Embed non-managed directX into C# form

Question

I got a quick question about running a directX application (C++) in a managed environment. I'm attempting to write a MDI tool (in C#) where the background of the parent window would be an embedded render window of directX (C++).

I've read ways that involved writing the C++ into a native dll, however it would be prefered to be able to have the C++ projects included within the solution (I dont even know if that's possible though). Eitherway, if you know of some helpful steps, hints, or if this is a bad idea in general, please let me know. Thanks!

Answer 1

First of all writing the C++ part in a different dll file doesn't mean that it couldn't be at the same solution as the C# project.

In order to use native DX to render on a managed window you need to pass the HWND window id (use form.WindowId.ToInt32) to the C++ D3Ddevice c'tor. after that each time you'll render using that device it would render on the .NET window.

To do this you probably need two saparate projects - a C++ dll & .NET project. use COM wrapper or p-invoke to pass the HWND to the C++ dll.

Answer 2

The easiest way to do this would be to add a C++/CLI project to your solution. This would then enable you to use the DirectX COM interfaces directly and create a managed wrapper that's easy to call from your C# code. I've taken this approach a few times and it's by far the easiest way of mixing DirectX and .Net that I've ever tried. Managed DirectX used to be an option, but it's no longer supported and it was a fairly small subset of the full COM API anyway.

Answer 3

If you don't want to spend too much time on writing C++ code for DirectX, you can consider using SlimDX, since Managed DirectX 1.0 is out of the question, where as 2.0 never leaves the beta and later replace with XNA which has quite different from DirectX itself, and require you to install XNA Game Studio

SlimDX is the opensource version of managed directx with slightly different API and internal structure, but it's easy to use. The recently released version is very stable. I'm currently using it to write a production application.

SlimDX

Managed DirectX