VisualStudio 2011 preview

[boyamer]

Just wanted to showcase the new VisualStudio 2011 preview, take look at the 3D part:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jasonz/archive/ ... eview.aspx

That shader editor looks neat.

Amer

[Mind Calamity]

Whoa, can't wait for it's release, the shader editor looks neat, as well as the 3D viewer/editor, I love the dark interface too.

But, knowing Microsoft, they're probably gonna put those features in the professional edition, and leave the express edition half-finished like they did with the last edition.

[Klaim]

Also, maybe it's certainly DX/HLSL only so...

[Mind Calamity]

Also, maybe it's certainly DX/HLSL only so...

That too.

If I wasn't used to Visual Studio, I'd probably would have switched to KDevelop, but since I started my project with Visual Studio, I'm too lazy to convert every project...

[jacmoe]

I am really under-impressed - it's a good thing that I am primarily a *nix developer these days. KDevelop rocks.
Now if only they could make the debugging interface as good as VSs. But they are really, really close there too.
VS 2010 was a disappointment to me. It was going to be much better, but the lack of performance killed it for me.
I know I have to get the new edition to be able to offer updated appwizards, but that's probably the only reason to get it.
Let's hope they surprise me in a pleasant way..

[Zonder]

But, knowing Microsoft, they're probably gonna put those features in the professional edition, and leave the express edition half-finished like they did with the last edition.

The express editions only purpose it to give hobbyists and students a free coding environment. Things they remove from express if usually more to do with enterprise level programming which a hobbiest won't need but they never stop them been able to accomplish the same thing. At the end of the day VS is a big seller for them so they need to entice people into the environment and hence this 2 year release cycle.

But I would expect all the new 3D stuff to be in express as they are trying to push home brew development for the XBOX and Windows Phone 7

[Kojack]

I'm going to give 2011 a try tonight. The express version of VS2011 comes with the windows 8 developer preview iso.
Luckily I have an unopened 2TB hard drive sitting on the shelf next to me, and was planning on reinstalling win 7 anyway.

[Klaim]

Let us know about the interface performance. They carefully avoided the subject so fare - but in one comparison video on channel 9 but it was with a little project, not a big one.

[Zonder]

well 2010 performance was poor compared to 2008 but so was 2008 compared to 2005. I wouldn't keep my hopes up

[Mind Calamity]

I am really under-impressed - it's a good thing that I am primarily a *nix developer these days. KDevelop rocks.
Now if only they could make the debugging interface as good as VSs. But they are really, really close there too.
VS 2010 was a disappointment to me. It was going to be much better, but the lack of performance killed it for me.
I know I have to get the new edition to be able to offer updated appwizards, but that's probably the only reason to get it.
Let's hope they surprise me in a pleasant way..

True, when I was using Linux I used KDevelop, it was much faster than VS 2010, not just the IDE itself, but the compile time as well (I know it has almost nothing to do with KDevelop itself), and as I still haven't learned how to properly debug, those features are practically useless for me, I think I'm going to recompile my libraries and switch back to 2008, it's performance is much better than 2010. I haven't tried KDevelop on Windows yet, but I'm thinking of that option too.

I'm downloading too, I wanted to see what Microsoft has stitched together.

[Zonder]

I am really under-impressed - it's a good thing that I am primarily a *nix developer these days. KDevelop rocks.
Now if only they could make the debugging interface as good as VSs. But they are really, really close there too.
VS 2010 was a disappointment to me. It was going to be much better, but the lack of performance killed it for me.
I know I have to get the new edition to be able to offer updated appwizards, but that's probably the only reason to get it.
Let's hope they surprise me in a pleasant way..

True, when I was using Linux I used KDevelop, it was much faster than VS 2010, not just the IDE itself, but the compile time as well (I know it has almost nothing to do with KDevelop itself), and as I still haven't learned how to properly debug, those features are practically useless for me, I think I'm going to recompile my libraries and switch back to 2008, it's performance is much better than 2010. I haven't tried KDevelop on Windows yet, but I'm thinking of that option too.

I'm downloading too, I wanted to see what Microsoft has stitched together.

I would do the same if I could. I actually had to fix an old VB add the other day hit F5 to run and it was on screen instantly this isn't a small app either about 100 forms. Just shows how they are going backwards each release with performance.

[Kojack]

Hmm, I didn't realise the preview of 2011 Ultimate is out too, I only saw the 2011 Express in the Win 8 iso.
It seems the express preview is managed only, no native c++, at least for now.

Some of the new things in 2011 Ultimate preview:
- scary iterators (no idea what these are, but apparently C++ 11 standard allows them)
- STL is optimised, std::map takes 8 bytes instead of 16, std::vector takes 12 bytes instead of 16
- STL classes from C++ 11 added: atomic, chrono, condition_variable, filesystem, future, mutex, ratio, thread
- auto vectorisation of loops
- auto parallelisation
- stateless lambdas
- scoped enums (YAY!)
- C++ AMP support (microsoft's alternative to Cuda and OpenCL)
- thread safe versions of some STL containers
- parallel patterns lib
- bunch of parallel stuff (task based programming, scheduler, agents, etc)
- parallel watch window, so when debugging you can see the value of a variable in every thread
- gpu profiling
- c++ code snippets! (about damn time, every other VS language has had it for years)
- intellisense is improved, but only for C++/CLI (the managed .net one). No mention of what native c++ is like (guess I'll know soon, vs2011 is 75% downloaded)
- bunch of other stuff I can't be bothered to copy/paste from the "What's New for Visual C++ in Visual Studio 2011" page.


Ok, I just looked up scary iterators. The name SCARY is an acronym for: "Seemingly erroneous (Constrained by conflicting generic parameters), but Actually work with the Right implementation (unconstrained bY the conflict due to minimized dependencies)".
Basically it lets iterators which previous c++ says are incompatible be compatible. For example, if you have 2 stl classes which differ only by allocator, they each have a different iterator. But iterators don't care about allocators, so there's no real reason why they should be considered different types.

[Mind Calamity]

@Kojack:

Does that mean that the intellisense will be painfully slow and sluggish like in the previous version ?

It's really getting obvious of how Microsoft is enforcing usage of their own stuff by doing this.

Also, I'm downloading the Windows 8 Developers Preview too, does that mean that native C++ is not yet supported ? (I really want to try compiling OGRE on it)

It's going to be about 8 more hours until my download finishes, and what you said confused (and kinda disappointed) me.

[Kojack]

I didn't try the win8 dev preview version yet. But I read a user on the microsoft forum complain that only managed c++/cli is in that version.
I've got the ultimate version of 2011 installed, and it has all languages. I'm building ogre now.

One interesting thing, if you load a 2010 solution into 2011, it keeps it as 2010. It builds it as 2010 too. Upgrading a solution to 2011 is a manual step, you right click on a project or the solution and select Upgrade.

Hmm, I had to turn off Avast antivirus, it keeps thinking the 2011 build of OIS.dll is a virus.

It takes about 2min 11sec to scan ogre for includes and stuff when first opening the solution.

I did a release build of ogre, the sample browser crashes on start. I'm doing a debug build now to track down the crash.
(8:26am, I should probably go to bed soon)


Edit: It's crashing inside of OIS.
First OIS is a virus so avast deletes it every time vs2011 builds it, now it just crashes. Unfortunately it's a bit hard to use the sample browser without input.

[Kojack]

Got it working. I replaced OIS 1.2 dll with OIS 1.3 static.

Here's some quick performance tests.

Ogre 1.8 latest source release build, running the New Instancing sample with animation turned on:
VC2008 - 64.5 fps
VC2010 - 72.4 fps
VC2011 - 74.7 fps


I haven't timed compiling yet. I'll do that after getting some sleep.


Edit: Forgot to mention before, the web installer sucks! It asked where I wanted to install 2011. It's 8GB. My C drive had 1.5GB free. I set the install path to K drive (had 46GB free). I left it for a while (took ages to download). I checked my drive space while it was installing, K was still 46GB, but free space on C was approaching 0 fast. DAMN IT, IT'S INSTALLING TO C DRIVE! I quickly started moving stuff to a backup drive, in a race with the installer. Once in the past I've had visual studio run out of hard drive space while installing (putting sp1 onto 2005 I think it was), I had to reinstall windows because it left the whole pc nearly unusable. I wouldn't have started the install when I did if I knew it was going to ignore the chosen path and go into c drive regardless.
Luckily I got enough space free before the installer needed it.

[Mind Calamity]

Edit: Forgot to mention before, the web installer sucks! It asked where I wanted to install 2011. It's 8GB. My C drive had 1.5GB free. I set the install path to K drive (had 46GB free). I left it for a while (took ages to download). I checked my drive space while it was installing, K was still 46GB, but free space on C was approaching 0 fast. DAMN IT, IT'S INSTALLING TO C DRIVE! I quickly started moving stuff to a backup drive, in a race with the installer. Once in the past I've had visual studio run out of hard drive space while installing (putting sp1 onto 2005 I think it was), I had to reinstall windows because it left the whole pc nearly unusable. I wouldn't have started the install when I did if I knew it was going to ignore the chosen path and go into c drive regardless.
Luckily I got enough space free before the installer needed it.

This was a whole lot of fun, wasn't it

You sure had a tough night

I'm still downloading at 100 KB/s, and it's gonna take about 4-5 hours to download (Win 8 Dev Preview, hope it comes with native C++ support).

BTW - Kojack, is MSDN subscription a must, in order to try Visual Studio 2011 Ultimate ?

First OIS is a virus so avast deletes it every time vs2011 builds it, now it just crashes. Unfortunately it's a bit hard to use the sample browser without input.

Is it not impossible ?

Microsoft must have some good compression for Visual Studio 2011 to be 8GB, while the Win8 Preview + VS 11 4.8 GB

[Kojack]

Microsoft must have some good compression for Visual Studio 2011 to be 8GB, while the Win8 Preview + VS 11 4.8 GB

Maybe Win 8 takes up negative space?


The Express version (in the win8 iso) is a lot cut down in features from the Ultimate (which is why Express is free, while Ultimate usually runs at $12000).
About 1.2GB of the win8 iso is visual studio. I'm not sure how big the ultimate download is (the web installer is 1MB, then never mentions size, just has a progress bar), but it installs to around 8GB.

Is it not impossible ?

I could have replaced all calls to OIS with my own input lib, but that would be annoying. Or removed OIS and hard coded the browser to start a specific sample. Luckily I just had to get a newer OIS and recompile (not sure if it was going from 1.2 to 1.3 or going from dll to static that fixed it).

BTW - Kojack, is MSDN subscription a must, in order to try Visual Studio 2011 Ultimate ?

MSDN subscription people got it a couple of days earlier. They also get the iso download as an option instead of the crappy web installer.
If you don't mind the web installer, no subscription is needed.

I'm still downloading at 100 KB/s, and it's gonna take about 4-5 hours to download (Win 8 Dev Preview, hope it comes with native C++ support).

I got it at 2MB/s.

[Mind Calamity]

Yupp, just downloaded and installed Win8 Developer Preview on Virtualbox, and it takes almost 7 GB, full install, with the express version of VS 11, which as Kojack said is pretty slimmed down and I wasn't able to create a non-microsoft C++ project, the only option it allowed near OGRE was a DirectX application

I'm going to try to find and download VS11 Ultimate and try it.

[Kojack]

The code analysis feature is pretty cool. I ran it on Ogremain. It found 96 potential flaws. Most of them were possible memory leaks which weren't actually a problem (allocating an object then pushing it into a vector confused it a little) but it also found a few potential null pointer dereferences and exception problems. Here's one it found in MaterialTranslator::translate

Code: Select all

else
		{
			if(!mMaterial)
				compiler->addError(ScriptCompiler::CE_OBJECTALLOCATIONERROR, obj->file, obj->line, 
					"failed to find or create material \"" + obj->name + "\"");
		}

		mMaterial->removeAllTechniques();

In the else block it checks if mMaterial is null, and adds an error message if it is. But the next bit of code tries to use mMaterial (which might be null) by calling removeAllTechniques() on it.

Another one, this time from InstancedGeometry::addBatchInstance:

Code: Select all

BatchInstance*lastBatchInstance=0 ;
		while(regIt.hasMoreElements())
		{
			lastBatchInstance= regIt.getNext();
		}
		uint32 index=(lastBatchInstance)?lastBatchInstance->getID()+1:0;
		//create a new BatchInstance

		BatchInstance*ret = OGRE_NEW BatchInstance(this, mName+":"+StringConverter::toString(index),
			mOwner, index);
...
...
		const size_t numLod = lastBatchInstance->mLodValues.size();

lastBatchInstance starts as 0. If regIt is empty, lastBatchInstance stays 0. the index line checks if lastBatchInstance is 0, so it's a known possibility. But then further down it tries to call lastBatchInstance->mLodValues.size() (there's no other reference to lastBatchInstance in the code I removed).

If I can find a way to dump all the warnings to text I'll post them, otherwise I need to click on 96 individual warning log entries and copy/paste them.

[Mind Calamity]

@Kojack:

[s]Where did you find that download (VS Ultimate) ?

I can't seem to find it...[/s]

<edit>Just found it </edit>

[EricB]

i'll stick to vs2005, or codeblocks.

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

[Mind Calamity]

i'll stick to vs2005, or codeblocks.

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

What if it get's old ? Will you not upgrade it either ?

[betajaen]

i'll stick to vs2005, or codeblocks.

If it ain't broke don't fix it!

We could use the same attitude when it comes to Windows 3.1

Back on topic;

This new version looks pretty good. I'm looking forward to that new shader editor, and 3d editor/viewer myself. I've been using XNA quite a lot recently, and it's well integrated into Visual Studio as it is. But with these new things, it may be a really powerful all in one solution.

[Mind Calamity]

Has anyone tried Windows 8 yet ?

I installed in Virtualbox, so I can't talk about the performance, but it's a whole new experience which will take time getting used to, what I really don't like is that with Windows 8, your PC gets transformed into a mobile device (at least the OS's UI is), when you click start, you kinda get the windows phone menu, or a better example, you get something more like GNOME 3, except worse (or it's just like any new interface, it sucks until you get used to it), but come on who would like the "start menu" to be full screen ?

I don't get what Microsoft is trying to achieve by adding even more eye-candy to Windows, it's obscuring the usability, and you should see what they've done to Explorer, it basically has heaps of useless features above the address bar.

Overall they are repeating what they did with Vista, so the only impression I got from Windows 8 was - "Meh, I'll stay with Windows 7/Linux until Microsoft decides to make something work better, instead of look better", but then again, this version is far from final, so I can only hope they decide to make some changes.

[Kojack]

I don't get what Microsoft is trying to achieve by adding even more eye-candy to Windows, it's obscuring the usability

That's why I always use Windows Classic theme (been using it since Windows NT 4 beta). Simple, minimal and clean interface, no glitzy crap.
(If Win8 doesn't have classic theme, I'm going to be very annoyed)

I was going to install win 8, but got distracted playing Hard Reset and researching laptops.
(Everyone should buy Hard Reset. Awesome old school cyberpunk shooter by ex devs of Painkiller and The Witcher)