smourier
commented
2 months ago Hi,
I've not done extensive testing regarding the garbage collector, but IMHO that has never been a real problem as when working with DirectX, it's more important to focus on DirectX itself (CPU <=>GPU comm, shaders, etc.) than to the language itself. Obviously, in this area, even with .NET 4, one shouldn't use byte[] buffers but instead use IntPtr coupled with interoped Windows technologies (WIC, DirectX, Direct2D, etc.).
Many games can be written using C# for quite a time, but indeed it's even better with AOT.
As for documenting DirectN AOT, I'm not sure what you mean. Currently 99% of the code in the DirectN project is automatically-generated, so these files cannot be modified "by hand". I think the most useful way of documenting it is probably to write samples.
slmyyy
My name is Brett, I am a .NET developer based in Australia.
I would like to, should you permit it, integrate complete inline (quick info, parameter info etc.) documentation into DirectN.
Historically (SharpDX) this was done using a tool, but the results were incomplete, incorrect, outdated, poorly formatted or a combination thereof. I understand that this is a substantial undertaking, but it is time I am fully committed to investing. Let me explain why.
Although not yet fully realized by the status quo, DirectN represents a whole new paradigm for managed DirectX development. All attempts up until now (Microsoft.DirectX.*, XNA, SlimDX, SharpDX) have been lacking in some way, largely due to the fact that they were held back by .NET itself.
.NET 5+ (.NET Desktop) has made enormous strides in so many areas -- some of which made serious DirectX development all but impossible in a managed environment, garbage collection being one of the largest hurdles, which has been completely overhauled.
The introduction of AoT is another one of these huge steps and .NET Desktop 10 will bring even more improvements to garbage collection and memory performance.
In summary, the time for DirectX on .NET is NOW and DirectN should lead by example. By doing away with all of the syntactical sugar and exposing the raw COM interfaces, DirectN coupled with the power of .NET Desktop 9 and beyond, makes the development of games and applications without the likes of Unity and MonoGame a true reality.
Have you observed the difference in GC behaviour betwween .NET 4.8.1 and .NET Desktop 9? I wrote a simple sprite demo (fixed and variable timestep, buffered Hermite-spline interpolation, basic Verlet integration) targeting both and on .NET Desktop, frequent 11-18ms GCs have -zero- impact. No frame-skip. At all. Ever.
This is the dawn of a new era.
Please let me know if I can be of assistance.