Publishing 3d for vista, my first results.

Hey,

I just got a new machine with vista on it, to see how things
work with 
regard to 3d shockwave movies, and 3d projectors.

There's good news and bad news:

getRendererServices().renderDeviceList returns [#software]

and everything you make will be run in software mode, which
usually 
means completely unacceptable.

The good news is that if you force a shockwave movie to
directx7 by 
right clicking, your shockwave movie will
render using directx7 just fine. From here on, everything
looks great.

Unfortunattely, projectors share their
renderer-forcing-settings with 
the shockwaveplayer, which are stored in the registry.
Projectors won't work out of the box. They also need to be
forced to 
directx7. The possible ways I know how to do this are:

- go to a shockwavemovie and do it by rightclicking and
selecting directx7
- actually modifying the registry keys that get read by the
shockwave3d 
xtra yourself.

My current thinking is to have a pre-application executable
that runs, 
and checks if we're running on vista and if the
rendererdevicelist = [#software] (since adobe might fix this
in a while, 
in which case we probably don't want to mess around
anymore)
if that is the case, modify the registry entries, and start
the real 
executable.

I'm not sure if you'll actually need two executables, maybe
you can 
modify the registry before it gets read by the shockwave3d
xtra,
but I'm not sure about that. it depends on when that decides
to grab the 
settings.

Other than that, there's the whole issue of integrating
nicely into the 
Game Explorer, rating system, etc etc, which are mostly
installer
issues. I haven't actually seen a "template vista
game" NSIS script, if 
nobody beats me to it, I'll publish what I end up with here
if by the
time I have to write my first vista game installer there is
no public 
one yet.

If anybody else has any worthwhile insights related to 3d
director work 
& vista, I'd love to hear about it.

Bye, Lucas
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Lucas,

It won't obey if you just set the device to dx7 in lingo?

--al

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:37:33 +0100
  Lucas Meijer <lucasmach8.nl> wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> I just got a new machine with vista on it, to see how
things work 
>with regard to 3d shockwave movies, and 3d projectors.
> 
> There's good news and bad news:
> 
> getRendererServices().renderDeviceList returns
[#software]
> 
> and everything you make will be run in software mode,
which usually 
>means completely unacceptable.
> 
> The good news is that if you force a shockwave movie to
directx7 by 
>right clicking, your shockwave movie will
> render using directx7 just fine. From here on,
everything looks 
>great.
> 
> Unfortunattely, projectors share their
renderer-forcing-settings 
>with the shockwaveplayer, which are stored in the
registry.
> Projectors won't work out of the box. They also need to
be forced to 
>directx7. The possible ways I know how to do this are:
> 
> - go to a shockwavemovie and do it by rightclicking and
selecting 
>directx7
> - actually modifying the registry keys that get read by
the 
>shockwave3d xtra yourself.
> 
> My current thinking is to have a pre-application
executable that 
>runs, and checks if we're running on vista and if the
> rendererdevicelist = [#software] (since adobe might fix
this in a 
>while, in which case we probably don't want to mess
around anymore)
> if that is the case, modify the registry entries, and
start the real 
>executable.
> 
> I'm not sure if you'll actually need two executables,
maybe you can 
>modify the registry before it gets read by the
shockwave3d xtra,
> but I'm not sure about that. it depends on when that
decides to grab 
>the settings.
> 
> Other than that, there's the whole issue of integrating
nicely into 
>the Game Explorer, rating system, etc etc, which are
mostly installer
> issues. I haven't actually seen a "template vista
game" NSIS script, 
>if nobody beats me to it, I'll publish what I end up
with here if by 
>the
> time I have to write my first vista game installer
there is no 
>public one yet.
> 
> If anybody else has any worthwhile insights related to
3d director 
>work & vista, I'd love to hear about it.
> 
> Bye, Lucas
> _______________________________________________
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> http://nuttybar.drama.uga.edu/mailman/listinfo/dirgames
-l

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Allen R Partridge wrote:
> Lucas,
>
> It won't obey if you just set the device to dx7 in
lingo? 
No.

I do think there's a relatively robust way to detect if your
game is 
running in this situation
(the situation being vista, running the current shockwave
player that 
exhibits this problem),
that would not break again when adobe fixes things..

On this vista system that only offers [#software], (the 
environment)[#directXVersion] actually
returns "9.0.1.4"

(don't remember the exact directx version)..   For my
shockwave3d games, 
I think I'll be modifying
the preloader to check for the sitation where there's only
[#software] 
in the rendererdevicelist,
but there is a decent version of directx installed according
to (the 
environment)[#directXVersion]

In that case, one could display a screen that in more or
less technical 
detail describes the problem,
and instructs the user to rightclick the screen, and force
directx7 as 
renderer. Trough lingo you can
actually pick up this change, and verify if the user did its
job properly.

It sucks, but it's a hell of a lot better than not doing it
I think.

Bye, Lucas

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I was wondering how shockwave3D could run on vista using
openGL.

Other engines that are build on openGL, seem to work. There
is a patch
for Doom3, that will make it run on vista and otee seems to
get it done
too.

"Feature #3: Windows Vista support
With Windows Vista hitting the stands any day now, of course
we made sure
that your games will run on it. Unity supports creating both
web and 
standalone
games for Windows Vista."

Why would shockwave3D not run in openGL mode?

To use OpenGL the user has to install drivers manually,
right?
(have no vista here to test around with it...)

regards,
lw


Lucas Meijer schrieb:
> Hey,
>
> I just got a new machine with vista on it, to see how
things work with 
> regard to 3d shockwave movies, and 3d projectors.
>
> There's good news and bad news:
>
> getRendererServices().renderDeviceList returns
[#software]
>
> and everything you make will be run in software mode,
which usually 
> means completely unacceptable.
>
> The good news is that if you force a shockwave movie to
directx7 by 
> right clicking, your shockwave movie will
> render using directx7 just fine. From here on,
everything looks great.
>
> Unfortunattely, projectors share their
renderer-forcing-settings with 
> the shockwaveplayer, which are stored in the registry.
> Projectors won't work out of the box. They also need to
be forced to 
> directx7. The possible ways I know how to do this are:
>
> - go to a shockwavemovie and do it by rightclicking and
selecting 
> directx7
> - actually modifying the registry keys that get read by
the 
> shockwave3d xtra yourself.
>
> My current thinking is to have a pre-application
executable that runs, 
> and checks if we're running on vista and if the
> rendererdevicelist = [#software] (since adobe might fix
this in a 
> while, in which case we probably don't want to mess
around anymore)
> if that is the case, modify the registry entries, and
start the real 
> executable.
>
> I'm not sure if you'll actually need two executables,
maybe you can 
> modify the registry before it gets read by the
shockwave3d xtra,
> but I'm not sure about that. it depends on when that
decides to grab 
> the settings.
>
> Other than that, there's the whole issue of integrating
nicely into 
> the Game Explorer, rating system, etc etc, which are
mostly installer
> issues. I haven't actually seen a "template vista
game" NSIS script, 
> if nobody beats me to it, I'll publish what I end up
with here if by the
> time I have to write my first vista game installer
there is no public 
> one yet.
>
> If anybody else has any worthwhile insights related to
3d director 
> work & vista, I'd love to hear about it.
>
> Bye, Lucas
> _______________________________________________
> dirGames-L mailing list  -  dirGames-Lnuttybar.drama.uga.edu
> http://nuttybar.drama.uga.edu/mailman/listinfo/dirgames
-l
>
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At 3:25 PM +0100 3/21/07, Lutz Westermann wrote:
>To use OpenGL the user has to install drivers manually,
right?
>(have no vista here to test around with it...)

I got heavily criticized for wasting the development team's
time when 
beta testing a product recently, because I found an issue
that only 
showed up under Windows XP if you didn't have OpenGL
installed. It 
took some detective work to figure it out, but when I
finally pointed 
out what the issue was people jumped on me, saying that no
XP system 
on earth would be lacking OpenGL (except my one of course),
and that 
the team could have spent the time they wasted trying to
help me 
track down the problem on better things.

The point being that if OpenGL was so ingrained into XP,
presumably 
it's in Vista by default?

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Colin Holgate" <coiinrcn.com>

> I got heavily criticized for wasting the development
team's time when beta 
> testing a product recently, because I found an issue
that only showed up 
> under Windows XP if you didn't have OpenGL installed.
It took some 
> detective work to figure it out, but when I finally
pointed out what the 
> issue was people jumped on me, saying that no XP system
on earth would be 
> lacking OpenGL (except my one of course), and that the
team could have 
> spent the time they wasted trying to help me track down
the problem on 
> better things.

>
> The point being that if OpenGL was so ingrained into
XP, presumably it's 
> in Vista by default?

Interesting Colin.

My understanding is that opengl should be installed on every
XP system, its 
part of the default installation, although as I mentioned in
a previous 
reply it only supports opengl up to version 1.2 or so. The
rest of opengl 
being supported through extensions or dlls installed via the
graphics card 
drivers.

So either the product used openGL functions above version
1.2 and you didn't 
have the extensions due to not having updated drivers from
the graphics 
card, or more worrying your XP installation was missing the
basic 
opengl.dll.

I've not heard much on the opengl front in respect to Vista
recently, 
although a year or two ago the was a huge uproar in the
openGL community due 
to the way MS appeared to be crippling it, especially
running in areo or 
something. At one point there were even claims that it would
be supported 
via a wrapper that actually sent its functionaility to
directX!

Since then its been a bit quite so I had assumed MS had come
to their senses 
and worked out a better way.


Noisecrime 2007


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At 3:21 PM +0000 3/21/07, Noisecrime_PIPEX wrote:
>So either the product used openGL functions above
version 1.2 and 
>you didn't have the extensions due to not having updated
drivers 
>from the graphics card, or more worrying your XP
installation was 
>missing the basic opengl.dll.

It was missing the DLL, and other programs that need OpenGL
would let 
you know that OpenGL wasn't installed. The problem with the
test 
program was that it failed silently, and didn't give the
OpenGL 
warning. Putting the two DLLs in place sorted it out.

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lucas Meijer" <lucasmach8.nl>

> It sucks, but it's a hell of a lot better than not
doing it I think.

Another possible alternative, although still not ideal

The user runs the main projector exe which uses the sw3d
xtra. At startup 
before anything else it checks to see if the render list
only includes 
#software and the render API is not set to DirectX7 in the
registry. If true 
then it opens a new projector movie and quits itself ( I
think thats 
possible, never tried)

The new projector is a very simple movie, but importantly it
embeds the 
xtras it needs and does NOT include the sw3d xtra (obviously
must be at a 
different directory level to your main projector to avoid
using external 
xtra folder). It uses budAPI or something similar to set the
SW3D registry 
values to use DIrectX7 only. It then opens the main
projector exe and quits 
itself.

The main movie does the same check as above, but this time
presumably it 
finds DirectX7 is loaded and runs normally.

There are probably several slightly different variations but
the methodlogy 
is the same, ensure you can run a projector exe that doesn't
use SW3D 
allowing you to over-ride the registry settings before
loading the main 
projector exe that does use sw3d.

I wonder if its possible to load/unload sw3d xtra at
runtime, would openxlib 
work perhaps?


> From: "Lutz Westermann" <lutzkisd.de>


> To use OpenGL the user has to install drivers manually,
right?
> (have no vista here to test around with it...)

In winXP opengl is supported via the 3D card drivers, but
there should also 
be a basic opengl.dll installed with the system, but it only
supports up to 
opengl 1.2 I believe, maybe less.


> Why would shockwave3D not run in openGL mode?

Could be that Vista, from what i've heard is meant to
support opengl 1.4 via 
the installed system dll, perhaps thats confusing SW3D in
some strange way, 
which frankly it shouldn't.


Noisecrime 2007


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A little FYI to those doing downloadable casual games...

Many of the major casual game portals are no longer
accepting Shockwave 3D 
games due to this Vista issue. Add this with the lack of
native Mac Intel 
support, Director is basically dead this year for developing
downloadable 3D 
games. I've canceled all my Projector projects this year and
will just be 
focusing on web games.

It would be great if you guys could figure out some kind of
workaround. But 
it's a shame it's come to this. Mac Intel has been out for
over a year and a 
half and it wasn't like Vista just appeared out of thin air.
If there was 
ever a reason for a quick 11.5 release, it would be now.

- Chris 

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On 21-03-2007, Chris Evans kindly wrote:
> A little FYI to those doing downloadable casual
games...
>
> Many of the major casual game portals are no longer
accepting Shockwave 3D
> games due to this Vista issue. Add this with the lack
of native Mac Intel
> support, Director is basically dead this year for
developing downloadable 3D
> games. I've canceled all my Projector projects this
year and will just be
> focusing on web games.
>
> It would be great if you guys could figure out some
kind of workaround. But
> it's a shame it's come to this. Mac Intel has been out
for over a year and a
> half and it wasn't like Vista just appeared out of thin
air. If there was
> ever a reason for a quick 11.5 release, it would be
now.

If/when they update Shockwave you can (by make SW projectors
and including
the new runtimes libs) make 3D  projectors for Vista again.

Macrobe promised to update SW for Vista not too long ago,
and maybe the
guys in India get their act together. I think it's quite
strange they
didn't test Director against Vista in the first place, it's
not that MS put
Vista on the market in a rush.

-- 
mare
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