[Ohrrpgce] Problem starting gfx_directx

[Ralph Versteegen]

2009/12/23 Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>:
> 2009/12/23 James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com>:
>> I was just testing out a windows build with gfx_directx gfx_sdl on a
>> computer with directx 9.0c installed (according to dxdiag). When I run
>> game.exe it says:
>>
>> "This application has failed to start because d3dx9_41.dll was not
>> found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."
>>
>> When I click okay on it, then game.exe starts up okay falling back on
>> gfx_sdl
>>
>> Any idea why this might happen?
>>
>> ---
>> James Paige
>
> That's interesting, I was under the impression that loading
> gfx_directx.dll would silently fail if its dependencies weren't
> available. Luckily, it's quite simple to check in backends.bas whether
> d3dx9_41.dll (the august 2009, I think, release of the Direct3D 9
> utility library) is present before attempting to load gfx_direct.dll,
> and I was originally planning to do.

Oh, and to answer your question, having directx 9.0c up to date does
not necessarily mean that the necessary libraries are installed.
Microsoft releases a new version of the utility library every few
months, for the last 5 years, and you have exactly the right version
installed. You can install it by installing the "DirectX End-User
Runtime".

Also, it is possible to statically link an old version of the library.
This results in a larger dll, which compresses to about 290kb, instead
of the current one which compresses to about 90kb. We could provide
this alternative version for download somewhere, in case people want
to use gfx_directx or distribute with large games. Tricky question.