rec.autos.simulators

Hi all,

Just downloading DX8 now as DX7 seems to have screwed up somehow - just
wondering if there were any compatibility issues I need to know about before
I install 8? I use a Sidewinder non-FF wheel and play GPL and MBTR, but I
was also wondering about issues with any other games and programs....

Cheers,

Jim

    DX7 **IS** screwed (note no "a" here). There is some fault in
"directplay" that messes  up some joysticks, your Sidewinder is one of the
sticks that is messed up. DO NOT install DX7 unless  you also install the
revised Direct Play as well. DX7a (note the "a") is fine as the revised
direct play is included.
    DX8 has also been revised to DX8a. I dont know what was wrong with DX8
but something was and it was fixed in DX8a. Depending on what video and/or
sound card you have you might want to wait on installing DX8a. There are
some drivers that dont like DX8a. The alergy is not all that common but it
does exist so if you do install DX8a you might find yourself needing to
change other drivers before everything works.
   On my machine DX8 is an improvement over DX7 but not that big of an
improvement.

What Joe & Scott said.  Plus, you don't need anything more than 7a to play
either GPL *or* N4.

--Steve

To run the latest games I would think.
Better yet why not?

Hi Kurt,

If there is no '"DirectX" icon in the Control Panel, check in the C:\Program
Files\DirectX\Setup folder for a shortcut "DXDiag" to double-click on, or
for that matter go directly to the Windows\System\DXDiag.exe program. Start
it up and on the first "System" tab it will show the DirectX version
installed.

Hmmm... I just did that and discovered I'm still using some debug versions
of the DLL's, gotta switch to the final 'retail' versions...

        ...Klinn

You want DX8a, or you will lose two buttons on your precision racing wheel
with GPL.

Or simply select run from the start menu and type in dxdiag   =)

--
Scott B. Husted
PA-Scott
ICQ# 4395450

Here is what I found at Microsoft:

Migration of Microsoft DirectDraw into Microsoft Direct3D:

In version 8.0 of DirectX, DirectDraw is fully integrated into Direct3D to
enable drastically simplified application initialization, improved data
allocation and management performance, and reduced memory footprint.

So, if you still have games that uses 2D DirectX, I bet it is better to stay
with DX 7a for now as I think a lot of older games will have problems with
this.

Brian

Since DirectX uses COM, the DirectX 7 interfaces (used to call functions)
are still there in DirectX 8, as are the interfaces from DirectX 3 to 6.
DirectX 8 adds it's own set of interfaces, and true they do have reduced 2d
capabilities, but a program written for DirectX 7 won't use any of the DX8
functions, it will just use the DX7 functions as it did when run with
DirectX 7.

Basically, because DirectX is built on the COM model, new interfaces are
added instead of upgrading the old ones.  The theory behind this is that it
should give extremely good backwards compatibility, which I guess it does
overall (I think without this method (adding new code instead of updating
the old code) there would be ten times the amount of DirectX problems), .
Of course, when MS release DirectX 8, they also streamline and fish out bugs
from the DX7 code, which can introduce new problems with old games.

It's quite possible that the majority of people who have DirectX8 have never
even seen the DX8 code in action, since there isn't many DX8 games about
yet.