Well in response to the last reply, MS has a way with wanting to control everything everyone does. If you haven''t figured this out .. maybe you should go back to high school. With that said .. I''d like to drop in that if you''re going to be learning the theory behind 3d programming, i might suggest attempting D3D, but you''ll probably find .. that after muddling thru a bunch of setup and function calls, and whole loads of misc stuff that you wont understand until you''ve read about it about 185 times .. you try OpenGL .. I spent a while doing d3d and it worked, and its not bad .. but after spending a half an hour using opengl and getting working 3d with little to no problems .. I had to throw out my need for ms idea of a nice api .. Not to mention the fact that opengl (imo) handles better, is easier to code, and is multiplatform .. tho it lacks things like the easy loading of .X models and some stuff MS put in their to make d3d seem user nice .. odds are yer not going to use that stuff anyway .. either way its a toss up .. i just found it easier to jump into opengl than d3d (when dealing with 3d) .. for 2d go ahead and werk out ddraw .. its not complicated

-jINx out

OGL is useful for everything(and i mean EVERYTHING) except Windows Games. Im sorry if you other people feel badly about that, but thats the breaks.

Direct3D8 now outperforms OpenGL, which i though ws kind of sad, but a fact is a fact. AS for numerous function calls, well yeah. Just deal with it. I personally enjoy COM programming much more than i enjoy API programming(calls which are not grouped together in any real way). COM programming means the calls are obviously related to each other in a certain way(they are part of a class). DirectX may not be smaller and simpler, but witht he release of D3D8, well, u OGL guys gotta take a second look.(ANd no, the code isnt going to be shorter; its still going to be rather long.)

Hopefully OGL2.0 will rectify the aforementioned problems. In the meanwhile, heres my advice:
If you intend to make Win32 games and you intend to stick with that for a while, learn D3D8, as long as you have firm grounding in C++ OOP(not C structs, full C++ classes!).
Otherwise, learn OGL.

-----------------------------
The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence.

OpenGL is very cool to learn 3D Programming with.

However once you have gotten past that initial part. It''s a pain in the ass, due to it''s extensions mechanism.

If you want to program a game today. Even if it''s 2D I would still use Direct3D or OGL and do it in 3D. It''s the "Proper" Way for today''s hardware.

As for needing to know advanced maths - for faked 2D, you won''t.

Just learn a wee bit of linear algebra and you''ll be fine.

BTW - I recommend your first book to be the Official OpenGL Programming Guide (Red Book). Don''t worry, the jump from OGL to Direct3D isn''t hard and this is SUCH a good book it should be read by everyone as their first book.

Promit, your an idiot. And another thing, d3d 8 is NOT faster than opengl. Your a moron if you think that. A good programmer can get both APIs to run equally well.

yes, a good programmer can. only problem is that the GL code requires optimization.

Dont bitch with me, i know what im talking about, ive actually TESTED these things.

-----------------------------
The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence.

You guyz are brutal... Damn!

Jeff D: Yes, actually I have. I used to use megazeux all the time, ahh, that was such a great program... Someday maybe I''ll try and write my own game creation program.

flucknugget

Thats the reason I want to learn C++ so I can make game creation systems like megazeux, but I kinda want to get into making something more like WorldCraft or Unreal Engine, but Im lucky if I can make hangman right now . But am having fun doing it. Welcome to these boards man.

If I can help you I will answer but it seems just like mzx your are more advanced than I am.

Jeff D


Suffered seven plagues, but refused to let the slaves go free. ~ Ross Atherton

quote: Original post by Promit
Direct3D8 now outperforms OpenGL, which i though ws kind of sad, but a fact is a fact.

If you say anything like that in your "OpenGL versus DirectGraphics" article and there is no way in hell it is going to be accepted.

[Resist Windows XP''s Invasive Production Activation Technology!]

Well, fine, if you must know:
Ive run several tests on different game engines, apps, etc. OGL and D3D definitely work better in different environments. For example, using D3D with an NVidia card on WinXP can cause serious problems(the nature of which is unimportant now). In general, windows systems(usually 98SE) are somewhat better suited to D3D. I don''t think my results will be accepted, however, and as a result I am discluding them from my article. Instead i will deal with each API as if its performance was equal with the others.

-----------------------------
The sad thing about artificial intelligence is that it lacks artifice and therefore intelligence.