Hi,

I'm trying to set float arrays to my HLSL parameter arrays.

Example:

The fx/effect file:

#define MaxPointLights 2

float3		PointLightPos[MaxPointLights];

In my code (C++) I achieve the expected resulted one of these 2 ways:

// one way

mEffect->SetFloatArray("PointLightPos[0]", myfloatarray, 3);

// another way

D3DXHANDLE param = mEffect->GetParameterElement("PointLightPos", 0);
mEffect->SetFloatArray(param, myfloatarray, 3);

Both ways work, where the 2nd is the most flexible (in the 1st one I need for hard code "PointLightPos[0]", [1] etc (or make a D3DXHANDLE adding strings etc.).

My question;

Is the 2nd option I do the best one, or is there a better/ easier way to set the element of a parameter in a d3dxeffect?

The second one is better as long as you cache the handle to the parameter. You are essentially looking up the text based name of the parameter, so if you only do that once at startup, and then set the value with the handle thereafter, then you should be doing very well from an efficiency standpoint.

IIRC, the handle is just a single integer value that maps easily to the handle. You won't see any negative performance effects due to the usage of the handles - back in my D3D9 engine I did the exact same thing that we are discussing and it was perfectly fine.

thanks, will implement it