"DirectX 9.0 SDK December 2004 Update released!"

[Wunderchu]

http://www.warp2search.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=21163


direct link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/downloads/list/directx.asp

 

[991060]

any new stuff?

 

[Humus]

Is it just me or is DX9 being updated much more frequently these days? It's just two months since the last update.

 

[MasterBaiter]

Seems that way.... Last one was a summer update I think. :?

-edit- quick & dirty whats new and future updates:

"What's New
Below are highlights of what is new in this DirectX 9.0 SDK Update (December 2004) release. For a complete list of updates, please refer to the SDK Documentation "What's News" sections.



New Samples:

· Updated PRTDemo (formally known as PRTPerVertex) to support LDPRT and Transfer visualization

· LocalDeformablePRT

· BasicHLSL sample for Visual Basic .NET

· New Techical Articles

o Install on Demand for Games

o Gaming with Limited-User Accounts

· Project and solution files for both Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002 and Visual Studio .NET 2003 are now provided.

· Samples and tool source code now use safer string functions (strsafe.h)



Tool Updates



PIX

A collection of countersets is provided as a starting point for you to record useful runtime data from your application.
A new Key Combination trigger is provided.
You can now set triggers to recur.
Options are available to display PIX information on top of your running application.
You can set a call capture action on a single frame.
Full stream capture performance is improved.
You can launch experiment and log files, or open image files, simply by dragging them onto a PIX window.
The tool is compatible with older versions of D3dx.
Many bugs have been fixed.


Maya

The Effect File Exporter for Alias Maya now supports options to control the set of exported data, and it can export and preview smooth skinned meshes


D3DX



Tangent Frame Computation

New functionality for robust, customizable, tangent-frame computation.


Precomputed Radiance Transfer

The precomputed radiance transfer (PRT) application programming interface (API) has been enhanced:

Added support for adaptive subsurface scattering simulations.
Added a new callback for retreiving the status of CPCA compression.
Added new methods to enable PRT computation for arbitrary point/normal pairs in space.
Developers can now specify minimum and maximum distances of intersection between objects for PRT simulation.


Effects

A series of performance enhancements and optimizations have been implemented in the Effects framework.


Other Notes:

This is the last release that is fully tested on the Windows 2000 platform. Starting with the next SDK release Windows 2000 is no longer a supported platform for DirectX development
Microsoft DirectInput, Microsoft DirectSound and Microsoft DirectMusic are in maintenance mode and will continue their current status until new technologies in these areas is made available.
DirectSound debug files are available in the Extras folder
Microsoft DirectPlay has been deprecated and is considered obsolete. While the DirectPlay runtime components will still be supported for the life of the operating system, the headers, libraries and documentation may be removed in a future release of the SDK. When modifying existing applications, you are strongly encouraged to remove any dependency on this component.
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What's Coming
Below are some of the updates that will be available in future DirectX SDK releases. All information is subject to change and will be updated as appropriate.



Removal of support for Windows 2000 as a development platform
Removal of DirectShow from the DirectX SDK. The DirectShow SDK components are being moved into the Platform SDK
D3DX is moving from a static library (.lib) for its release code to a dynamic link library (.dll). Samples, tools and other dependencies will be updated to support this
Dependency on the Microsoft Platform SDK will become more explicit
Addition of deep scene analysis in PIX which will allow users to capture information about one or more frames and then do in-depth analysis of those frames
Better application compatibility and enhanced scripting support in PIX
Additional whitepapers on texture management and IPv6 networking
Preview Pipeline support for 3DS-Max, Photoshop and XSI
Support for Visual Studio 2005 (aka Whidbey) for samples, tools and shader debugger
Addition of XACT for Windows, allowing composers and sound designers to create dynamic sound effects and take advantage of sophisticated, real-time effects processing."

 

[ERP]

MS is trying to get to a regular/frequent schedule for the SDK.

 

[Colourless]

Coming Soon: D3DX as a DLL... uh oh.... means the HLSL compiler will be dynamically linked and could be changed.

 

[Miksu]

No updates on Managed DirectX? Ahr..

 

[[maven]]

Coming Soon: D3DX as a DLL... uh oh.... means the HLSL compiler will be dynamically linked and could be changed.

People are already having problems compiling their shaders with the new compiler (exceeding # of max. constants)...

 

[Humus]

Seems that way.... Last one was a summer update I think. :?

Actually, first there was a summer 2004 update, then there was an october 2004 update, and now we have a december 2004 update.

 

[AndrewM]

Addition of XACT for Windows, allowing composers and sound designers to create dynamic sound effects and take advantage of sophisticated, real-time effects processing."

WOOOOOOOOOOO!!

 

[jpaana]

Seems that way.... Last one was a summer update I think. :?

Actually, first there was a summer 2004 update, then there was an october 2004 update, and now we have a december 2004 update.

And summer 2003 update before those.

 

[Goragoth]

Removal of support for Windows 2000 as a development platform

Am I the only person going WTF? to that? I'm still using Win2k and I don't want to install XP even on my next box that I should be building soon. My next windows upgrade will be Longhorn and that's still a while away. So does this mean that I won't be able to use the next DX update? Or are they just talking about DirectX 10, which will be released about the same time as Longhorn anyway? Anyone have info or link to info on this?

 

[DeanoC]

Removal of support for Windows 2000 as a development platform

Am I the only person going WTF? to that? I'm still using Win2k and I don't want to install XP even on my next box that I should be building soon. My next windows upgrade will be Longhorn and that's still a while away. So does this mean that I won't be able to use the next DX update? Or are they just talking about DirectX 10, which will be released about the same time as Longhorn anyway? Anyone have info or link to info on this?

Note the term "development platform", this refers to use of Win2000 to develop DirectX titles not run them.
There has always been some major problems with Win2000 and the DirectX debugging tools. I'd guess there just not going to support the debug version of DirectX on Win2000 any more.