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Just an introduction:

Back on January, some weeks after when LightEngine's CTO was released (DarkEngine at the time) I started working on a GUI plugin (that would then be called LightUI). Due to DGDK slow text rendering, I had to work with GDI+ for the graphics (DGDK wouldn't handle 5 different text colors very well). Then, due to DGDK inability to load from memory streams, I had to save every image to a file, then load it to and Image then a Sprite. Just too slow! So I gave up after a couple of months (to better focus on LightEngine).

Knowing about Cloggy's plugin for DBPro (on this forum) gave me a hope, and I knew DGDK.NET had a command to get the D3D device, although I thought I would have to learn a lot of C++ to get it work, but i had an idea! I installed an oldie april 2006 DX SDK and searched for my Managed DirectX 9 books (I have both Miller's books, but never really read the second or got as far as page 100 from the first). But it was time to go to university!

Got really bored in the class, and turned on the laptop to explore DX docs... Yeah, it had a constructor compatible with DGDK.NET. And yes, I was able to make a small progress!

Attached is a demo + plugin (I call it LightTextEx as LightEngine has a LightText class). LightEngine is NOT required (although Managed DirectX is). It prints a text 500 times every sync (something like 30.000 a second), changing the color everytime.

It might look slow, but don't yell at your Video card, I thinks this only depends on CPU+RAM, these are my results:





PS: I think I'll throw my radeon in the garbage, LOL!

It should be "A better TEXT renderer"

Ok, just to add some info: Although this demo is simple, I don't think it's useless (yep, the plugin is almost useless). But I think this shows that it's doable with 100% managed code!

I'll have more time to investigate it on the weekend (exams and band show during this week), but I think it may be possible to port the Managed DirectX UI (that came with the SDK) to DGDK.NET, and THAT will be a great thing, because it will be a great addition "windows like" interfaces (and as far as I know, it can be customized by the use of a DDS texture).

I'd like to know what everybody think!
Is anyone interested on a new D3D Text plugin?
And what about a port from DX CustomUI?

Cheers!
Thiago

I got this:

LoaderLock was detected in LightTextEx.Initialize(GetDarkGDKGlobals());

Something I need?

Yep, I forgot to mention:

-Open the Exceptions menu (Debug->Exception)
-Open Managed
-Uncheck the throw for OS Loader Lock

VS 2005 and Managed DirectX don't like the other that much, I got this from MS's forums, but it is ok.

OMG...... Thats just perfect kBessa