Chris Egerter, .Net/VB and DirectX 9

[Anonymous]

Hi Chris,

I notice you have mentioned currently converting some existing C++ DirectX to .net. I've just given up trying to switch from VB6/DX8.1 to .net/DX9 in favour of C++/DX9 as I thought the performance of .net would be much slower. This combined with a reduced set of functionality seems to indicate MS would prefer us to stick with C++ ? Do you have idea as to the performance comparisons between .Net and C++ when using DX9. Also have you found out whether or not fully functional effect files can be used. Finally, what documentation did you rely on for the .Net stuff as I found the MS documentation awful and very incomplete? Apologies for the fragmented questions but I'm just about to leave the office for the day and wanted to fire this off before leaving.
Many thanks,

 

[Chris Egerter]

I have not done any benchmarking to compare speeds, but I did not see any noticable slowdown in the 30+ example programs I ported to VB.NET.

I am not using any managed DirectX calls. Instead I've created a Managed C++ wrapper DLL for my engine functions which in turn call DX9 functions from a standard win32 DLL. The managed wrapper is just there to marshal strings other data types.

For documentation I have some .NET books, but these were mainly for learning how to create the Managed C++ wrapper.

 

[Seiko]

I have not done any benchmarking to compare speeds, but I did not see any noticable slowdown in the 30+ example programs I ported to VB.NET.

I am not using any managed DirectX calls. Instead I've created a Managed C++ wrapper DLL for my engine functions which in turn call DX9 functions from a standard win32 DLL. The managed wrapper is just there to marshal strings other data types.

For documentation I have some .NET books, but these were mainly for learning how to create the Managed C++ wrapper.

Thanks Chris, Yes I think that is really the only sensible option. Very similiar to the Quake 2 port. I tried to utilise VB for the managed DX calls but found it very slow when dealing with arrays and Vertex population etc. I then found several nice features, effect files and pxiel shaders where either not supported or very poorly documented hence the move to .net. I then found that .net didn't really provide any speed increase so having learned the D3D basics I've opted to use C++ instead.