view VisualC.html @ 4167:a6f635e5eaa6 SDL-1.2

Fixed bug #611 From Tim Angus 2008-08-12 11:18:06 I'm one of the maintainers of ioquake3.org, an updated version of the Quake 3 engine. Relatively recently, we moved ioq3 to use SDL as a replacement for 95% of the platform specific code that was there. On the whole it's doing a great job but unfortunately since the move we've been getting complaints about the quality of the mouse input on the Windows platform to the point where for many the game is unplayable. Put in other terms, the current stable SDL 1.2 is basically not fit for purpose if you need high quality mouse input as you do in a first person shooter. Over the weekend I decided to pull my finger out and actually figure out what's going on. There are basically two major problems. Firstly, when using the "windib" driver, mouse input is gathered via the WM_MOUSEMOVE message. Googling for this indicates that often this is known to result in "spurious" and/or "missing" mouse movement events; this is the primary cause of the poor mouse input. The second problem is that the "directx" driver does not work at all in combination with OpenGL meaning that you can't use DirectInput if your application also uses OpenGL. In other words you're locked into using the "windib" driver and its poor mouse input. In order to address these problems I've done the following: * Remove WM_MOUSEMOVE based motion event generation and replace with calls to GetCursorPos which seems much more reliable. In order to achieve this I've moved mouse motion out into a separate function that is called once per DIB_PumpEvents. * Remove the restriction on the "directx" driver being inoperable in combination with OpenGL. There is a bug for this issues that I've hijacked to a certain extent (http://bugzilla.libsdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=265). I'm the first to admit I don't really understand why this restriction is there in the first place. The commit message for the bug fix that introduced this restriction (r581) isn't very elaborate and I couldn't see any other bug tracking the issue. If anyone has more information on the bug that was avoided by r581 it would be helpful as I/someone could then look into addressing the problem without disabling the "directx" driver. * I've also removed the restriction on not being allowed to use DirectInput in windowed mode. I couldn't see any reason for this, at least not from our perspective. I have my suspicions that it'll be something like matching up the cursor with the mouse coordinates... * I bumped up the DirectInput API used to version 7 in order to get access to mouse buttons 4-7. I've had to inject a little bit of the DX7 headers into SDL there as the MinGW ones aren't up to date in this respect.
author Sam Lantinga <slouken@libsdl.org>
date Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:43:36 +0000
parents b004c6c24a98
children d63e9f5944ae
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<HTML>
	<HEAD>
		<TITLE>Using SDL with Microsoft Visual C++</TITLE>
	</HEAD>
	<BODY>
		<H1>
			Using SDL with Microsoft Visual C++ 5,6&nbsp;and 7
		</H1>
		<H3>
			by <A HREF="mailto:snowlion@sprynet.com">Lion Kimbro </A>and additions by <A HREF="mailto:james@conceptofzero.net">
				James Turk</A>
		</H3>
		<p>
			You can either use the precompiled libraries from <A HREF="http://www.libsdl.org/download.php">
				the SDL Download web site </A>, or you can build SDL yourself.
		</p>
		<H3>
			Building SDL
		</H3>
		<P>
			Unzip the <CODE>VisualC.zip</CODE> file into the directory that contains this 
			file (<CODE>VisualC.html</CODE>).
		</P>
		<P>
			Be certain that you unzip the zip file for your compiler into <strong>this</strong>
			directory and not any other directory. If you are using WinZip, be careful to 
			make sure that it extracts to <strong>this</strong> folder, because it's 
			convenient feature of unzipping to a folder with the name of the file currently 
			being unzipped will get you in trouble if you use it right now. And that's all 
			I have to say about that.
		</P>
		<P>
			Now that it's unzipped, go into the VisualC 
			directory that is created, and double-click on the VC++ file "<CODE>SDL.dsw</CODE>"<STRONG><FONT color="#009900">
					("<CODE>SDL.sln</CODE>").</FONT></STRONG> This should open up the IDE.
		</P>
		<P>
			You may be prompted at this point to upgrade the workspace, should you be using 
			a more recent version of Visual C++. If so, allow the workspace to be upgraded.
		</P>
		<P>
			Build the <CODE>.dll</CODE> and <CODE>.lib</CODE> files.
		</P>
		<P>
			This is done by right clicking on each project in turn (Projects are listed in 
			the Workspace panel in the FileView tab), and selecting "Build".
		</P>
		<P>
			If you get an error about SDL_config.h being missing, you should
			copy include/SDL_config.h.default to include/SDL_config.h and try again.
		</P>
		<P>
			You may get a few warnings, but you should not get any errors. You do have to 
			have at least the DirectX 5 SDK installed, however. The latest 
			version of DirectX can be downloaded or purchased on a cheap CD (my 
			recommendation) from <A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft </A>.
		</P>
		<P>
			Later, we will refer to the following .lib and .dll files that have just been 
			generated:
		</P>
		<ul>
    <li> SDL.dll</li>
    <li> SDL.lib</li>
    <li> SDLmain.lib</li>
    </ul>
		<P>
			Search for these using the Windows Find (Windows-F) utility, if you don't 
			already know where they should be. For those of you with a clue, look inside 
			the Debug or Release directories of the subdirectories of the Project folder. 
			(It might be easier to just use Windows Find if this sounds confusing. And 
			don't worry about needing a clue; we all need visits from the clue fairy 
			frequently.)
		</P>
		<H3>
			Creating a Project with SDL
		</H3>
		<P>
			Create a project as a Win32 Application.
		</P>
		<P>
			Create a C++ file for your project.
		</P>
		<P>
			Set the C runtime to "Multi-threaded DLL" in the menu: <CODE>Project|Settings|C/C++ 
				tab|Code Generation|Runtime Library </CODE>.
		</P>
		<P>
			Add the SDL <CODE>include</CODE> directory to your list of includes in the 
			menu: <CODE>Project|Settings|C/C++ tab|Preprocessor|Additional include directories </CODE>
			.
			<br>
			<STRONG><FONT color="#009900">VC7 Specific: Instead of doing this I find it easier to 
					add the include and library directories to the list that VC7 keeps. Do this by 
					selecting Tools|Options|Projects|VC++ Directories and under the "Show 
					Directories For:" dropbox select "Include Files", and click the "New Directory 
					Icon" and add the [SDLROOT]\include directory (ex. If you installed to 
					c:\SDL-1.2.5\ add c:\SDL-1.2.5\include).&nbsp;Proceed to&nbsp;change the 
					dropbox selection to "Library Files" and add [SDLROOT]\lib.</FONT></STRONG>
		</P>
			<P>
				The "include directory" I am referring to is the <CODE>include</CODE> folder 
				within the main SDL directory (the one that this HTML file located within).
			</P>
			<P>
				Now we're going to use the files that we had created earlier in the Build SDL 
				step.
			</P>
			<P>
				Copy the following files into your Project directory:
			</P>
			<ul>
     <li> SDL.dll</li>
     </ul>
			<P>
				Add the following files to your project (It is not necessary to copy them to 
				your project directory):
			</P>
			<ul>
     <li> SDL.lib </li>
     <li> SDLmain.lib</li>
     </ul>
			<P>
				(To add them to your project, right click on your project, and select "Add 
				files to project")
			</P>
		<P><STRONG><FONT color="#009900">Instead of adding the files to your project it is more 
					desireable to add them to the linker options: Project|Properties|Linker|Command 
					Line and type the names of the libraries to link with in the "Additional 
					Options:" box.&nbsp; Note: This must be done&nbsp;for&nbsp;each&nbsp;build 
					configuration (eg. Release,Debug).</FONT></STRONG></P>
		<H3>
			SDL 101, First Day of Class
		</H3>
		<P>
			Now create the basic body of your project. The body of your program should take 
			the following form: <CODE>
				<PRE>
#include "SDL.h"

int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
  // Body of the program goes here.
  return 0;
}
</PRE>
			</CODE>
		<P></P>
		<H3>
			That's it!
		</H3>
		<P>
			I hope that this document has helped you get through the most difficult part of 
			using the SDL: installing it. Suggestions for improvements to this document 
			should be sent to the writers of this document.
		</P>
		<P>
			Thanks to Paulus Esterhazy (pesterhazy@gmx.net), for the work on VC++ port.
		</P>
		<P>
			This document was originally called "VisualC.txt", and was written by <A HREF="mailto:slouken@libsdl.org">
				Sam Lantinga</A>.
		</P>
		<P>
			Later, it was converted to HTML and expanded into the document that you see 
			today by <A HREF="mailto:snowlion@sprynet.com">Lion Kimbro</A>.
		</P>
		<P>Minor Fixes and Visual C++ 7 Information (In Green) was added by <A HREF="mailto:james@conceptofzero.net">James Turk</A>
		</P>
	</BODY>
</HTML>