Which version of direct x should I use?

Hi, I’m designing a game and I’m wondering which version of DirectX to use for user input and sound. 8 or 9? Will 9 be heavy for a little bit old computers (like PentiumII)?
Thank you.

As far as I know, DX9 is better than DX8.x for graphics only. As a result, I try to use the simpler DX8.1 for input and sound. As for Direct3D, maybe a directX forum is a better place to ask!

Three other projects are OpenAL, OpenNL, and OpenIL, respectively for Audio, Networking, and Input. Though only OpenAL seems to be around any longer.

There is a DX Utility library with DX9 that makes creating the Sound and Input stuff, relatively trivial. You will need to pass it an “HWND” for the main window.

Originally posted by chemdog:
…Though only OpenAL seems to be around any longer…
It also seems pretty dead and by the way, it’s all but portable since some extensions are linux-only while others are windows-only. I’ve been following the OpenAL stuff for more than a year now and every time I look at it I wonder how (why?) creative puts money in the effort. It’s a joke.
I know somebody will point out it has been used by Epic in one of their games but this does not change the fact this API is far from being supported widely.

Originally posted by chemdog:
Three other projects are OpenAL, OpenNL, and OpenIL, respectively for Audio, Networking, and Input. Though only OpenAL seems to be around any longer.

OpenIL was renamed DevIL because of SGI. It’s still up here : http://www.imagelib.org , but development was stopped 1.5 years ago.

devIL is a different project than the OpenIL I remember. devIL was for image loading, and the one I remember was for keyboard and joysticks.

No, OpenIL was renamed to DevIL because SGI complained about it.
http://www.imagelib.org leads to http://openil.sourceforge.net/

(notice openil in the address)

Denton should also change that address actually.

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