I recently read in another post that the new version of DX did not use DirectDraw and was just using D3D for graphics. If this is something I just missunderstood then plz forgive my ignorance, but if this is true I''m wondering if I should stop trying to learn DDraw and ditch all of my DX7 books and start learning the new one. Is it better than DDRAW or will I be fine using all of the programs that I have? If the world didn''t suck we would all fly off!

Yes, it''s true. DirectDraw is DEAD! BWHAHAHAHA!

But seriously, one of the neat things with DX 8 is that you''ll get hardware accelerated graphics (if there''s a 3d-card, of course). It''s easy to do stuff like rotating, zooming and whatever. On the other hand, if you''re doing a game that won''t require a 3d-card, I think you''re better off with DX 7. I don''t think there is a software mode in DX 8.

Sorry, that''s all I can tell you, I''m using OpenGL and I''ve only played around a bit with DirectX 8...


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"problems have solutions
a lifetime of fucking things up fixed in one determined flash"
- The Downward Spiral, NIN

im still new to programming too. i am thinking about trying to start a 2-d tetris clone after that i was thinking about doing a 2-d birds-eye-view flying game both of which im am going to use bitmaps and sprites for the graphics. is it better to use direct x 7 for that kind of stuff?

In my very personal opinion is is always a bad thing to learn things that are older than the latest version.

Making 2D stuff with D3D is really easy as well. DX7 is a worse api than Dx8 as well making it even harder for you to learn to do stuff. I never figured it out properly, but with dx8 it was a whole lot easier. Just look at the initialization process in dx7 and compare it to dx8.. yikes!

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directdraw might be dead but sdl certainly isnt check out www.libsdl.org it handles 2d graphics a charm

http://uk.geocities.com/sloppyturds/gotterdammerung.html

directdraw is certainly not dead. you can still use it. microsoft realizes that vidoe card producers are not adding 2d stuff to their boards so it made sense to remove it form the later version of the dx api to clean it up and make it simpler. by removing directdraw from dx8 it allowed them to simplfy the d3d operations (no more worrying about them having to coexist and use the same buffers nor dealling with other messyness that dd with d3d involves). just use directdraw7 or earlier. thats the nice thing about dx, you can use the old interfaces with the newer versions, and for the most part everything works like nothing changed. heck i am using directdraw7 with directsound6 along with directshow8. its marvolus that is possible

quote: Original post by CamelFly
Just look at the initialization process in dx7 and compare it to dx8

and for those of us who have no idea, where exactly would you look to find such a thing. I have yet to find a tutorial that satisfactorily points out the different parts of the DX interfaces, they just give you code and say "put it here and slide your bitmaps in here" (outside of one of my outdated reference books, but it doesn''t talk about DX8).

Are there any up-to-date references on the subject of DX8? People consistently tell me that I have to render quads, but I''m not sure what those are.

I think the best reference for those sort of things are the ms documentation for dx8. It comes with the sdk or is at msdn.microsoft.com

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