You usually want to avoid retrieving or generally messing with the contents of the depth buffer for various performance reasons.

This is backed up by the fact that, to perform a regular IDirect3DSurface9::Lock() operation you have to create the depth buffer with a "lockable" format (e.g. D3DFMT_D16_LOCKABLE) - and I've come across a fair few bits of hardware that DONT allow this format [headshake]

You can use various pixel shader tricks to effectively copy the depth buffer (or just simultaneously write the depth information) to a texture and then use that as appropriate.

hth
Jack

Quote:Original post by RavNaz
just want the info in a seperate surface to read from.....can this not be done without shaders?

I'm not using my development machine at the moment, so I can't check the details - but you can definitely retrieve the depth stencil surface (as a IDirect3DSurface9), so you might (if you're lucky) be able to StretchRect to another (lockable) surface. Without my docs to hand I can't easily check whether the formats/pools match up [oh]

Although, the simplest method I've seen is that used a lot in shadow mapping algorithms - writing the depth to a texture during the initial rendering phase(s). But, as mentioned, you need to be using a shader-based pipeline for this to be useful...

hth
Jack