No DirectX on .Net CF 3.7

[Nosfi]

I've seen that .Net CF 3.7 doesnt have the directx ( Direct 3d) libraries and i was wondering if microsoft decided to delete them and not continue using directx with .net cf or if it's only because the 3.7 version is a beta and lacks many things.

Apart of that, i don't know what new things has 3.7 version, is there any changelog? because if there aren't important changes, i consider it may be better to continue using .net cf 3.5.

[TheXenocide]

I'm curious if anybody has any more information on this matter. I'm currently using a slightly older version of NRGZ's EnergyROM with a Touch Pro and am unable to use Diamond Hologram because of a TypeLoadException stating that Microsoft.WindowsMobile.DirectX can not be found.

There's a chance that the rip of the unreleased .NET CF 3.7 was incomplete (though the GAC is pretty straightforward) or the pre-release state of it could also be used to rationalize missing assemblies, but if I were to take a random crack at it, I would guess that they're working on XNA for Windows CE/Mobile since it's based on CF and runs on Windows, XBox 360 and Zune it would be a logical step for Microsoft (just as they stopped supporting Managed DirectX on desktop editions), though it does seem a bit unfair to developers of existing applications since the desktop edition was not shipped with the framework, but rather with the DirectX SDK whereas this was deployed in the framework.

Is there a chance that someone could test using the 3.5 version on a 3.7 runtime? If the CLRs are compatible (and they seem to be) then it should still be able to load the assembly, and if binding works at all similar to the desktop framework we could probably just copy it into the directory of the application path, rather than GACing it.

[TheXenocide]

After some searching around this is better discussed in the original CF 3.7 thread since it has been brought up. I'll repost my thoughts there and see if someone can help with experimenting.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=4060348

[nuke1]

Not sure if this should be posted in the aforementioned thread, but it has long been rumoured that MS would phase out Direct3D by Windows Mobile 7, in favour of OpenGL and OpenGLES. Hope this helps at all.

[TheXenocide]

Well, I'm not so sure MS will ever officially support GL since it's a "competing" product to DirectX. In fact, to me it seems very unlikely. While they have been supporting community solutions and open source work more lately, generally Microsoft makes an effort to have developers use Microsoft technologies which in turn makes applications dependent on Microsoft and therefore users dependent on Microsoft. They have (arguably) the most powerful, useful and time-saving development tools which keeps many developers (like myself) developing applications that are inherently designed for their operating systems.

XNA, on the other hand is a Microsoft technology that is gaining a lot of traction and is directly related to the .NET Compact Framework, which is what leads me to believe they'll choose that route. With the right love and care a single XNA game can be played on PC, XBOX 360 and Zune and it seems likely that supporting the platform that .NET CF was first implemented on is only a matter of time. It's been rather surprising to many in the XNA community that MS hasn't already supported it, since their original press releases strongly indicated support for it. One thing's for sure: while there is an XNA Game Studio built on top of Visual Studio, there will probably not be any MS initiative to build a GL game studio.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/mar04/03-24xnalaunchpr.mspx

[TheXenocide]

To be fair though, that doesn't necessarily mean they won't implement the Windows Mobile version of XNA using OpenGL ES, though it seems likely that the architecture is designed more toward DirectX. Still hardware manufacturers could play a huge role in this decision.