a) I did not know that effect_load function. Sounds promising.

b) Tried to find the code of your bubble shader, but just found an *.exe file.

c) The loading of x files is possible if you catch them from inside a dll (actually it's genuine DirectX format). The second step would be to integrate it into Game4studio's render process. Jcl has designed three ports for that - before the Gamestudio rendering, inside and after it (forget the names, sounds like render_world or so). So there's no problem doing this ((I secceeded doing that a while ago).

What this has to with the rest? I just thought a way using all the DirectX features instead of a diminushed version. But if the load_effect function works as the name insinuates, it does not make too much sense.