Good day. I am interested in developing a Direct X (particularly Direct 3D and Direct Input)enabled application on a Windows CE 5.0 embedded device employing an x86 intel processor and extreme 2 graphic adaptor. Unfortunately, the BSP (board support package) deployed on the device does not include a Direct X component. My questions are two: 1. After checking the Microsoft website, it is unclear as to whether the full desktop DirectX 9c SDK can be installed on a Win CE platform. It appears that a Win CE version entitled DirectXPAK has been created for embedded devices built around the intel xscale processor. Although our device is running Win CE 5.0, it is built around the x86 architecture. Can I deploy the desktop version on our device. 2. If I can deploy the desktop version of DirectX 9c SDK on our device, because it is not included in the BSP, I will be forced to install it in NORFLASH, otherwise when our device is restarted, and changes made to the system directory structure will not be preserved. Is it possible to install in non-default location or will API refrences cause "... not found" errors when attempting to link/compile code (if I can even get this far) because of incorrect paths? Any assistance in understanding this matter will be greatly appreciated.

The DirectX runtime for Windows 2000/XP is not compatible with Windows CE. As your device features an x86 processor you may consider using Windows Embedded instead of Windows CE.

Quote:Original post by S1CA
As mentioned, the version of DirectX intended for desktop versions of Windows (Vista, XP, 2000) isn't compatible with mobile or embedded versions of Windows (CE, Mobile, and related sub-flavours).

Direct3D Mobile is the version of the D3D API intended for use with CE: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa921056.aspx

I don't think there is a version of DirectInput for mobile platforms.

Thanks for the advisement. This is the device I would like to develop for: http://www.moxa.com/news_events/connection/2007/10/x86_based_embedded_computer.htm . This is more of an industrial pc than an embedded device.

Currently, I already have an application previously written using DX 9c (D3D and DInput). I would simply like to port this over to my embedded device running Win CE 5.0 (Windows XP Embedded is not an option). According to your previous posting, I run into two problems:

1. There is no DInput version available for mobile devices. Therefore, it appears as though I need to design my own input system. Do you know if there are any popular input managers available for Win CE 5.0?
2. Preserving the D3D deployment after unit has restarted since it is not included in BSP. When D3D mobile is installed does it may any changes to system directory structre or can it be installed where user determines?

Additionally, my desire is to simply display some primitive/model and allow user to manipulate the position and shading on primitive using some singular keystrokes. The purpose is to create a simple demo displaying the graphical processing power of the device.

**bump **

any suggestions?

There are three parts to Direct3D Mobile:

1) D3DM Runtime DLL
2) D3DM Kernel-side component (statically linked into GWES.exe)
3) D3DM driver DLL

The first and second items are supplied by Microsoft for OEMs to include in their OS images for their devices. The third is supplied by the OEM (or a 3rd party) to take advantage of any sort of graphics hardware on the device.

Even if you were able to generate an OS image for your device using Platform Builder and include the runtime and kernel side D3DM components, you'd still need to come up with an x86 D3DM driver from somewhere that supported the Extreme 2 graphics hardware.

There is a D3DM Reference driver shipped with Platform Builder that you could use for development purposes (you can't redistribute this component), but it is horribly slow (based on DX8 RefRast) and might be of little use for an interative 3D application.