Subject: Re: DirectX and mingw..
From: [email-masked] (Factory)

28 Apr 1998 04:59:06 -0700
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References: <[email-masked]>
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To: [email-masked]

At 13:57 26/04/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Greetings,
>
>	First some clarification...when I refer to mingw32 within the context of 
>this email, unless otherwise noted, I am referring to the bare bones 
>minimum mingw32 header upgrade that, under Cygwin32 b18, copied the 
>Cygwin32 Win32 headers to the Mingw32 directory.  The compiler used was 
>the Cygwin32 compiler/linker combination...not a minimalist package.

  Hmm well I am using the mingw version from
ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/

>To clarify...
>
>> >Mingw32 and Cygwin32, out-of-the-box,  do not as you proabably 
>> >already know, support DirectX in any form.
>
>	Here I was referencing Mingw32-gcc...not egcs.  These are two 
>different development environments.  As far as I know, egcs is _not_ a 
>minimalist package, though it can compile and link minimalist source.

  Hmm I thought egcs and gcc are the compilers for the (minimalist) mingw32
and the (non-minimalist) cygwin32..?
  So the compiler shouldn't really matter so much, especially since the 
the l.dll problem doesn't seem to be a compiler problem at all.

>>   Yes, and DirectX doesn't seem to support anything other than VC.. funny
>> that.
>
>	Indeed...it has been a bane in my attempts at porting certain C++ 
>source code that I need to port for WinNT 4.0.
>
>	The actual facts, as I understand them are as follows:
>
>	The MS Platform SDK (DirectX portion) is capable of being compiled and
>linked as C++ for _as long as you use one of the popular commercial
>compilers_ (MS/Borland/Watcom).  

  Well afaik delphi users have to get their directx units from borland to
use directx, MS doesn't support them either.

>	If you do _not_  purchase MS/Borland/Watcom, then you _can not_ generate
>any DirectX based C++ code...even though MS says "a standard 32bit
>compiler" in their documentation.  DJGPP (or course) does not support 
>DirectX and supplements any graphics routines with custom graphics 
>packages such as GFX and Allegro.
  Erm DJGPP is a dos compiler, I would be surprised if any dos application
could use the directx api.

>	Fact, Borland and Watcom have both paid MS gobs of money (in licensing 
>fees, royalties, etc.) to continue to produce compatible compilers (both C 
>and C++).

  Hmm I don't know about that, I think it's more like directx is made for
VC and the other commercial compilers can afford to do the rest of the work
to get it working for their compilers. 

>>   And that would be only useful if I actually had the SDK, which would
>> require sending dollars to MS, since they have decided that letting ppl
>> download the sdk off their site is not cost effective.. hmm...
>
>	This seems strange...have you tried directly accessing the MS SDK via 
>http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/sdk ?  Of course, I am in the US so I 
>haven't had any problems with that.  You might want to give it a try...

  Yeah, that's exactly the site which I went to. They have completely stop
you from dling the sdk, athough it does come up with an order form for the
sdk on cd.

>>   Incidentally someone else mailed me about the problem and he believes
>>   the
>> problem is similar to a loader bug in egcs, hmm guess I'll have to wait
>> for b19 ported, it might fix my problem.
>
>	Hmm...this is news...you aren't using mingw32-gcc?  I guess I needed to 
>be more specific...I am using mingw32-gcc, not egcs.

  Ahh ignore that.. b19 is a version of cygwin, not mingw, which won't help
my problem, since cygwin doesn't get ported to mingw. They are completely
different things.

- Factory (.sig under reconstruction)
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