I'm in the process of converting/migrating a Visual Studio OpenGL project to an Xcode (iPhone) OpenGL project.
Do you have any experience or suggestions?
You need to understand the limitations of OpenGL ES 1.1 and the performance of the hw in the iPhone, ie one can't use glBegin/glEnd so all vertex data has to be passed as arrays and GLU things are missing. See here for some performance stats.
If your OpenGL code is fairly straight forward Apple supplies a good template to get going with it. I have created a screencast where I demo a AC3D lib, 15s in I start with a clean Xcode OpenGL ES project.
Related
Note: I just wanna say at first that I tried literally everything I could find about the subject (MSDN, Stack Overflow, D3DCoder, etc.) without any success (after solving one, another error was waiting for me). So I am posting here by pure demotivation (there are similar posts already, yes, but none of them actually helped me out).
Here is how it goes:
A few months ago, I decided to start learning modern OpenGL by pure curiosity, and finally decided to switch to DirectX after reading the downsides of OpenGL (I was also only targeting Windows platform). I think it was one of the worst move I ever made: I heard that OpenGL was lacking of documentation and everything was a mess with third party libraries, but I realized that DirectX was way worst than what it seemed to be compared to OpenGL. In fact, trying to code in modern DirectX 11 using Windows 7 and VS2013 is just a pain (especially shaders) and the time it takes to figure it all out is just a time waster. After reading a lot of porting articles on MSDN about alternative libraries, like DirectXTK, DirectXTex, DirectXMesh, Effects11 and DXUT, I still don't know what to do and how to setup a fully working modern project in Windows 7. Specifically, the 5 (/5_0) shader model (deprecated) combined with the new Effects11 library (not deprecated) is the thing that confuse me the most.
By the way, I am currently reading the latest Frank Luna book about the subject ('Introduction to 3D Game Programming with Direct3D 11') and I still can't get his samples working at all (even with DirectX SDK). Also, I don't know if what I am learning is relevant or not since he wrote it before the Windows SDK switch. For your information, the latest error I am trying to solve with his samples (for those who know the book) is a E_NOINTERFACE from D3DX11CreateEffectFromMemory function (at runtime):
HR(D3DX11CreateEffectFromMemory(compiledShader->GetBufferPointer(), compiledShader- >GetBufferSize(),
0, md3dDevice, &mFX));
// Done with compiled shader.
ReleaseCOM(compiledShader); -> crash here
All that being said, here is what I wanna know:
Are there any clear step-by-step tutorials on how to setup a modern DirectX 11 project in Windows 7 using VS2013 or it is still in pre-alpha stage (just kidding)?
What is actually going on with the shader model, the HLSL compiler, and the .fx files and what should be used (I hear everywhere that it is deprecated but no replacement seems to exist yet)?
For those who know the book, any idea on how to build the old DirectX SDK samples without getting this silly runtime error?
Thanks a lot!
E_NOINTERFACE is an usual error in that context, so likely there's something wrong with the code around it you are not showing in your question.
You can still use the legacy DirectX SDK with VS 2013, but it takes a slightly different procedure than was used with VS 2010. In VC++ Directories set Executable to $(ExecutablePath);$(DXSDK_DIR)Utilities\bin\x86 or $(ExecutablePath);$(DXSDK_DIR)Utilities\bin\x64;$(DXSDK_DIR)Utilities\bin\x86, Include to $(IncludePath);$(DXSDK_DIR)Include, and Library to $(LibraryPath);$(DXSDK_DIR)Lib\x86 or $(LibraryPath);$(DXSDK_DIR)Lib\x64. Read MSDN for some other details of doing this. I've also made some notes w.r.t. to that book here.
You actually don't need the legacy DirectX SDK, but you may find it easier to do that for now using that book. VS 2013 comes with the Windows 8.1 SDK that has all the OS headers for DirectX 11 along with D3DCompile #47.
You can use the Direct3D tutorial for a simple example of setting up a Win32 desktop app (i.e. one that works on Windows 7) with a device, swapchain, and window. This makes no use of legacy DirectX SDK.
There are some additional Effects Tutorial Win32 Sample you can use as well. Instructions on adding the Effects 11 library is on the CodePlex wiki under Documentation / Effects 11 / Adding to a VS solution.
Your questions about FX vs. not are also covered on the CodePlex: Is Effects 11 deprecated? and How do I avoid using fx_5_0?. Also on StackOverflow.
Many of the older DirectX SDK samples have been reposted to MSDN Code Gallery and do not require the legacy DirectX SDK to build. You should read these posts for the fate of various DirectX SDK things:
DirectX SDK Samples Catalog
DirectX SDK Tools Catalog
Living without D3DX
DirectX SDKs of a certain age
The story for learning DirectX 11 with Windows Store apps / Windows phone 8.x aps is a lot cleaner, and is well supported by VS templates and MSDN documentation. Win32 desktop apps are of course a completely reasonable option, but you have to distinguish between legacy and modern with a bit of research. You still start with the standard Win32 desktop app project template in VS.
Note: Windows by default only supports OpenGL v1.5 software renderer. You have to install 3rd party ICD to get anything else, and there are no OpenGL VS templates.
I've created an iPhone game which utilizes some code from an old version of the Cocos2D iPhone game development framework and I've got a wee bit of a problem running it on iOS 7.
The version of Cocos2d from which the code was used was probably 0.98.
The actual class is called QuadParticleSystem (in newer versions it's been deprecated by CCParticleSystemQuad).
The actual issue is that the game runs fine on iOS 6 and below. It even runs fine on iOS 7 if the deployment target is set to iOS 6.0 and SDK version set to 7 (at least when put on the device directly using XCode).
The problem is that when the game is uploaded to the appstore, Apple seems to strip out the whole iOS 6 compatibility thing and the particle emitters fail to show up among other things like alpha transitions, invisibility etc.
(They initialize correctly and everything, but they simply DO NOT render).
I've considered (and tried somewhat) upgrading the Cocos2D version, but due to the old third-party frameworks I've used for other things there is a hell of a lot of linking/dependency/deprecation errors which could take forever to fix (if it's at all possible, which I doubt) In other words, I've wasted too much time on the project already and am looking for a quick fix.
If no one knows any solutions could anyone at least direct me to docs where I can see how to create/insert a new particle emitter system in the existing code?
I've thought about using SpriteKit's native emitter system, but I don't know how to incorporate it within the current code (as I've never had dealings with SpriteKit) and am not sure if it's even possible.
I've also thought of maybe upgrading the GL ES framework within that old version of Cocos2D just in case Apple have killed off some functionality of older versions of OpenGL. Then again that could take a while.
I'm trying to get into mobile game development with Xamarin; I am using OpenTK for rendering.
My plan is the following:
1. Make a shared library that is actually the game (and has all openTK code).
2. Make a a runnable project for iOS and Android that handles platform specific stuff (e.g. popping up alerts) and uses my shared library.
Is this possible with openTK? Does it have exactly the same API on iOS and on Android, just the linked library is different? If yes, how to avoid code duplication?
Your approach sounds very reasonable and will work with a little bit of effort.
The reason is that Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS were forked from an alpha version of the library and have evolved slightly different APIs. Much of the OpenGL ES binding is identical, but some functions have annoying (and unnecessary) differences that you will need to #ifdef in your shared library.
The good news is that the Xamarin fork of OpenTK has now been open-sourced, so we are actively working towards a solution. I already have a private build of library that exposes an identical OpenGL ES API between Android and desktop platforms[1] and I'm working on fixing the differences between the iOS and Android versions.
You can follow the development of OpenTK in the official github repository.
[1] You can execute OpenGL ES code on the desktop using ANGLE or the ARB_ES2_compatibility and ARB_ES3_compatibility extensions. This makes OpenGL ES the first graphics API to work across all major platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS - and hopefully WinPhone in the future.)
I've read places that Windows Phone 8 will not support OpenGL, and I'm unable to find anything useful in the SDK.
So am I or will I ever be able to use OpenGL (ES) in my Windows Phone 8 game? I have a game I would like not to rewrite completely to DirectX when porting.
Please cite good sources, the only thing I've found are speculations and blog posts with little to no information.
OpenGL isn't supported on WP8, but Direct 3D feature level 9_3 is supported. If you're looking to port over a game from OpenGL ES over to D3D have a look at the Angle Project. Angle Project helps bridge the gap between OpenGL ES 2.0 and D3D 9. It doesn't have WP8 targeting just yet and you'll have issues with runtime compile shaders not being supported on WP8, but Angle project is still a good first step.
Either way, for games portability with other platforms it's really best if you work with a middleware gaming framework such as MonoGame, Unity, Cocos2D, Havok, Marmalade, SharpDX, Ogre, Autodesk Scaleform or others. These engines will mostly handle cross platform support for you within their own framework (each with it's own limitations on code and assets portability).
If you already have an existing OpenGL game you want to port over to WP8, than Angle project if your best bet going forward. If you're just starting out creating a cross-platform portable game than choosing a gaming middleware framework that seems right for your game's needs is the way to go.
Marmalade does let you write OpenGL ES 2.0 code and make it work in Windows phone 8 without making you do anything
Check this for more details:
http://www.madewithmarmalade.com/windows-phone-8
Even if Windows Phone 8 supported OpenGL (which it doesn't), it would support OpenGL ES, not destkop OpenGL. Since it's for embedded platforms.
So that's no twice.
Gideros uses OpenGL and targets Windows RT/Phone graphics by means of a lightweight DX wrapper.
I thought this should be easy, but... geesh! A vendor gave me a fairly simple demo program meant to showcase some trivial icon animations. The target platform is an embedded system (MX51) with accelerated OpenGL ES 2.0/OpenVG and EGL support.
Unfortunately, the demo also has an annoying dependency on a few Qt utility classes (e.g., QImage). If not for this dependency, I would compile/run the thing on the target. But I don't relish the thought of cross-compiling Qt just to run this little demo---even if there were enough room for it on the embedded board.
I hoped I might be able to run the app on a standard(ish) Ubuntu 10.04 VM, and started following these directions to make it happen. And I actually managed---like, 10 hours later---to compile everything and get a runnable binary of the demo program. However, when I run it, I see the following error:
eglCreateWindowSurface: egl error "EGL_BAD_CONFIG" (0x3005)
Sigh. Not what I wanted to see after all that effort. This seems way more difficult than it should be.
Is the embedded GL landscape really such a ghetto that I have to run even trivial programs on the target using some vendor-supplied BSP? Judging from the lack of responses to this guy's question, I'm thinking the answer might be yes. But I don't even care about acceleration (yet). I just want to run the stupidest of OpenGL ES 2/OpenVG programs on a desktop PC and get an idea of how it looks. (It doesn't matter to me whether the PC is running Linux or Windows.) How do people do this sort of thing?
There are several OpenGL ES 2.0 emulators, such as:
For ARM Mali GPUs
For PowerVR GPUs
Also very recently, AMD has posted drivers that expose OpenGL ES 2.0 on desktop.
More recently, OpenGL 4.1 exposes the GL_ARB_ES2_compatibility extension, which makes OpenGL 4.1 drivers GL ES 2.0 compatible.
For OpenVG, you can use AmanithVG GLE.
Qualcomm's OpenGL ES emulator includes OpenVG support. You can download it from http://developer.qualcomm.com