Hey, Well, as you all know, the Windows GDI function, TextOut is really damn slow... So I have decided to make my own text engine using Directx and .bmp files. My question is this. Should I just use a Gigantic Switch statement? Or is there a more efficient way to do it? Well thanks.

That''s probably not a good idea...
What you want to do is have a large bitmap, with images of each letter/number/symbol/whatever, in the correct (ASCII) order. Then, to draw a letter, you just compute it''s position on the bitmap, and blit that area to your drawing surface.

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Martee
http://www.csc.uvic.ca/~mdill

If you can find it, pick up the most recent issue of Game Developer (you should be subscribing anyway, it''s free dammit ), it has an in-depth article on exactly that topic. Most major bookstores like Barnes and Noble sell it, or go to www.gdmag.com (I think that''s it) to subscribe. Or, watch www.gamasutra.com and hope it gets published there; lots of the articles from the magazine show up there later on.

Anthracks

Ok, thanks guys. Thanks for the help. I will do what you guys are saying... I was afraid the Switch was going to be slow anyway. Well thanks, and later.

The fastest way to select the charactor is to store your textures/surfaces in an array, using the ASCii value to be printed as the index of the array.