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Dark GDK / Advanced Shader tutorial. No object displayed!

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CPPP
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Posted: 1st Dec 2008 05:15
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The tutorial compiled without errors, but nothing is displayed. Just a black window. All the other tutorial files worked and after reading a ton of threads about problems with the shaders in GDK I suspect that they just don't work on some system.
I use VC 2008 (downloaded it a couple of days ago)
I use Vista 64 and nvidia 8800 GT with the latest 180 drivers, if that has any known problems with it.
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CPPP
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Posted: 1st Dec 2008 13:57
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I did a rebuild of the project and saw that there were som warning messages during the linking stage:

shaderdata.lib(Camera.obj) : warning LNK4204: 'c:\Program Files (x86)\The Game Creators\Dark GDK\Tutorials\Shaders - Advanced\Shaders\Debug\vc80.pdb' is missing debugging information for referencing module; linking object as if no debug info

This was one of the the five warning messages that all are similar in the way that they can't reference the vc80.pdb

Took a look inside the project map and saw that vc90.pdb was there.

Should I have to set some paths for the compiler or is the vc80.pdb file missing?

As I said, there are no errors and the program runs, but since the shaders can't be accessed, nothing happens except a black window.
The basic tutorial for shaders runs fine though(as the rest of the tutorials preceding it). And I experimented a round quite a bit with the basic shader tutorial without any problems so there are no other strange problems with my system.
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Bishop
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2008 03:55
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I think what's happening is that you are using VC++ Express 2008 whereas those tutorials were compiled for VC++ Express 2005. Could be some more advanced functions with shaders are bugging out because of the version difference?

Of course, I'm just guessing. Will check it out when I get home =P


Tux is my guildmaster.
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CPPP
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2008 06:14
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Yes, I use VC++ Express 2008, since the combination of the two (Dark GDK and visual studio express 2008) is what is offered/suggested at the microsoft website.

Bad PR for dark GDK if the only really advanced part from the tutorials, pixel shaders, when it comes to the 3d engine doesn't work! If it is that. Maybe I should try the old Visual c 2005 if it is still available...

I'm new to 3d games programing (well almost, dabbled a little with the really slow original dark basic many years ago, but that doesn't almost count).
Although I'm quite used to programing in C/C++(for 15 years), so going in the direction of the XNA engine where I have to start coding in C# isn't for me, even though it has a lot of functionality, but seems to be lacking the functions for some of the basic stuff that GDK has, ie more coding needed to perform the same tasks.

I also checked Ogre out, but that was way too low level. A bunch of stuff had to be defined and declared before anything could happen. A lot of math too. Seemed really complicated!

So, if these things with the shaders get fixed, I will stick to the GDK. Lots of stuff can be done without them anyways, when I am still learning about the 3d world of things.
(Have done a simple 2d game years ago)
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CPPP
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2008 21:10
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Update:
Just to be sure that it the shaders by TGC doesn't work on my nvidia card (with the 180) drivers I downloaded the trial version of Dark Basic Professional and compiled the ShaderDemo. It ran well, displaying the shaded brickwall.

Some possible reasons :

a) The advanced shader tutorials files not being compatible with VC 2008. References in some way seems to be made to VC7, which is part of VC2005.

b) The OS itself. I'm using Vista64.

c) Some paths are not correctly set. Although I doubt it since all the other tutorials run without problems.

I have also tried to download the Visual C 2005 runtime, but i didn't seem to install.

Gonna try to install everything into xp

By the way, is it possible to use Visual C 2005 for GDK?
Maybe I should download and install visual C 2005 on xp and extract VC07.dll from there?
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The Real Abaddon
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2008 14:15
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working fine on vc express and studio 2008 that's what i can confirm. the problem might be from the paths or windows vista as i know that dark shader does not work on windows vista.
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CPPP
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2008 15:42
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Quote: "working fine on vc express and studio 2008 that's what i can confirm. the problem might be from the paths or windows vista as i know that dark shader does not work on windows vista. "


Strange that the DBPRO shader demo works to compile then,if dark shader doesn't work on vista.
I'll have to go into my old xp and do a new install and see if it works there. The bad thing is that I have to register a new MSN account too, since I'm already registred with this one.
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CPPP
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2008 16:29
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Ok!
Just to check if my Vista (64) maybe is the bad boy I installed VC 2008 (not registred yet though) and GDK to my EEE 901 which has Xp installed.
It worked!
Building time was incredibly slow compard to my quadcore, and the same warnings appeared in the linking process, but when it ran it actually showed that shaded object.

So, I get it, that GDK isn't compatible with Vista64, then?
At least not for the advanced stuff like pixelshaders, which is like it's a 2002 version of Dark basic with DX7 support...
Can anybody confirm that shaders (like in the advanced tutorial for example) actually doesn't work in Vista? Both the 32 and 64 bit versions is interesting since I rather use Vista 32 over XP as a last resort.

Or I could just try to learn nvidias CG language to make my own shaders. Excellent books and tutorials to get started with that at nvidia anyway.

(BTW I tried to run VC 2008(in my Vista 64 pc) in compatibility mode as Winxp sp2, with no success)
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