Effect Compiler

Effect Compiler is a rule file that allows you to compile Direct3D / HLSL effect files directly in Visual Studio. The default way is to compile all .fx files at runtime, but as files are getting bigger, compile time increases rapidly. However, in most cases it is not required to recompile the effects every time you run your application.

Usually you would call D3D10CompileShader(..) or a similiar function which calls fxc.exe internally. If you want Visual Studio to take of the compiling process you have to add a custom build rule. It will be called only if the source file has changed since the last compilation or the compiled version does not exist.

The compiling process can be adjusted using the "Property Pages" for every file individually as if it was a C/C++ or some other known file type. The output file is a binary effect data file and has the extension .cfx (any other endling is valid, too). It can be read in by D3DX10CreateEffectFromFile(..) for example.