and 500) and you have a certain amount of tries to guess it. If you are wrong, the computer will tell you if the number is too big or too small. You could also try building a simple calculator. Things like that to start with (some books may do this as part of the lessons). After you are comfortable with that, then you can try some visual games, like pong or tic-tac-toe.

The most difficult part of creating a game or application, for me at least, is the framework or architecture. Creating individual functions or algorithms usually isn't too hard because you can look up formulas and things like that on the internet. But the structure of the program, what glues everything together, is usually more difficult to write and can be unique for each project. I mean, you can probably get something working quickly, but if it is not designed correctly you end up spending most of your time trying to patch it together to add new features or fix bugs. But when you are starting out, this will probably not be the biggest concern as you will likely just want to see something work.

I pretty much agree with Cybereality, the most difficult part is the architecture when trying to program games. You can learn a lot of things about this in the book "Programming Game AI by Example" by Mat Buckland. There are also a lot of resources about this on the Web, you'll need to learn higher level concepts like finite state machines and MVC architecture for example. Learning some design patterns along with C++ should be quite helpful too.