Can't take it anymore. Why is developing such a pain?
Allright, that's it! I haven't been so angry since...well, I don't know!
I develop games with VisualStudio for almost 6 years now, and have always had problems. So far I somehow managed to bypass them, but not this time.
First of all: All the controls I use in my dialogs look ugly (Win98 style). Why don't I get cool Vista controls like every other application?
Secondly: Suddenly I can't run most of my own apps anymore. I always get messages like "MSVCP90D.DLL is missing, bla bla". But of course that's not true. I found multiple instances of this DLL on my computer.
Thirdly: My apps never work on other computers than mine. There's always strange messages that say: "The application configuration is incorrect...." or something like that.
Fourthly: I read about CLR-DLLS, Debug DLLs, Manifest files and other strange stuff everywhere on the internet. What's all this about? Why do I need this crap?
Is it asked to much that I just want to compile my code into a single .exe file that will run on every PC?
Ok, I admit that I'm having a big lack of knowledge here that makes my life so hard ;-)
Is there some good literature that can teach me how to deal with the problems mentioned above? All my GameDev and C++ books don't handly stuff like this.....
Move to another language. Seriously -- give python a try. And I know what you're going to say: "But python's so slow I can't make a game in that lol." But it IS fast enough and you'll have more fun.
When you install Visual C++ you have the option to install MSDN. Do so. Most of your questions can be answered in there. For example, MSDN for .NET 2003 comes with an article called "Deployment Walkthroughs" which contains a bunch of walkthroughs on how to deploy applications to other computers. MSDN for .NET 2005 takes it a step further and has an entire tree of documents under "Development Tools and Languages/Visual Studio/Visual C++/Deployment", which incidentally contains an article called "Understanding Dependencies of a Visual C++ Application" that talks about the C runtime DLLs.
Quote:Original post by VanKurt
Is it asked to much that I just want to compile my code into a single .exe file that will run on every PC?
Yes, it's too much to ask. This isn't 1968.
If you're not willing to put in the work - or to understand the technologies, and the challenges they were designed to address - then quit. There are thousands of others ready and willing to take your place.
Quote:Original post by SiCrane
...an article called "Understanding Dependencies of a Visual C++ Application" that talks about the C runtime DLLs.
Linkified
Quote:I just want to compile my code into a single .exe file that will run on every PC?
Ah, such a noble dream! Jokes aside, this is a lofty goal -- better to establish parameters for the most suitable system specs to run your game on. For example, if you make sure it works on XP SP2 and Vista, for users with ps 2.0 using Direct3D9 -- then great, that's a good number of people who can play your game. But you'll have to consider stuff like 'how much memory does it chew up' because that will limit target audience -- as well as what sort of CPU you expect people to have. Finally, if we could squish everything into one file, that might be kinda nice -- but it's avoided generally for a few reasons, and here are two I can think of from the top of my head:
1) if stuff is broken up into units, more than one person can work on them at the same time. Nicely modular.
2) if you ever have to patch your game and maybe overwrite files on a user's computer...be nice if they don't have to download 500mb of textures and sounds that aren't going to change...when it is only the (perhaps) 20mb main executable that has had code tweaks. This is not a huge issue for indy and coding for fun, but you can imagine why you'd want to avoid forcing people to download redundant stuff all over again...
Finally, that annoying message about incorrect application configs -- often has something to do with side-by-side assemblies. I won't explain those (others have done so already in other places much better than I could) so I will just linky to MSDN. The actual page on deployment will give you the full explanation of how you can deploy your applications and things to be careful of when you're doing so: Deploying VC++ applications
Anyways, hth!
edit: snap, beaten!
~Shiny
Quote:Original post by OluseyiQuote:Original post by VanKurt
Is it asked to much that I just want to compile my code into a single .exe file that will run on every PC?
Yes, it's too much to ask. This isn't 1968.
If you're not willing to put in the work - or to understand the technologies, and the challenges they were designed to address - then quit. There are thousands of others ready and willing to take your place.
Why doesn't my machine accept 8 row punched card, and I need to give it one with 9 rows?
Why is there an extra hole every 6 ticks when it should be two extra holes every 5 ticks?
Why does it suddenly take 37 days to get my execution mailed back, when it only took 34 days with the previous system?
What do you mean your computer has only 512 bytes of memory? You've bought two warehouses to build the data center?
Different era, same problems.
Quote:Thirdly: My apps never work on other computers than mine. There's always strange messages that say: "The application configuration is incorrect...." or something like that.
Put the string you put in quotes into google.
Quote:Secondly: Suddenly I can't run most of my own apps anymore. I always get messages like "MSVCP90D.DLL is missing, bla bla". But of course that's not true. I found multiple instances of this DLL on my computer.
Put "DLL search path" into google.
Quote:Fourthly: I read about CLR-DLLS, Debug DLLs, Manifest files and other strange stuff everywhere on the internet. What's all this about? Why do I need this crap?
Look up MVS help on the compiler settings.
Quote:Is it asked to much that I just want to compile my code into a single .exe file that will run on every PC?
Yes. Of course, MS wanted to fix that, but they got called evil, and sued.
In my experience, MSVC++ has a lot of problems. It's probably easiest to use a standard compiler (gcc), and forgo MFC etc. (You can write your own version of MFC with the functionality for a game in 30 minutes) This would solve your .DLL problem, because your only using those .DLLs you explicitly specify. I use Dev-C++ and gcc with Directx 9.0c and have absolutely no problems with portability or .DLLs.
Quote:Original post by gamer202
In my experience, MSVC++ has a lot of problems.
VS6 did. VS2005 is pretty commonly regarded as an excellent IDE / compiler.
There are hoops to jump for compiling a distributable .exe with the Express edition but it's all stuff that's clearly spelled out in the online FAQs.
-me
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