Hi Phil,
Unfortunately no. DirectX and SDL are quite a bit different in lots of
ways that would make it difficult to support DirectX and SDL at the same
time. For example, take something simple like panning a sound to the
left or right. DirectSound and SDL Mixer have two completely different
methods of handling this.
In DirectX DirectSound to pan a sound you merely need to pass the pan
control a value from -10000, max left, to 10000, max right. It would
look something like this.
// Center the sound in the right speaker.
sound.Pan = 5000;
SDL Mixer doesn't do it that way. You pan sounds by controling the
stereo channels independantly of each other. Each channel has a range of
0, silence, to 250, full volume. Anyway, to do what I did above using
the SDL Audio support it would look like this.
// Center the sound in the right speaker.
channel.SetPanning(0, 125);
Obviously, the two methods aren't remotely similar, and this is a fairly
miner procedure all things considered. When we get into subjects like
SDL Input vs DirectInput we are comparing apples and oranges.
In my personal opinion SDL input support is much easier to work with
than DirectX. Even though SDL Input doesn't yet support force feedback I
rather like how they handle joysticks, game pads, and stearing wheels on
the Windows side. It is much easier to work with than DirectInput by a
long shot. To enable a joystick using SDL Input all I need to do is add
the following lines to my engine.
Events.JoystickAxisMotion +=
new EventHandler<JoystickAxisEventArgs>(this.JoystickAxisChanged);
Events.JoystickButtonDown += new
EventHandler<JoystickButtonEventArgs>(this.JoystickButtonDown);
joystick = Joysticks.OpenJoystick(0);
This is infinitely easier and less complicated than the way I would do
it using DirectInput. With DirectInput to do the same thing it would
look something like this.
// Attempt to locate a compatible joystick/game pad.
foreach (DeviceInstance instance in
Manager.GetDevices(DeviceClass.GameControl,
EnumDevicesFlags.AttachedOnly))
{
// Grab the first game controller we find.
joystick = new Microsoft.DirectX.DirectInput.Device(instance.InstanceGuid);
// Exit the loop.
break;
}
// If we found a joystick
// proceed with initialization.
if (joystick != null)
{
// Initialize joystick state object.
stickstate = new JoystickState();
// Setup button state array.
buttons = new bool[12];
// Set joystick data format.
joystick.SetDataFormat(DeviceDataFormat.Joystick);
// Set the cooperative level.
joystick.SetCooperativeLevel(this, CooperativeLevelFlags.Background |
CooperativeLevelFlags.NonExclusive);
// Set the axis range.
// Normally a range of 10000 is standard
// for most joystick and game pad devices.
foreach (DeviceObjectInstance doi in joystick.Objects)
{
// If the joystick axis is not 0
// set it to 5000 units per stick direction.
if ((doi.ObjectId & (int)DeviceObjectTypeFlags.Axis) != 0)
{
// Set axis range.
joystick.Properties.SetRange(ParameterHow.ById,
doi.ObjectId, new InputRange(-5000, 5000));
}
}
// Set joystick axis flag.
joystick.Properties.AxisModeAbsolute = true;
// Aquire the joystick for use.
joystick.Acquire();
}
// If initialization failed
// set joystick to null
// and continue with normal operation.
else
{
joystick = null;
}
Smile. That is just a strait grab any joystick we see piece of code
using DirectX. That doesn't have any special features like force
feedback or some of the more advanced features of DirectInput. As you
can see from a programming point of view DirectX is infinitely more
complicated and not at all compatible with SDL. Part of the reason I
made the switch is SDL is much much easier to learn, use, and it
supports Mac OS and Linux as well as Windows. I think eventually
switching to it will pay off as it has its own advantages/disadvantages
here.
Cheers!
---
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