Is it worth to upgrade to Visual Studio Express 2013?

[Mel]

Just that. i still work with the 2012 version to develop stuff with Irrlicht, but, Is it any worth to update?

Which version uses the Shader pipeline?

[Granyte]

due to the way VS solutions work you can switch from ay version betwen vs2010 and vs2015 with only changing the platform tool set so what version we use is irrelevant.

On the other hand i personally skipped over vs2012 way to many things felt out of place and i jumped straight to vs2013 so i would sugest installing vs2013 side by side and trying it out to see if you enjoy it

[Mel]

Can they be installed side by side? won't they clash in some parts?

I am currently working with VSExpress 2012, and i have no complains, save when i try to compile the shader pipeline branch which gives me precisely that toolset error. Also, The DXSDK is integrated already in VSExpress 2013, right?

[AReichl]

Go with VS2013. They have the community edition know. That's the FULL version but without cost.

[Granyte]

they can be installed side by side without any issue I have 2010- 2013 -2015 installed atm the main thing when you have multiple version installed is that the latter can use previous version compiler.

also if you don't wana install a whole new version for this you can change the platform tool set like this
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff770576.aspx

[REDDemon]

if you have win 7+ (so not vista) it is worth, else you can't install

[CuteAlien]

Ehm... you've pointed me at some problem here. The way Irrlicht does set the platform toolset. The answer is - chaotic - no one really seems to have put some thought into it and the result is VS projects which have settings which probably once in a while work on some system.

But I just spend an hour trying to figure out what _would_ be correct - and that is not exactly trivial. Especially with the sparse documenation I found online.

So ... I'll kick out VS 2008 support now completely to make things a little easier (yeah, I'm that lazy).

Which means - official minimum Irrlicht IDE will be VS 2010 for now (as usual we support last 3 VS versions) in trunk.

In my tests platforms work like that:

In Win32 we can set the Irrlicht project to Platform v100 (which is VS 2010). And all example project files can use the current IDE platform. They still will link with that dll. One minor problem maybe (see later on...).

For x64 it's more complicated. Stuff compiled to v100 does not link to stuff compiled for newer platforms like v110 or v120. And I think v110 and v120 are also not working together. Which means we either have no compatible Irrlicht.dll for different VS versions or we force all our project files (all examples etc) to v100. Meaning in 64-bit people can't then use newer VS features (like some c++11 stuff) at all.
Maybe there is one alternative - some project settings had been Window 7.1 SDK instead for unknown reasons. That would likely kick out XP support completely, but maybe would work with x64 in all VS versions (see later on about the maybe...).

Now I couldn't figure which platforms _are_ actually available. The reason is that I have installed 4 different VS versions (everything from VS2008 to VS2013) and so I'm not sure if I got the platforms that way or if they are always installed. Same for Windows 7.1 SDK - I suppose I might have installed that myself - it's probably not from VS. In which case using old versions might not work at all (that's the thing with my later on comments from above).

So I need some help. Someone who has installed VS2012 or VS2013 and has *never* had installed an older VS version on his system. Please check in some project in "properties" - "General" - "Platform toolset" which options you are getting. And post it here.

Otherwise I'm really not sure what happens when I set for example v100 as platform and someone who has VS2013 but not VS2010 installed tries to work with that project file.

edit: Got the answer by now. And unfortunately the answer is - VS 2013 with no previous 2010 installation doesn't have a v100 target. So - can't do that. Which means it seems to be impossible to have a single 64-bit dll which works with different VS versions unless I'm missing something. Or we force everyone to install 7.1 SDK.

[mongoose7]

I use 32-bit and I found that different *free* compilers produce incompatible libraries. It's that v100 thing. I'm supposing that a paid-for compiler does not add such markers to the code. For example, the platform libraries can be used with any compiler.

[CuteAlien]

I guess my system might also just be messed up. Some MS libs conflicting with each other. I run into another problem today about that. Unfortunately ended up half a day later with a system which no longer compiles anything and where I can't even re-install the Windows SDK anymore (all I did was trying to de-install/re-install stuff a few times). Giving up now. I hope I get it repaired fast - because right now I can't work on Windows anymore at all :-(

[mongoose7]

Ha-ha. I installed, I think, VS21010 Express on a system with VS2008. Firstly, MS updates VS Express to 2013. I try to update the platform SDK for VS2008 and get a pile of poop. I then try to uninstall VS2008 and get a vagueish error. So I now have a VS2008 (full) that is partially uninstalled, and VS2013. I'm using MSYS now.

[thanhle]

I have a few version on my machine.
There's is no problem with it.

version 2013 is good. But there is some minor issue with it. If you don't mind waiting. Wait a bit for version 2015.

Regards
thanh

[CuteAlien]

Well unfortunately there is a problem on my machine. And one no-one else seems to have it (v120 simply does not work - which means I don't get to use c++11 - which means I can't do my job right now which needs that - which means I can't wait for VS 2015). Got at least Windows SDK 7.1 installed back (you have to de-install VS 2010 redistributables first or the installer will not work...).

[thanhle]

Hi I'm using Platform Toolset v120 just fine here.
I thought irrlicht svn version is using v120 as well.

Have you try Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013?

Regards
thanh

[CuteAlien]

Yeah, I even tried de-installing it again. Maybe I try installing it again later on. I know no-one else has this problem - haven't found a single thread on google describing the crap it does on my system.

[CuteAlien]

OK, I found my answer. Guess I have to do new tests which builds are really compatible to each other now.