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OffTopic > Windows-based editor: OpenGL or DirectX?

#161828 - DiscoStew - Fri Aug 15, 2008 3:07 am

Wasn't quite sure where to put this post, so I put it in the OT forums to be safe.

I've gotten to a point in my NDS programming where I need to create an editor for handling a large amount of data for creating/editing, and from what I've seen, I think I may go with C#, because of it's ability in quickly making a user interface. However, because of the need to work in a 3D environment and rendering it, which should I go? OpenGL or DirectX?

I was thinking of OpenGL, mainly because of using such similar functions with the NDS in programming the engine that the data will run off of. Then there is DirectX, which for years I have not touched, and to make matters worse, I hadn't even touched the 3D aspect of it before. Unlike OpenGL for C# (from what I've searched), there seems to be a lot more resources with DirectX and C#, as well as support for it.
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#161829 - ingramb - Fri Aug 15, 2008 3:53 am

C# rocks for making gui apps. The tao framework has nice OpenGL bindings for C#, including a winforms OpenGL window. You could also look at XNA, which is kinda a Direct X style api for making games in C#. The way I understand it, managed Direct X is mostly depreciated in favor of XNA.

#161830 - tepples - Fri Aug 15, 2008 4:01 am

So based solely on ingramb's post, I'd recommend XNA for anything that you plan to port to Xbox 360, and OpenGL for anything else because Wii, DS, PS3, PSP, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux all use GL or something like it. In this case, you're making an editor for a DS game, so that tips the scale a bit in favor of GL.
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#161837 - DiscoStew - Fri Aug 15, 2008 5:58 am

Didn't know about the Tao framework, so I'll take a look into it. Considering the possibility of me making a condensed version of the editor on the NDS itself (if I ever get that far), OpenGL should have been my only option. :P
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#161855 - DiscoStew - Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:02 pm

Well, I got the Tao framework installed (version 2.1.0), but for some reason, I can't add it in to my C# project. It continually says it is not valid. However, would running Visual Studio 2003 be the problem, in that it is an old IDE?
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#161856 - elhobbs - Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:10 pm

DiscoStew wrote:
Well, I got the Tao framework installed (version 2.1.0), but for some reason, I can't add it in to my C# project. It continually says it is not valid. However, would running Visual Studio 2003 be the problem, in that it is an old IDE?
Isn't VS 2003 .net 1.x only? I want to say you need VS 2005 or higher. Can anyone confirm that?

#161858 - DiscoStew - Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:18 pm

I just checked online, and the .NET framework for VS 2003 only goes up to 1.1, while VS 2005 works with .NET 2.0.

Bummer....
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