What is the best 2D graphic engine for windows? I am interested in designing 2D games top down shooter, parallax scrolling, RPGs, and would like to know which library out there, free or paid, is the best? Support for MSVC++ 6 I have looked at libCONN, FastGraph, and something else...I don''t mind spending upwards of $400(US), mind you this is still a hobby, of getting a good 2D engine in which I can concentrate just on writing the actual game. I want one that supports DirectX, parallax, maybe isometric tiling(could probably program this in if I need too), kitchen sink... As you can see as much bang for the buck I can afford. Looked into Power Render, but does that support 2D? Let me know, and appreciate all the answers.

Um, try CDX, I think it does all that stuff. I haven''t personally tried it myself, but it is free (can''t go wrong with that) and it supports that stuff.

-Blackstream

"Just you wait until I buy a compiler! Then I will make buggy programs that I am allowed to distribute"

Options:

CDX - free helper classes for DirectX - pretty decent. I believe there is an active community of supporters. http://www.cdx.sk/

NukeDX - very good stuff, I used this for many months while working on my DirectDraw game. Easy to set-up. Has support for Alpha blending, rotation, DirtyRectangles, and lots of stuff. Free. - not much support. They''re working on new 3D libraries instead. http://www.nukesoftware.dk

Allegro - multi-platform game library. Hard to set up for Windows from my experience. Very structured C programming style. I didn''t like it. Don''t know where the URl is - do a search, you''ll find it.

SDL - Simple Direct Layer - multi-platform library. I''ve seen some cool samples - apparently it''s pretty good. Has automatic ? DirtyRectangle support, easy setup of video, mouse cursor automatically handled, etc. Runs on Windows, Linux, Dos, and even Mac I think. Pretty cool. Does not support bitmap scaling, which was why I couldn''t use it.
http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/

ClanLib - haven''t checked it out much - but it''s supposed to be pretty good too. Multiplatform.
http://www.clanlib.org/

Hope that helps.

Clay Larabie
http://www.tacendia.com

>> Allegro - multi-platform game library. Hard to set up for Windows from my experience. Very structured C programming style. I didn''t like it. Don''t know where the URl is - do a search, you''ll find it. <<

The url to Allegro''s official site is http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/allegro/.

/. Muzzafarath

Wow, didn''t know there where that many free libraries out there. Might save some money

Why is the trend to move to 3D games? I know the eyecandy is pretty good, hell its great. But a lot of 3D games out there is just that eyecandy! No gameplay no story line, of course there are some exceptions. I wouldn''t mind so much if 3d games had depth, but it''s like all the developers are just jumping on the bandwagon.

Wanted to let everyone know how great your help has been. I settled on the CDX library its simple and open source I was able to get something up pretty fast with that engine.

Thanks to everyone for all there help!