Hello all, I am working as fast as I can on finishing the commercial release of my game CellZenith (recent Image of the Day.) The game requires d3dx_30.dll to run. The exe will fail to start if clicked on, returning an error message about this dll. I do not plan for there to be any installation sequence for this game; I intend for it to be distributable as a standalone exe that can be started straight up. It is important to note that I am unable to have an installation program because I am using Visual C++ 2005 Express, which does not include the ability to make these. But how do I handle the problem that a lot of people don't have d3dx_30.dll? For my demo, I have just been telling testers where to go on msdn to download the necessary file. But would that be acceptable for a commercial game? I can't just put d3dx_30.dll in the folder with my game, of course, because that is prohibited by Microsoft. I wish that I could just have my game exe install the directX runtime on startup if it found it missing. The problem is, of course, that the exe won't start up at all if d3dx_30.dll isn't already installed in the first place . . . Can anyone help me out with an idea of how to handle this problem? Thanks very much for any suggestions! -synth_cat

I've heard about using third-party installers. Which one would you recommend?

I'm not exactly sure how these installers work - do they just pack everything into a handly setup.exe which I can distribute on its own (everything except the DX runtime, I mean)?

1. Look into the LoadLibrary() and GetProcAddress() [Win32] functions, those allow your application to check for existence of the specific DLL and handle and present the the error to the user in a more user friendly way (i.e. "to run this game you need DirectX 9.abc with D3DX xyz" rather than "missing DLL, D3DXblah.blah" or "missing DLL export D3DX@YAPPQQ@1@XeCreateBlah".

2. Delay loading the D3DX DLL will allow you to do similar - the compiler inserts the LoadLibrary()/GetProcAddress() stuff for you, but you have less control over where the check happens.

3. If you don't find the DLL(s) you require with the above, prompt the user with the relevent URL to download those missing components.

Wouldn't it be possible to just get into the third-party installer and tell it to run setup.exe (from within the DX redist folder) as part of its installation routine? This way I wouldn't have to write any DirectSetup code.

Just curious . . .

Quote:Original post by synth_cat
Wouldn't it be possible to just get into the third-party installer and tell it to run setup.exe (from within the DX redist folder) as part of its installation routine? This way I wouldn't have to write any DirectSetup code.

It all depends what "third-party installer" you're referring to.

Every installer I've used has had some form of customization built in - be it simple batch scripts through to a full DLL-based plugin architecture.

Best go check the documentation for whatever installer you want to use [wink]

Richard Thomson (DX MVP) had a good whitepaper on creating an installer for DX using freely available tools. I can't find the URL now, but maybe some google-fu will sort out...

hth
Jack