The August SDK Has been released. IRComm Post At the moment there is no referance on the developer Center, but I have transfered some information from the readme to the above post. DirectX Developer Center Direct Links DirectX 9.0 SDK Update - (August 2005) DirectX 9.0c Redistributable (August 2005) for Software Developers - Multilingual

Someone might want to sticky this thread...

Quote:Original post by Holy Fuzz
Can anyone find a log a what has been changed since the June release? I'm not having any luck.

Yea, try this (note that is is only for Managed DX, there may be more for native):

Quote:
IRComm Post

Noteworthy changes I see:

(1) Effects System: Use Effect.SetRawValue to set a contiguous range of shader constants with a memory copy

(2) Sprite depth and texture sort - When submitting sprites for rendering, you may sort sprite drawing order by depth (SpriteFlags.SortDepthFrontToBack or SpriteFlags.SortDepthBackToFront) and then by texture (SpriteFlags.SortTexture). This is useful for rendering UI components as sprites.

(3) Using PRT with textures - Instead of representing transfer vectors at the vertices of a mesh, you could use PRT to represent transfer vectors in texture maps. This alternative has the same data cost but is independent of mesh complexity. See Representing PRT With Textures.

(4) IrradianceVolume Sample - This sample donated by ATI Technologies (www.ati.com) builds upon the PRTDemo Sample and adds preprocessing of the scene to allow a PRT object to use the local lighting environment as it moves through a scene.

I'm pumped to check out the new PRT stuff, especially the IrradianceVolume [smile]

What I never quite understood is why they have to release every SDK update as the entire SDK, and not just as an upgrade. Is it really necessary to download every single sample that hasn't changed since the release that came out two months ago?

And what is this "have to release a new version of the SDK every two months" that this year, anyway? I'm not upgrading, because I'm a rebel. And because the updates are so inconsequential that they're next to useless. And because it seems stupid, since I just upgraded to June 2005, and it's not even August, yet they're calling it the August update.

I'm just bitter.

Quote:Original post by Drakex
What I never quite understood is why they have to release every SDK update as the entire SDK, and not just as an upgrade. Is it really necessary to download every single sample that hasn't changed since the release that came out two months ago?

So what, you want them to have individual upgrade installers for the past five releases? *Plus* the full installer? They have indeed done a lot to boil down the filesize - it's down to 170mb this time. The uninstall time has decreased, as well. Considering the percentage of developers that have high-speed connections, I don't reallys see the problem.

Some releases aren't as feature-laden, but the DX team has already stated that they will not hold up a bi-montly release for any late content. Which is nice, because it will always be on time. If you use PRT, I recommend getting this release, because there are some good upgrades included.

The new IrradianceVolume sample seems cool, but the preprocessing is going to take forever...you may want to let this one run overnight [wink]

Is it that time already?!?

Quote:Original post by Drakex
What I never quite understood is why they have to release every SDK update as the entire SDK, and not just as an upgrade.

Similar to what circlesoft said... I think the official line on this (it was discussed on one of the pubic/official NGs/mailing lists) was that it might make things slightly easier for some developers, but the end result is that it'd just make things much more difficult for everyone concerned.

MS would have to maintain, test, deploy various versions (no small challenge) and we end-users would have to pay much more attention to how we update the SDK - selecting the right download, installing in the correct order etc...

Quote:Original post by Drakex
And what is this "have to release a new version of the SDK every two months" that this year, anyway? I'm not upgrading, because I'm a rebel.

I'm still using the December 2004 SDK update. I have all the subsequent ones sitting on my machine, but I've not done any more than have a quick look.

Also, I don't think anyone is assuming that people will upgrade every two months - and in practice I don't think anyone will (As mentioned, I'm now 4 releases behind).

Basically, you pick the SDK version that is available at the time you need it (e.g. at the start of development) and use it - if something bigger/better/cooler comes along in the interim then upgrade. In support of this, I had to stop upgrading in December because I need a solid development platform for our project - I don't have the time to swap SDK's mid-development anymore, it just causes too much trouble. Secondly, due to the nature of my work the new SDK contents, whilst interesting to me personally, are of no use to the project I'm working on...

Remember that the changes are not always big new features or samples - improvements/optimizations/[minor] bug fixing to the D3DX library (especially the HLSL compiler and effect framework) now appear on a 2 month cycle rather than the previous annual (or whatever) cycle.


The "DirectX Viewer" tool looks like an interesting development.

Jack