Launchpad-IDE

Quote from: Dabzy on Jun 05, 2025, 07:46 PMAh, the good old BBC, many a break time at school where you'd find me in a IT classroom tinkering away, waving it's big arsed floppy disks about! hehehe

Dabz

I did the same at school but we had a couple of BBC's for the more priveliged kids and we made do with Dragon 32's. I also was in the Chess club.

https://syntaxboom.com/forum

Dabz

Ah, the good old BBC, many a break time at school where you'd find me in a IT classroom tinkering away, waving it's big arsed floppy disks about! hehehe

Dabz

Even i may be able to do this 

Baggey

Hey up Baggey!

Oh, I'll look into that...

EDIT: I think I've sorted shoutbox thing! \o/

Yeah, I saw, well, I think something must of kicked off over night, I mean, I was just over there last thing last night, and all seemed well... Woke up, maintenance mode, with a message that looked like something had happened, then, that page is now up saying no more!

Bit of a shame mind, I mean, it's Qubes business, but he could of just locked the site with a message so people still could access it, and retrieve anything they may of needed, because it is, well, was, a great little resource of a place, so for such an abrupt shutdown completely, I'm a bit disappointed, hey hoe though, if he thought it was best to just lob it clean out of the window, well, we've just got to accept that fact...

Other then that...

Monkey trousers!

Dabz

Shout Box isnt working for me. It Looks like Syntax Bomb is no more

Oh aye, and I've documented the DX9Lib comments and implemented my own online documentation system don't you know... How very PHP of me:

https://launchpad-ide.com/launchpad/doc/index.php



Dabzy

Managed to test it on a clean Win11 machine, updated the GFX driver, installed this:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109&msockid=15eb4e948a36630f1dba5aaa8bd662ae

Which I've plonked in the $LaunchpadDir$/DX9redist folder as a zip because the downloaded version is one of them crappy "Extract to here" things, where, you have to run it, dump the contents somewhere, with no option to create a new folder, (so you have to create a new folder before you extract the actual setup files otherwise you'll probably soil an existing folder) navigate to where ever it was dumped and then run the DX9SETUP.exe file from there... How very MS! :/

Anyhoo, once I had the driver/DX files installed, everything was tickety boo! \o/ yay

Dabzy

Newest addition to the family, my DX9Lib of old! \o/

Okay, I've added a bit more too it, tidied it up some what, discovered a few little buggeries which weren't there before.

Now, this was going to be added as a 2D renderer to LUI, because obviously, LibSGD was the meat, but, now, this is the meat, hence some of the updates I've given it, like input, the odd bit collision is to go in and probably other stuff.

Anyway, people out there may be screaming "Why DirectX9? Why didn't you just go for the throat and use a newer API"... Honest answer... There really really isn't anything wrong with DirectX 9, okay, it's over 20 years old, but, it works fine, the likes of your DirectX 11 and 12 bring a lot to the 3D party, tons, but, do I need all that? No!!! And if you do need all that, well, you probably wouldn't be here really.

For myself, and probably beginners, DirectX9 is perfectly fine, I had code there, so, I may as well use it!

But then I'll hear "But, Microsoft may drop it or GPU cards/drivers may not support it", but then, who said anything about relying on a graphics card or it's drivers to support the API, thankfully, MS have thought about it, realised that there is a ton of software out there that relies on it, and as such, they've included mappings of Direct9 WITHIN DirectX12, it's called the D3D9On12 mapping layer, it maps D3D9 commands to D3D12 by acting as the D3D9 Device Driver Interface (DDI). Now, I'm not sure how far this mapping spans and how far they have with got with it, but, I have read that in some case's, a newer redistributable is required to be installed to cover some stuff that is missing. Unfortunately, at the moment, I don't have an extra (clean) Win11 PC to test on.

Anyway, nifty stuff, so in theory, DirectX9 has been around for over 20 years, and as such, given the support, there is no excuse not to be around for another 20. Which is why I find this a perfect solution for my needs... DirectX9 is going nowhere it seems! <---- Famous last words.

Right, like I did with Lui, here is a list of what's there currently:

DX9_Cls()
DX9_CopyImage%(image%)
DX9_CreateTargetImage%(imageWidth%,imageHeight%)
DX9_DegreeToRadian#(degrees%)
DX9_DrawAnimImage(image%,x%,y%,cellNumber%)
DX9_DrawAnimImageRect(image%,x%,y%,top%,left%,width%,height%,frame%)
DX9_DrawImage(image%,x%,y%)
DX9_DrawImageRect(image%,x%,y%,top%,left%,width%,height%)
DX9_DrawText(text$,x%,y%,centre,font%)
DX9_End()
DX9_Flip()
DX9_GetFPS%()
DX9_GetFontHeight%(font%)
DX9_GetFontWidth%(font%)
DX9_GetImageCellCount%(image%)
DX9_GetImageHeight%(image%)
DX9_GetImageWidth%(image%)
DX9_GetMouseX%()
DX9_GetMouseY%()
DX9_Graphics%(resWidth%,resHeight%,resFormat%,synced%,windowed%)
DX9_HidePointer()
DX9_IsFontAvailable%(sysFontName$)
DX9_IsKeyDown%(vKeyCode%)
DX9_IsKeyHit%(vKeyCode%)
DX9_IsMouseDown%(vmButtonCode%)
DX9_IsMouseHit%(vmButtonCode%)
DX9_LoadAnimImage%(filePath$, cellWidth%, cellHeight%, cellAmount%)
DX9_LoadAnimImageMasked%(filePath$,cellWidth%, cellHeight%, cellAmount%, red%,green%,blue%)
DX9_LoadFont%(font$,width%,height%,italic)
DX9_LoadFontRGB%(font$,width%,height%,r%,g%,b%,italic%)
DX9_LoadImage%(filePath$)
DX9_LoadImageMasked%(filePath$,red%,green%,blue%)
DX9_SetAlpha(alphaLevel#)
DX9_SetClsColor(r%,g%,b%)
DX9_SetDefaultRenderTarget()
DX9_SetEventMode(mode%)
DX9_SetImageMidOrigin(image%)
DX9_SetImageMidRotOrigin(image%)
DX9_SetImageOrigin(image%,x%,y%)
DX9_SetImageRotOrigin(image%,x%,y%)
DX9_SetRenderTarget(image%)
DX9_SetRotation(radians#)
DX9_SetScale(scaleX#,scaleY#)
DX9_SetWindowTitle%(title$)
DX9_ShowMessage(title$,message$)
DX9_ShowPointer()

DX9Lib.DLL Command Count: 46

Initial FPS comparison between B3D's DX7 (Running from Blitz3D IDE), and DX9Libs DX9 render (Running from Launchpad IDE) speed is thus:

B3D (DX7)
2700ish - Windowed
120 - Full screen  <---- VSync seems to be locked on my system in regards to DX7!?!

DX9
5300ish - windowed
6350ish - Full screen

Baring in mind, there is a residue DX7 DC running behind DX9!

Dabz

Blackadder was brill, one of them series that started off a little slow, but when they all got into the swing of it... That was, pure TV gold!

You don't get much in the way of TV from days gone by like that now, too many people get offended by the slightest thing, more so, the people who are the butt of jokes that are aimed at tend to love it, it's the ones that get offended because they think others are offended are the issue... You know, the miserable b[WAHOOO]ds out there! lol

Anyway, yeah, I've seen the work your doing on your emulator, looks magic mind, I tend not to use emulators much, not that I'm not big on retro, I just like using the proper hardware. I'm an Amstrad CPC man, and I have an Amstrad CPC 6128 on the desk upstairs for them 8-bit micro kicks, also a few consoles of old, the likes of your Megadrive etc etc.

I just prefer gaming on the real gear really.

Anyway... I need to square this site up, now that Mark has passed away, the angle it was aimed at has past with him, if I was to continue on with what was in mind, I'd have to take up LibSGD, and I'll be honest, I don't think the programmer is in me to do that, or at least, the time to learn his code, then expand it with Dawn, which in turn, I'd have to learn that, it's all too much.

He was a skilful programmer, when I've been digging about in some of his sources, there is stuff in there, when I figure what he's done, it's really impressive and another level of what I'm capable of... He was a professional developer, I'm just a hobbyist that stumbles along with it until it works.

Still cannot believe he's gone like, yeah, I never met the man... But to be fair, New Zealand isnt a "pop", but he's always been around making his great wares and I've always been a massive fan of them, granted I've never been a fan of some of his decisions, but they were his to make at the end of the day... I'll have to see whats what, but yeah, end of an era really, which is a sad thought too!

Dabz