Re: Deployment from MDX Sample Framework

From: Kev (Kev_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 02/04/05 

Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2005 09:55:07 -0800

Some more info for anyone interested:

Now I have the DX SDK installed on an "offending" machine, I can Install the
source of one of the samples, the UI Sample to be precise.

Running it in VS 2003 I find that it runs correctly and NOT in reference
mode, but in Hardware. Great. Why?

So I review the IsDeviceAcceptable Method and see that, like me, they have
specified that it must be a device that supports Alpha Blending.

Hmm - it looked as if this card doesn;t support that though so I look
through the docs on what "QueryPostPixelShaderBlending" actually means: It
means this:

QueryPostPixelShaderBlending 524288 Queries the resource to verify support
for post pixel shader blending. If Manager.CheckDeviceFormat fails with
QueryPostPixelShaderBlending, post pixel blending operations are not
supported. These operations include alpha test, pixel fog, render-target
blending, color write enable, and dither.

So it looks like its a whole host of things from Fog to Dither. OK so I
guess that this card DOES actually support this after all as this method
clearly succeeds.

So it must be that light I wanted then, eh. And sure enough, I add this code
to the "isDeviceAcceptable" method:

if (caps.MaxActiveLights == 0)
    return false;

and low and behold - now the sample will only run in Reference mode, just
like my program.

So what does MaxActiveLights mean exactly? the docs simply say:

"a value that indicates the maximum number of lights that can be active
simultaneously"

But this card says "0". It supports no lights. At all. I *think* what it
REALLY means is that it doesn't support HARDWARE lights, which would be right
if it doesn't support Hardware T&L.

So again my assumption was wrong: I knew my app needed to display a light or
two, so naturally, I checked the card could support this. What I didn't want
was for it to fail if it couldn't support this in Hardware - I would be quite
happy if the light had to be processed in software - no big deal - at leas
the app would run.

Kev

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