Missing DirectX file and a workaround

Helloes, people.

I just downloaded this game and as I tried to run it, I got an error message saying that I was missing a Direct3D DLL file. With some googling, I found a workaround for this. Apparently theres some files missing from the usual DX install (I have the latest, naturally). Heres a quote from the website I found the files from:

"When I tried to distribute some trial copies of my 3D engine to my friends there has been a problem because their installations were missing some DirectX 9 eXtension library files. After some hours of browsing the internet and studying the license agreements of Microsoft's DirectX I found a possible workaround. Just distribute the matching distribution of DirectX 9 with my application. But hmmm... These files are 30-40 megabytes big. To big to pack to every small exe. I also found out that there are much more people out there facing this problem and some solutions on the problem."

The website can be found from ThreeLights.de. Heres a direct link to the .zip file.

Hope this helps.

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Samuli "t3h" Ulmanen
Lead designer / Fierce Talon
Vermin Entertainment

Actually, the problem is that each update for DirectX 9 provided a differently-named dll. But Microsoft only distributes the most recent dll with each DirectX update, so depending on the user's upgrade path, not all released dlls will be on the user's machine--even though Windows will claim that DirectX is up to date. (I think they're no longer doing this with DirectX 10--at least, all the problems we've encountered are for DirectX 9 games, not any older or later.) Thus the game will call for, say, d3dx9_29.dll, but only _26 and _30 will be on the user's machine, or something.

I've rebuilt the installer for this game, so it checks to see if the right dll is installed--and installs it if not. Makes for a slightly larger download, but at least it should work for everyone.