Figured out Directx. I can start my program, write to the screen, and exit out without error. Now I neeed to learn more about how the windows message loop works. I probaly just missing some small peice of the logic puzzle. My turned bassed game will be in a window, so I cannot consider all keyboard and mouse input as 'mine'.
My current message loop:
WndProc proc hWnd:HWND, uMsg:UINT, wParam:WPARAM, lParam:LPARAM
.IF uMsg==WM_PAINT
invoke PaintPrimary ,hWnd
invoke DefWindowProc,hWnd,uMsg,wParam,lParam .ELSEIF uMsg==WM_CLOSE
call CloseApp
invoke ExitProcess, 0
.ELSEIF uMsg==WM_RBUTTONDOWN
invoke SendMessage, hWnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0
.ELSEIF
invoke DefWindowProc,hWnd,uMsg,wParam,lParam
ret
.ENDIF
invoke PaintSecondary, hWnd
xor eax,eax
ret
WndProc endp
WndProc proc hWnd:HWND, uMsg:UINT, wParam:WPARAM, lParam:LPARAM
.IF uMsg==WM_PAINT
invoke PaintPrimary ,hWnd
invoke DefWindowProc,hWnd,uMsg,wParam,lParam .ELSEIF uMsg==WM_CLOSE
call CloseApp
invoke ExitProcess, 0
.ELSEIF uMsg==WM_RBUTTONDOWN
invoke SendMessage, hWnd, WM_CLOSE, 0, 0
.ELSEIF uMsg==WM_LBUTTONDOWN
mov AttackState, 1
.ELSEIF
invoke DefWindowProc,hWnd,uMsg,wParam,lParam
ret
.ENDIF
invoke PaintSecondary, hWnd
xor eax,eax
ret
WndProc endp
I dont have the time (exams) to go into any strong detail here, and there is far more experienced people with this stuff anyways to help you out, so my only suggestion for your Direct X work is this:
Go out and buy a surprisingly good book on DirectX game programming, called:
Windows Game Programming for Dummies
by Andre LaMothe (A Video Game programming Guru)
IDG Books
ISBN: 0-7645-0337-5
Its very consise and informative, however it is written for Visual C++, but it follows all Microsoft conventions (Hungarian notation) so with a basic understanding of C++ you can translate it easily to ASM.
The reason I suggest this book is because it specifically outlines the answer to your post in one of its earlier chapters, explaining the gaming loop, how it fits in with the Windows Message loop, and how to use Direct Input etc. Basically it outlines all the Abstration needed to organise an effecient game stucture, and then goes into more detail with the individual DirectX components.. (Covers them all to some detail).
For 30$ US, you cant beat it...
Anywho, just my suggestion, im sure someone around here will give you more immediate specifics :)
NaN
asm_happy,
Here I am again answering all your questions :)
The way most of this is done is using a game loop in a separate process, the things you need to do are:-
1. Read Input
2. Update Game State
3. Redraw
4. Go To 1
Now with windows, Number 1 (Read Input) is being done for you, all you have to do is get the current state, like your friend said, you can use a global structure to do this, so you'd have
MouseX dd 0
MouseY dd 0
MouseClick dd 0
I've got the directx part down. I'll look into directinput.
A global STRUCT for the game-state variables is better than my idea. The concise version of the game loop should help me. I'm probably just getting tripped up knowing that the user will have access to the desktop. This is my first windows program and first directx program, once I understand the fundamentals, I can usually figure out the rest. Right now I'm trying to understand the fundamentals of the message loop :)
Thanks guys..
Turn based or real time, usually games use a modifyed game loop to do things when windows dosent do message processing.
You can use PeekMessageA instead of GetMessageA in the window loop *with PM_NOREMOVE flag) in order to "peek" if windows has a message for you, if it does...do the usual stuff, if it dosent: DO YOUR GAME STUFF....
this is basic tehnic for GDI and simple DX games...
Advantages: easy and relative error prone
Disadvantages: you will notice your game working slower (noticeably) when windows does Input processing for you (like on heavy mouse move :) )
For faster more advanced methods:
1.go full screen
2.use DirectInput to read the input yourself and dump windows message loop...except Alt+Tab and Ctrl+Esc ... system keys stuff
3. Make your Game loop (redraw) on a sepparate thread...
4. ... experiment yourself
but all this is harder and harder...just start with PeekMessage first :D
Here is an example from our old game message loop
we have moved to multithreading for some time now
but a lot of our early game versions where made this way
Hope this helps (take care not very nice structured code)
;************************************
; WinMain MESSAGE LOOP STARTS HERE
;************************************
msg_loop:
;==========================================================
; we use PeekMessage in order to detect idle (no messages)
; time we can use
;========================================================
push PM_NOREMOVE
push 0
push 0
push 0
push offset msg
call PeekMessageA
;===============================
; test: do we have messages?
;==============================
cmp eax, 0
je nu_sunt_msg ; happy jump if we dont
; ===============================
; but no so happy..
; if we have to handle them
; this will reduce our FPS :)
; ===============================
push 0
push 0
push 0
push offset msg
call GetMessageA
;===================================
; test: is this message WM_QUIT ?
; =================================
cmp eax,0 ; GetMessageA will return zero if it is...?
je end_loop ; EXIT PROGRAM IF TRUE!!!!
;================================================
; default action (let windows do it's dirty job)
; for all other messages
;================================================
push offset msg
call TranslateMessage
push offset msg
call DispatchMessageA
;=========================================
; and jump back to do it all over again
;======================================
jmp msg_loop
;=================================
; Here ENDS Our Program (normaly)
;==================================
end_loop:
push
call ExitProcess ;exit to windows
;===================================
; we should never reach this point
;===================================
ret
;=========================================
; so...there are no win messages....
; HERE we do our GAME MAIN LOOP
;=========================================
nu_sunt_msg:
push eax ; save allmost all stuff
push ebx
push ecx
push edx
push esi
push edi
call update_game_state
call redraw_game_all
;==================================
; done...just return to WIN message loop
;=================================
pop edi
pop esi
pop edx
pop ecx
pop ebx
pop eax
;====================================
; return to main Message Loop
;====================================
jmp msg_loop
Wow, thanks for all that stuff. You game is a real-time game however. My loop should work more like this:
wait for user input
run game proc/ update screen
wait for user input
cont....
Being turn based like this, it wont be very graphic intensive. I', just trying to make sure I have a good understanding of design considerations. Because I want to use a window, I'm purposely trying to avoid heavy graphics. If I try to make the program too fancy, I'll never finish it.;)
Excuse BogdanOntanu, would be possible to we study a little about your multithreading code? (sorry the intromission)
Thanks in advance. :)
Well i think you can have some animations even when waiting for user input...after all is a game not a spreadsheet :)
so i still recommend the PeekMessage thing, but if you dont like it you can allways use a menu or a button like "End Turn/Next Turn" or something...but doing so will make animations very "uneven"....and i don think timers (the alternative) can help games much :D
to wolfao:
===========
make a separate "thread" for this question and we cant talk it there :)