O.k., so I was wondering, for those of you who use the .NET platform, I've been with VB for a few years, but haven't picked up VB.NET yet. I had JUST started work on a basic graphics engine, but halted until I could decide whether to do it in VB.NET w/DX9 or just stick with VB6. but VB6 can't use DX9, so that's got me leaning toward VB.NET. Is it worth the change? Is it faster than VB6? Is the OO system easier to work with than the COM of the VB6 platform? Thanks in advance for the input.
VB.NET and DX9 better than VB6 and DX8?
- Thread starter Valon
- Start date
Machaira
Junior Contributor
Better - Yes, IMO
Faster - you won't notice much difference more than likely
Once you get used to the .NET Framework, you should love the OO features that VB.NET gives you. Still lacking true pointers (when are they going to listen to us!!!
), but, it's way beyond what VB6 gives you.
I started putting together some stuff on RPG programming using VB6 and DX8. I scrapped it and rewrote everything in VB.NET and DX9.
Faster - you won't notice much difference more than likely
Once you get used to the .NET Framework, you should love the OO features that VB.NET gives you. Still lacking true pointers (when are they going to listen to us!!!
), but, it's way beyond what VB6 gives you.I started putting together some stuff on RPG programming using VB6 and DX8. I scrapped it and rewrote everything in VB.NET and DX9.
mutant
Ultimate Contributor
DirectX9 contains many updated things, like HLSL. It is newer then DX8 which means it will contain more features, will be better overall. I would suggest you go with DX9. The speeds of Managed DX almost reach the speeds of C++ with DX, so in terms of speed it is not bad either.
Machaira
Junior Contributor
I was watching an episode of the .NET Show which discussed DirectX and the guy from MS said the Managed version was around 95-98% of the speed of unmanaged. Pretty good.
samsmithnz
Senior Contributor
Machaira said:
Still lacking true pointers (when are they going to listen to us!!!
? why do you want pointers in VB? It would ruin a perfectly good language that has tryed to not expose that sort of crap. If you really want to use pointers maybe you should switch to c++.
Nerseus
Danner
You CAN use pointers in VB, like you always could. Not sure why you'd want to if you don't have to (hence the managed version of DirectX9).
I would go with VB.NET and DX9 over VB6 UNLESS you wanted DirectDraw. If you *really* want DirectDraw, I'd probably stick with DX7 and VB6. That's just me.
-Nerseus
I would go with VB.NET and DX9 over VB6 UNLESS you wanted DirectDraw. If you *really* want DirectDraw, I'd probably stick with DX7 and VB6. That's just me.
-Nerseus