Manager.CheckDeviceType Method ()

Specifies whether a hardware-accelerated device type can be used on the current adapter.

Overload List

public static bool CheckDeviceType(int, DeviceType, Format, Format, bool);

public static bool CheckDeviceType(int, DeviceType, Format, Format, bool, out int);

Remarks

A hardware abstraction layer (HAL) device type requires hardware acceleration. Applications can use Manager.CheckDeviceType to determine whether the hardware and drivers necessary to support a HAL device are present.

Full-screen applications should not specify a displayFormat that contains an alpha channel; doing so will result in a failed call. Note that an alpha channel can be present in the back buffer, but the two display formats must be identical in all other respects. For example, if displayFormat = Format.X1R5G5B5, valid values for backBufferFormat include Format.X1R5G5B5 and Format.A1R5G5B5 but exclude Format.R5G6B5.

The following C# code fragment demonstrates the use of CheckDeviceType to determine whether a certain device type can be used on the adapter.

              [C#]
              
public void Test_Manager_CheckDeviceType()
{
    int result;

    // Test some formats
    IsDeviceTypeOK(Format.X8R8G8B8, Format.A8R8G8B8, out result);

    if (result != (int)ResultCode.Success)
        System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(String.Format("The device check failed:  {0}", result));
}

public bool IsDeviceTypeOK (Format displayFmt, Format backbufferFmt, out int result)
{
    AdapterInformation ai = Manager.Adapters.Default;

    // Verify that the device can be used on the default adapter with the given surface format
    if (Manager.CheckDeviceType(ai.Adapter, DeviceType.Hardware, displayFmt, backbufferFmt, false, out result))
    {
        return true;    // if the call succeeds
    }

    return false;   // otherwise fail.  NOTE: HRESULT passed back in result
}

The preceding code returns true if the device can be used on the default adapter with the specified surface format.

Using Manager.CheckDeviceType to test for compatibility between a back buffer that differs from the display format returns appropriate values. This means that the call reflects device capabilities. If the device cannot render to the requested back-buffer format, result is still set to ResultCode.NotAvailable. If the device can render to the format but cannot perform the color-converting presentation, result is also set to ResultCode.NotAvailable. Applications can discover hardware support for the presentation itself by calling Manager.CheckDeviceFormatConversion. No software emulation for the color-converting presentation itself is offered.