hi there i bought the windows game programming for dummies book about 3 years ago and unfortunately never got round to making a game, although i understood most of what was said. Now after a years travelling around the world and a lot more spare time i want to resume from where i left off. I cant remember the direct x version supplied with the book but i know its dated these days. I have also heard that there are differences between 8.0 and the previous in terms of coding etc. So which version should i start to learn and is there a lot of support available for it in terms of tutorials and books. thanks

I asked the same question and the response I got was unanimous.
Direct X 8 is the way to go. Apparently Direct X 7 was a real mess and very confusing to learn. Direct X 8 is supposed to be a drastic improvement.

This isn''t what I wanted to hear since I already purchased a direct X 7 book.

depends. if you want to do 3d, then use dx8. ifyou want to do real 2d (ie perpixel effect, and limited blitting), then use dx7 (directdraw7). though for 2d, any book on directdraw will be fine since it has not changed much since dx6 (or even dx3).

if your mainly after tile based stuff in 2d, then use dx8 because after some of the basic hard stuff (learning about vertices, etc) you can render sprites quite easily and get many benefits (like free alphablending, rotation, and scaling).

also, if you are learnign 3d stuff. learning d3d7 wont harm anything. initilaztion is a bit tougher, as well as a fw other things. though for the most part you should be learning 3d theory from the book as well. you should EASILY be able to pick up d3d8 once you learn d3d7. so its not a time waster nor the wrong way to go.

[edited by - a person on June 30, 2002 4:36:23 PM]

If you wish to use directdraw7 you can still use directinput8, directaudio8 etc. at the same time (just not d3d8).

,Jay

EDIT: Okay, as soon as I wrote this, I went looking for some good 2D DirectX8 tutorials. I haven't tried it yet, but this tutorial looks to be EXCELLENT intro to 2D DX8 graphics. For anyone who's interested, take a look:

DX8 tutorial @ FlipCode

END EDIT

I had this same question. I'm learning DirectX 6 (TOWGPG) and it makes it a lot easier to understand, which is why I've been a little hesitant about using DirectX 8. I understand 3D concepts and terms (having done quite a bit of 3D modelling) but I'm not sure if I'd grasp the 3D math, which I probably don't understand enough of yet.

Based on some of the opinions here though, I'm definitely going to take a look at some 2D DirectDraw 8 tutorials. I'm writing some DirectX classes right now, and I'd hate to invest a lot of time in obsolete technology



[edited by - Peon on June 30, 2002 6:36:18 PM]

[edited by - Peon on June 30, 2002 6:36:39 PM]