GDK and C#

[Gavin-Williams]

I've come here, because I was told and have read that GDK is the best way to access various services, importantly for me at the moment, Mouse Input. I've run into problems with Win32 mouse functionality, it's a complicated system that is fragmented and antiquated is made up of stack after stack after stack, with each fixing issues with the previous stack. I was using basic windows messages, then I had to introduce raw-input because windows messages wouldn't provide delta's in all cases, now I have to change again because raw-input can't handle high report rates for gaming mice. I'm now reading up on GetRawInputBuffer. It seems like every time I ask something different of a given API, it breaks and I have to use a different API for improved functionality. It's pretty tiresome.

I have installed the Microsoft.GDK.PC.230300 nuget package. But I don't know how to use it. I don't see any namespaces available. How do we use it?

I tried

using XGamingRuntime;

But the namespace isn't found. Is that for Unity only? Why Unity only? Can you provide this for use outside of Unity? Is it possible to use CsWin32 to get access to the GDK API?

I have found this page...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/get-started-with-pc-dev/get-started-with-custom-engine/gc-get-started-with-custom-engine-pc-csharp

I'll read through that, hoping to find some pathway.

[Gavin-Williams]

I've go the XGamingRuntimeSDK solution going. But there are a few problems with the project. The first change seems innocent enough, the api has changed since that solution was written, and I had to remove a couple of arguments....

XboxLiveForm.cs ---------------------------------

Line 188, change to:

                SDK.XBL.XblAchievementsUpdateAchievementAsync(
                    xblContextHandle, 
                    userId,
                    currentlySelectedAchievement.Id, 
                    100, 
                    (achievementUpdateResult) => {
                    LOG("XblAchievementsUpdateAchievementAsync result", achievementUpdateResult);
                    if (achievementUpdateResult == HTTP_E_STATUS_NOT_MODIFIED) //  0x80190130
                    {
                        LOG("Achievement #" + currentlySelectedAchievement.Id + " already earned");
                    }
                });

There are two more errors...

1. SDK does not contain a definition for XTaskQueueDispatch
2. CS0246 The type or namespace name equatable handle could not be found, this is on the line

 if (this.xblContextHandle != null)

Commenting out the two lines might be OK and just letting the conditional block run? The app runs and I can initialize XGameRuntime but is something else meant to be available?

            // pump runtime callbacks on UI thread
            SDK.XTaskQueueDispatch();
            if (this.xblContextHandle != null)
            {
                int hr = SDK.XBL.XblSocialManagerDoWork(out XblSocialManagerEvent[] socialEvents);
                if (hr < 0)
                {
                    LOG("XblSocialManagerDoWork", hr);
                    return;
                }

                if (socialEvents != null && socialEvents.Length > 0)
                {
                    foreach (var se in socialEvents)
                    {
                        LOG($"{se.EventType} usersAffected:{string.Join(",", Array.ConvertAll(se.UsersAffected, u => u.UniqueModernGamertag))}");
                    }
                }
            }

[Gavin-Williams]

That solution is just too complicated for me to learn anything from it.

[Gavin-Williams]

Some clarification on the documentation would be good as well. GameInput is the API I'm particularly after at the moment. But there is a contradiction. Here

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/getstarted/overviews/sdk-and-tools

under windows software development kit there is dot-point:

• New API for gaming input, which unifies the input model across gamepad, keyboard, mouse, touch, and other input devices.

But over here...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/gdk/_content/gc/input/overviews/input-overview?source=docs

It says ... PC support (including earlier versions of Windows) will be available in an upcoming Windows SDK.

What is the status of GamingInput ? Has it been provided in Windows AppSDK ?

And I should ask, but I have a sinking feeling, I won't like the answer. Is the GamingInput API available for C#?

[Gavin-Williams]

I have worked it out. The docs are not correct. GameInput is only in the GDK. WindowsSDK will eventually get GameInput. In the mean time we have to manually wrap the API's.

[Gavin-Williams]

So I think I've made some progress. I'm trying to wrap the GameInput API's but when I call GetCurrentReading, the reading is always null and I get strange returns as the hresult or int error code...

    hresult = 1361506332
    hresult = 1395305699
    hresult = 1423391047
    hresult = 1467009747

This number will increase each time I run it. It looks like it's just a counter. I just don't understand what's happening, what I'm doing wrong or what I'm meant to see in hresult, or when the reading will be not-null.

My calling code is

        IGameInputReading reading;
        int result = COM_GameInput.GetCurrentReading(
            GameInputKind.GameInputKindGamepad,
            null,
            out reading);

And my IGameInput wrapper is..

    [ComImport]
    [InterfaceType(ComInterfaceType.InterfaceIsIUnknown)]
    [Guid("11BE2A7E-4254-445A-9C09-FFC40F006918")]
    public interface IGameInput
    {
        [PreserveSig]
        public int GetCurrentReading(
            GameInputKind inputKind,
            IGameInputDevice? device,
            out IGameInputReading reading);
    }