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First post, by BEEN_Nath_58

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I have known that Direct3D was implemented in DirectX 5.0 and provided both immediate mode as well as retained mode. However the Wikipedia page for Direct3D shares a different story, saying D3D was there as far back in DirectX 2.0. Now I never saw any Direct3D game that installing DirectX 2.0 or 3.0, so it would be really good if people could know the earliest Direct3D immediate mode (d3dim.dll) and retained mode (d3drm.dll) games.

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 1 of 13, by Garrett W

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I'm not sure I've ever seen a Direct3D game making use of DirectX 2.0, but I've certainly seen D3D 3.0 games. Ubisoft's POD comes to mind, it had both a D3D 3.0 renderer and D3D 5.0 renderer AFAIR which came through different patches (I think the original release is Software Rendered and 3Dfx and/or some other proprietary API).

Reply 2 of 13, by BEEN_Nath_58

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Garrett W wrote on 2022-04-13, 12:04:

I'm not sure I've ever seen a Direct3D game making use of DirectX 2.0, but I've certainly seen D3D 3.0 games. Ubisoft's POD comes to mind, it had both a D3D 3.0 renderer and D3D 5.0 renderer AFAIR which came through different patches (I think the original release is Software Rendered and 3Dfx and/or some other proprietary API).

I am not quite sure but probably Agile Warrior F-111X from Virgin Interactive is a D3D2 retained mode game

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 4 of 13, by BEEN_Nath_58

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leileilol wrote on 2022-04-13, 12:51:

i'd think Monster Truck Madness and Hellbender (Oct '96) which would be for DirectX 3. A little later on the early third-party D3D game side is Die Hard Trilogy (Jan '97)

I looked into Monster Truck Madness and it's D3DRM.DLL and D3DIM.DLL has product version of 4.3.0.1096. Wikipedia also provides a site for DirectX and 4.03.0.1069 (note the extra 0) says it's DirectX2.0a, or else D3D2 still

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 5 of 13, by BEEN_Nath_58

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A website said that the following are Direct 3D Retained Mode games:

* Agile Warrior F-111X (Virgin Interactive / Black Ops Entertainment)
* Banzai Bug (Grolier Interactive / Gravity)
* Boggle (Hasbro Interactive)
* Hyper Rails: Roller Coaster Designer (Pantera)
* Jane's IAF - Israeli Air Force (Electronic Arts / Jane's Combat)
* Lego - Rock Raiders (Lego Media / Data Design Int.)
* Militarism (Summitsoft)
* Organic Art Deluxe (Broderbund / Mindscape / The Learning Company)
* Outforce (Strategy First / O3 Games)
* Real Race Professional R/C Car Sim (Duratrax)

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 6 of 13, by aqrit

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The early DirectX Software Development Kits provide irrefutable evidence that Direct3D was introduced by DirectX 2
(If that was in dispute?).

Dark Omen is a D3DRM game from 1998.

Edit:
DirectX3 was release released only a couple of weeks after DirectX2... so I doubt anyone would have created and distributed a commercial D3D game in that time frame.
(especially since D3DRM is just a rebadged version of Reality Lab?)

That being said... let us not confuse the DirectX versions with the component versions... with the API versions.

Reply 8 of 13, by BEEN_Nath_58

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aqrit wrote on 2022-04-27, 20:53:
The early DirectX Software Development Kits provide irrefutable evidence that Direct3D was introduced by DirectX 2 (If that was […]
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The early DirectX Software Development Kits provide irrefutable evidence that Direct3D was introduced by DirectX 2
(If that was in dispute?).

Dark Omen is a D3DRM game from 1998.

Edit:
DirectX3 was release released only a couple of weeks after DirectX2... so I doubt anyone would have created and distributed a commercial D3D game in that time frame.
(especially since D3DRM is just a rebadged version of Reality Lab?)

That being said... let us not confuse the DirectX versions with the component versions... with the API versions.

Those are some important notes to remember. While going through PCGW, I found a list of DirectX2-7 games. Of course all won't use Direct3D, but I was surprised to see they listed games that seemingly used DirectDraw2 to be Direct3D2. NFS1 was such an example as I didn't see it refer to Direct3D anywhere. Also they listed Caesar II to be using D3D2 and I am quite skeptical.

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 9 of 13, by BEEN_Nath_58

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Garrett W wrote on 2022-04-27, 22:07:
aqrit wrote on 2022-04-27, 20:53:

Dark Omen is a D3DRM game from 1998.

wow, I had no clue. I guess this is why it has always been a headache to run on anything remotely post 1999 or so.

I didn't play Dark Omen but I had tested a few of them today on my Windows 11, such as Star Wars Rebellion and Jane's IAF and Agile Warrior F-111X. SW Rebellion gave texture problems when only hooked by DxWnd, Jane's IAF was fine and Agile Warrior F-111X has same problems as SW Rebellion everywhere.

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Reply 11 of 13, by BEEN_Nath_58

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dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-04-29, 07:20:

"immediate mode / retained mode"

never heard about that. what does this mean?

Quote from Wikipedia:

Direct3D initially implemented both "retained mode" and "immediate mode" 3D APIs. Like other DirectX APIs, such as DirectDraw, both were based on COM. The retained mode was a scene graph API that attained little adoption. Game developers clamored for more direct control of the hardware's activities than the Direct3D retained mode could provide. Only two games that sold a significant volume, Lego Island and Lego Rock Raiders, were based on the Direct3D retained mode, so Microsoft did not update the retained mode after DirectX 3.0.

For DirectX 2.0 and 3.0, the Direct3D immediate mode used an "execute buffer" programming model that Microsoft hoped hardware vendors would support directly. Execute buffers were intended to be allocated in hardware memory and parsed by the hardware to perform the 3D rendering. They were considered extremely awkward to program at the time, however, hindering adoption of the new API and prompting calls for Microsoft to adopt OpenGL as the official 3D rendering API for games as well as workstation applications. (see OpenGL vs. Direct3D)

previously known as Discrete_BOB_058

Reply 12 of 13, by DD-Indeed

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BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-04-27, 10:16:
A website said that the following are Direct 3D Retained Mode games: […]
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A website said that the following are Direct 3D Retained Mode games:

* Agile Warrior F-111X (Virgin Interactive / Black Ops Entertainment)
* Banzai Bug (Grolier Interactive / Gravity)
* Boggle (Hasbro Interactive)
* Hyper Rails: Roller Coaster Designer (Pantera)
* Jane's IAF - Israeli Air Force (Electronic Arts / Jane's Combat)
* Lego - Rock Raiders (Lego Media / Data Design Int.)
* Militarism (Summitsoft)
* Organic Art Deluxe (Broderbund / Mindscape / The Learning Company)
* Outforce (Strategy First / O3 Games)
* Real Race Professional R/C Car Sim (Duratrax)

Martian Gothic: Unification might be one of the last ones using D3DRM.DLL, and it was released in 2000. Which is most likely reason why it is painful to get working on anything past XP.

Reply 13 of 13, by wbahnassi

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Retained mode was the 3D engine MS got when they bought Reality Labs. It is a scene-graph based engine.. not very good for any large scale games. So no surprise not many devs used it. It was last available in D3D5 I think? before D3D immediate mode became the only option.