[Ekemet]

Hi, I would just like to let you guys know some things before I ask my question. I'm actually asking on behalf of my friend who doesn’t know I'm asking. I think he’s too proud to ask for help. So if it sounds like I have no idea what I'm talking about, then you are correct. Also, my knowledge of VB is very limited. Anyway....

He is coding an online game using Visual Basics 6.0 using DirectX. As the person who is actually developing the game play, graphics, sounds etc... I want the game to be as convenient as humanly possible. There is one thing that bothers me. The graphic files we use for the game are .bmp files. As I'm sure you know, .bmp files tend to be...huge. If a person has a bad video card then they wouldn't be able to run the game. We do have the option to let the user load the GFX into system memory, the problem with this is that if they don't have at least 256 RAM, then they can not run the game. If they do have the ram, then they can play the game, but the game really starts to hog the CPU. I asked my friend if we could convert the files in .PNG files and he immediately said 'no'. I asked why and he told me 'DirectX will only support .bmp files and Microsoft is too stubborn to update it'.

Long story short (too late for that I guess), I would like to know: Is there ANY way (other then switching to another language) to make DirectX support .PNG files?

[Advertisements]

Hey, this isnt the answer to your problem, but this is fact, like all good games, you have to have the right specs (specifications), you cannot expect to play "Call Of Duty 2" or any other good new game on a P1, with only 32mb of RAM. I am sure if the game makers of "Call Of Duty 2" could make the game run on P1's, they would, maybe they just cant. I cannot really tell you if you can use .PNG with DirectX support (Im not an expert). I am just giving you this little bit of information that might help. Hope it does.

[Spike]

Hey, this isnt the answer to your problem, but this is fact, like all good games, you have to have the right specs (specifications), you cannot expect to play "Call Of Duty 2" or any other good new game on a P1, with only 32mb of RAM. I am sure if the game makers of "Call Of Duty 2" could make the game run on P1's, they would, maybe they just cant. I cannot really tell you if you can use .PNG with DirectX support (Im not an expert). I am just giving you this little bit of information that might help. Hope it does.

[ricci]

Hi Ekemet,

I'm not a DirectX expert either, but as far as I understand, the graphics engine does not store the image files in memory in a compressed format, no matter how the files are stored on disk. I'll welcome correction if I am wrong, but based on this, it doesn't matter what format you read them in as, they are always going to be stored as uncompressed bitmaps in memory for fast access. Changing your format to PNG will only benefit you by making your program require less disk space.

-Ricci

[MaverickSidewinder]

Exactly...

The essence of the image is .bmp...but it can be compressed in various formats (losing quality and pixel resolution) in other formats like .gif/.jpg/.png

But, since i have never worked with ActiveX files...if .png and .jpg images are supported...

Good Luck