NoteMe

Windows programming over my head:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 15.11.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I have used Visual Studio 2005 for a while now. Liked it from the start, like every other VS version I have tried. Of course it used a bit more resources then it predecessors, but it also added lots of great functionality I these days can`t live for out.

But it didn`t take me long to get my first problem. At the time I was playing with Managed DirectX to see if it could have any advantages over my daily DirectX programming. But after installing the Platform SDK problems thorned up. And for some reason they where in the Platform SDK it self, and I couldn`t understand why. Lots of lines like this was spewed out in the console window.


c:Program FilesMicrosoft Platform SDKincludewinnt.h(222) : error C2061: synt
ax error : identifier `PVOID64`
c:Program FilesMicrosoft Platform SDKincludewinnt.h(222) : error C2059: synt
ax error : `;`



So off to find a solution it seemed at first to be no official fix to this, but editing this line: 

C++ code:
typedef void * POINTER_64 PVOID64;



in winnt.h to: 

C++ code:
typedef void * POINTER_64;

typedef void * PVOID64;



seemed to do the trick at first, and I forgot about the whole thing. Until today.

Firefox has for a long time been my favorite browser, even though I use Opera quite a lot too. And one of my "Internet friends" (Ryan Jones) have for a while been using lots of his spare time to patch bugs in Firefox. And I felt it was my time to spend some of my time to give something back for a wonderful project.

But after setting up a development environment and starting to compile Firefox for the first time, errors started to pop out. And again it was in the winnt.h file. 2 seconds later and I remembered what I had done a few months ago. Changing it back the way it was did the trick, and Firefox was happy. What should a poor man do!


PS: I am very aware that half the links on my page is still not working. I`ll get to that too, but there is just too many interesting things in the world that gets in my way..:)

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DirectPython gives access to DX9 from Python:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 02.05.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I remember before DirectX 7 came out, there was a lot of different wrappers for DirectX 6 that Visual Basic programmers could use. I used my self a wrapper called DirectX C and had a lot of fun with it. But that is a long time ago, and after DX 7 came Visual Basic was supported, and then dropped again when DX 9 came out, but in stead replaced with .NET languages like VB.NET and C#.

Now it looks like it is happening again. I just stumbled over a SourceForge project that makes a DX9c wrapper for Python. Just like the old wrappers for Visual Basic.

The project is really in the beginning stage, but there is already about 15 samples on their homepage, and more is commming. So we just have to wait and see what the response from the Python community will be.

On the other hand, if you are not a big DirectX fan, you can always make simple games with for example PyGame and LiveWire . Might not be as impressive as DirectX games can be, but should get you let you have an easy start in the right direction if you want to start with game programming.
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What is happening with XNA:

News Image - NoteMe My Tags: Technocrati Tags: Published: 27.03.2006 by Øyvind Østlund
I haven’t had much time to work on game programming the last half year, and at least not with DirectX. But now suddenly there is a lot of changes going on at the same time. And I wish I had more time for it right now.

First I read that Tom Miller quits the Managed DirectX team. Well, it is more of a switch really. He will now be working on the XBox team (and the XNA team specifically). So in the end it might not be that bad.

XNA has for a long time been just a word that came up from nowhere, and then disappeared again just as fast. A philosophy, a tool, a package, what was it really? Then after a lot of work from Microsofts side this years GDC marked an exciting milestone for XNA. All attendees received a copy of the Microsoft XNA Build March 2006. And now you can even download it for your self . I have downloaded it my self, and it already looks promising. Really looking forward to the finished tool.

Then if not that was enough, Alberto Ho starts up his own blog at Microsoft and writes a very interesting post about what to expect for Managed DirectX2. Something that looks really interesting. What do you say to write manage code on your XBox?

I could be writing about this for days right now, and I now feel again that I am really looking forward to finish up my work here, so I can get more time for game programming again. Only 3 more months now.
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NoteMe - Øyvind Østlund