Is it worth it? Any other comnpilers (besides VC/BC) ?

Hey have you checked out Mingw32 or Dev-C++.
Mingw is the port of the c++ compiler for linux, very free and fast and stable. I believe the link is www.mingw.org.

Dev-C++ is actually a full ide that uses mingw to compile. It is free. (you can donate $20 if you wish, but that is only to continue the development.) The link is www.bloodshed.net.

I would suggest using Dev-C++ if you aren''t confident in getting Mingw up and running, because it is a command line compiler and you should read the documentation before jumping into things. Dev-C++ takes a lot of the work from you, just install it and spend some time becoming accustomed to the ide.

I say get MSVC. Why? Most of the tutorials on the Net are written for MSVC. The DirectX SDK works ''out of the box'' with MSVC. A lot of books on programming are written with MSVC in mind, so I think MSVC will be worth the $99(or $49 if you''re a student).

I used to be using lcc-win32 and DevC++ until 4 weeks ago when I finally got MSVC. DO I think it''s worth it? Definitely.

Althought linux is a fine thing, the VC compiler is just as stable as the gnu-c compiler (if not more) and generates faster code than gnu-c. The intel compiler optimizes even better, you''ll really gain visible speed increases.
There also was a product called Vector-C (like the intel compiler an extension to VC) which should be faster than intel. Anyway, it only supported C (no C++) and was a bit buggy.

I think the intel compiler has a fair price and is really useful, you can even get vtune (a performance analyzer to remove bottlenecks) together with it!

-Markus-