urge to port my already (rather extensive) code to DX9!

DX9 is finally out! Lotsa goodies but I don't think it will really affect us indies. DX5/7 and unextended OpenGL (what I use) are still good enough for us. Having said that, it's great to play around with it. I can't wait for OGL2!

Brian Azzopardi

I totally agree! OMG, the C# code for initialization of DX components is so straight forward it's laughable. MUST keep telling myself that a C# game is not yet commercially viable... Right???...

I'm thinking C# level editor... Can't wait to play with it.

What exactly does DX9 offer? I am mainly using DX8 because if the D3DX libraries not shaders or anything like that. How has D3DX evolved? Even better mesh support? Exporters?

For me, the only thing I'm interested in are the managed interfaces that will allow me to use it in C# for tools. Building tools in .Net should be a breeze.
It seems they've added back some 2D support (there's a ddraw managed interface) and the ability to use GDI calls, too.

If you want to make your editors and tools available to the customer, then they're going to have to download DX9 AND the dotnet runtime. That's a lot.

I really like C# (it's getting close to edging out C++ in my book), and would love to be able to do game stuff with it, but that very large download is a big deterent.

It is a lot, but I don't think it's an issue. Obviously, not having released my first game yet, I don't have any numbers, but I doubt that the percentage of customers of a game that use editors that are released is very high. My guess is probably less than 1%, and that those that really want to edit stuff would be willing to download the extra. If that was a problem, I could always build an editor later that didn't require it, but during the development of the game, I'd rather spend more time on the game and less on building tools.

I think that it IS an issue, it's a selling point, whether they actually use the editor or not. With shareware, what you're really selling is the difference between the demo and the full version. You have to make the editors anyway, why not take advantage of that effort and make it part of the sale?

Look at this (http://www.dexterity.com/articles/registration-incentives.htm)



edit - darn html tag things

Alright, I must admit I agree with you on that basis.

In my current situation, however, taking the time to build the level editor with C++ would add a significant chunk of time to my release date as I believe a level editor should be of just as high a quality as the game itself, and QA'ing a level editor is time consuming. Thus, I am not planning on releasing an editor with the first release of my game. Instead, I am planning on releasing it as a freebee, later, which is why I made the statement that I don't think it's a problem.

What are you doing the level editor in now? C#? If that's the case, then I agree that it would probably be a waste to stop and rewrite in C++. You could still offer it as a freebie.

But fundamentally I agree with you. C# is a Good Thing, and as soon as the runtime becomes more common, I expect to see a lot of developers migrate that direction.

No level editor yet. The levels are in XML, so it's easy to do by hand (at least for a very small area). I need to do an editor soon, though. It's why I'm excited about the .Net support.