Quote from P.Derast :

Are you saying that switching to DirectX 10/11 won't make lfs look like crysis? :O

No, it will not. Version of the Direct3D API alone has about as much effect on the game's appearance as version of Windows (= none).

Quote from P.Derast :

But Scawen, what's your opinion on Mantle API?

Mantle is a low-level API that currently works only with certain HD7xxx+ AMD cards. Because it's specific to AMD, I don't see many developers adopting it. Because it's low-level, it makes less sense to deploy in on PCs. Different PCs have different HW and different HW would probably require different rendering code to achieve good performance. At last but not least, it's currently available only on Windows.

Quote from P.Derast :

Thank you Scawens for replying your opinions about Mantle API(also, sharing your ignorance with us).
By ignorance I mean:

Quote :

currently works only with certain HD7xxx+ AMD cards. Because it's specific to AMD, I don't see many developers adopting it.

What? I didn't say that. I didn't anything about Mantle - I've never heard of it until this thread.

Quote from P.Derast :

Thank you Scawens for replying your opinions about Mantle API(also, sharing your ignorance with us).
By ignorance I mean:


Also 200-series AMD cards support mantle, and upcoming AMD APU's, not only that, but Mantle is open-source, so Nvidia could implement that if they wished.
You don't see many developers adapting it, but Battlefield 4 is supposedly getting mantle next month, Star Citizen, and the list goes on.

Ignorance? HD7xxx+ means any card above and including HD7xxx series. And no, Mantle API is not open source, it is specifically designed for AMD's GCN GPU architecture and therefore it cannot be adopted by any other manufacturer. It is an API designed for consoles brought to the world of PCs. (https://twitter.com/Thracks/status/383872285351739393)

Bottomline, Mantle is not an option for LFS and probably will never be.

What's this got to do with this test patch?

Nothing.. But Scawen started the whole DX9/XP discussion himself again;
https://www.lfsforum.net/showt ... php?p=1830040#post1830040

Quote from MadCatX :

Ignorance? HD7xxx+ means any card above and including HD7xxx series. And no, Mantle API is not open source, it is specifically designed for AMD's GCN GPU architecture and therefore it cannot be adopted by any other manufacturer. It is an API designed for consoles brought to the world of PCs. (https://twitter.com/Thracks/status/383872285351739393)

Bottomline, Mantle is not an option for LFS and probably will never be.

Interesting... http://www.dsogaming.com/news/ ... us-with-gcn-architecture/

Anyway, no one really cares about Mantle. Battlefield 4 will soon have it, but LFS wouldn't benefit from it anyway since it's CPU-bottlenecked.

Quote from Scawen :

One more disadvantage of Windows 7 - it seems to be impossible to run a debug version of DX8 or DX9. If I am wrong about that I would love to know.

I would still love to know, if it is possible IN ANY WAY to run the DEBUG version of DX8 or DX9 in Windows 7.

It's actually very important. I could swear about MS again at this point but I'll stop right there. Taking my money and making my life harder...

P.S. I still haven't looked into the VM or how that works. But I don't really want a whole XP install, I just want to be able to debug my program.

If you use Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Enterprise, you could try the XP mode which is pretty easy to install and use: http://windows.microsoft.com/e ... /features/windows-xp-mode

I can't watch those videos because it wants me to install silver light which I'm sure is not light and is instead another MS bloatware.

I really don't want to "try" any more microsoft crap. Every time I do it, everything gets harder.

All I want to hear from is a graphics programmer, telling me how to run a debug version of DX8 or DX9 in Windows 7.

EDIT : Actually I might just reinstall XP. While XP computers must still be supported, DX9 is the highest possible version of Direct X that can be supported, because DX10 and DX11 do not run on XP. But DX9 cannot be run in debug mode on later versions of Windows, so I am forced to revert to XP.

One factor in my case is that there are two third party DLLs involved that probably cannot be debugged by us mere mortals anyway. I'll give Kegetys a prod on that one.

I wonder, are you using this new-fangled Windows SDK or the last DirectX SDK from 2010?

Those last few posts make me wanna smash my head on my desk. Why not install a virtual machine? It's 2 seconds work. There's even a XP VM from Microsoft.

Or perhaps even a dual boot. Windows 7 for everything, and XP for all the things people used to do 30 yeas ago.

You have to be careful with Direct3D support though. VirtualBox supports it, not sure about any others.

I was playing rFactor through VMWare Player a few days ago. I don't really think that's an issue.

Quote from Bose321 :

Those last few posts make me wanna smash my head on my desk. Why not install a virtual machine? It's 2 seconds work. There's even a XP VM from Microsoft.

Or perhaps even a dual boot. Windows 7 for everything, and XP for all the things people used to do 30 yeas ago.

Windows 7 is a heap of crap that is making ordinary life difficult. It is worse than XP, has reduced functionality and keeps putting obstacles in my way. It was a waste of my money and I don't want to keep switching between Windows 7 and Windows XP. Why would I want to? I will just install XP so that I can continue working on LFS. At some point in the future we may abandon support for XP and at that point it would make sense to move to a later version of Windows. Or I might be finally forced to change at some point before that. But until then, it's not worth it. I really regret this waste of time.

One important thing related to OS/DirectX discussion might be the ability to run LFS through linux/wine. Wine currently supports directx 9 but not directx 10 (http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#hea ... 640cc10b6d0c48abc741260b2)

If the move from XP to Windows7 is even remotely counterproductive I would revert back to XP. Don't change a winning combo springs to mind. But maybe there is also a feeling of stepping out of your comfort zone. Personally I'm on Windows 8.1 and although the metro "experience" almost resulted in me eating my mouse I have still not reverted to an older OS. Perhaps I don't realise I became an indoctrinated sheep.

The thing is pressure will eventually build up to the point that you will feel forced in some way or another to go with the flow. I'm not sure if Microsoft's strategy is sustainable. Either way I don't like the feeling of Microsoft's frigid hand on my shoulder...

Quote from Scawen :

All I want to hear from is a graphics programmer, telling me how to run a debug version of DX8 or DX9 in Windows 7.

I hardly do anything on Windows, but according to Google and MSDN there shouldn't be a problem unless you're using Windows 8 or MSVS2012. Microsoft managed to create a bit of a mess with 32b/64b versions of their libs. Basically, if you want to develop and run 32bit applications, you need to install 32bit libraries. Bundles for 64bit Windows contain only 64bit binaries, not 32+64bit as some might expect, perhaps you're missing the debug DX runtime? (this only applies to 64bit version of Windows of course)

Quote from Bose321 :

Those last few posts make me wanna smash my head on my desk. Why not install a virtual machine? It's 2 seconds work. There's even a XP VM from Microsoft.

3D acceleration in all commonly used virtualization tools is shoddy at best and badly broken in latest VirtualBox (at least for me). It most definitely cannot be used for debugging. The performance is quite horrible as well.

Well yeah, that's why I don't use VirtualBox anymore. VMWare is by far better.

As for the Windows 7 dicussion... It's pointless.

I really can't believe what you are writing Scawen.
As brilliant as you are when it comes to programming a game like LFS, as silly do you look when it comes to using a computer.
Because you can't get things to work, Windows 7 is crap?
This is exactly the kind of behavior I get all day when dealing with less or inexperienced users, while the fault most of the times is between the chair and the desk.

I can't believe what you are writing Yisc[NL].
As brilliant as you are when it comes to using a computer, as silly you look when it comes to making a forum post.
Because he doesn't know the answer to his problem, the must be completely at fault?
This is exactly the kind of behaviour I get all day when dealing with know-it-alls, while most of the time they can't come up with a definitive answer to solve the problem at hand.

That's about right, isn't it?

I will never say about myself that I know it all.
There's more that I don't know, then what I do know.
But after working nearly 17 years in IT, at an helpdesk of hospital who supports about 2500 people and came from W95, W2000, WXP and soon W7) I do think I am more then an experienced user.
Without doubt I can say that W7 is the best OS created my Microsoft so far.

Excellent, so you can answer his questions about running LFS multiscreen and DX debug mode in Windows 7. So why don't you do that then?

Quote from Yisc[NL] :

I will never say about myself that I know it all.
There's more that I don't know, then what I do know.
But after working nearly 17 years in IT, at an helpdesk of hospital who supports about 2500 people and came from W95, W2000, WXP and soon W7) I do think I am more then an experienced user.
Without doubt I can say that W7 is the best OS created my Microsoft so far.

You're obviously wrong. XP is the best OS. I do like Windows 3.1 though, it has so much more functions and isn't that difficult to use.

So I'm running Windows 7, and I just downloaded and installed the DirectX SDK (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6812) and enabled the debug version of Direct3D 9.

LFS fails to start with the combination of d3d8 to d3d9 wrapper and softth d3d9.dll in place, when the debug version is selected, so it seems enabling this option does have some effect in Windows 7. I don't actually have a debugger installed to see what is actually happening.

I found a reference to being unable to debug Direct3D here http://snaptip.com/xzftciqxlw/ ... ebug-version-of-directx-9 but maybe that refers only to Windows 8?

Kegetys pointed me to DebugView (http://technet.microsoft.com/e ... ysinternals/bb896647.aspx). After running this, there are Direct3D debug messages appearing.

Yes, but are you working 17 years in IT?