Thanks for the response... I''ve bought the book "its on order" it should be here within a couple of days.

I was in a hurry when i posted the question... so if there was already a question like this one... im sorry i didnt get to look.

Is DirectX 7 like DirectX 8.1?

Ummm.... to the other post "the one with the huge quote" RPG''s are awesome,... i have a great idea for one... Ive bean starting and ending RPG for the last 6 years. I started in Elementry "that says a little for my age "

any ways... Thanks for the responses, ive read them all and took each opinion to mind.

Thanks!

~Xier

Oh, great--you see this? You see what''s happened? He''s satisfied, and now I''m not going to get any help! The whole posting process was for naught! I''m gonna buy the book and find out it does me no good now and that I wasted fifty dollars. Shucks. Oh, well.

I''ll think of a signature later...

NO! I won''t stand for it! Somebody, please! Don''t lose interest in this post! Answer! I need to know! Is this book essentially obsolete now that DirectX 8.0 or whatever version it is doesn''t support what he teaches??? Should I skip it and learn Direct3D?? I really, really, really want to know! Please, please, please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I''ll think of a signature later...

Look, DX is built on COM. The point of COM is so that you can program for ANY of the previous interfaces because they are all still in there. You just have to make sure you use the proper interfaces.

DX7 is still supported. When you get the SDK for DX8.1, the libraries and headers for ALL previous versions are in there, so the answer to your question is - yes, the book is still good.

Also, there is a hell of a lot more to programming a game than the graphics API. Here is a short list of things covered in TOTWGPG.

• Graphics principles
  
• Basic windows programming
  
• Game loops and states
  
• Input handling
  
• Graphic file formats
  
• Sound
  
• Basic physics and collision
  
• Basic linear math
  
• Simple data structures
  

All in all, a very useful book.

Oh well,
Landsknecht

[edited by - landsknecht on April 8, 2002 7:58:30 PM]

No, DX7 and the book aren''t obsolete - but it might become so when DX9 hits the market. DX8 is backwards compatible - that''s one of the COM specs. Anyway - Landsknecht spelled it out better than me and got his post in just as I hit the "post reply" button - so take my comment as a ratification of his.

Alright, thanks, that''s what I wanted to hear. I actually have been very anxious to read that book. I''m glad I have reason to.

I''ll think of a signature later...

Satisfied

You can program using any of the DirectX versions cant you? "lets say you learned of DX 6.0 and DX 7.0 comes out... you can still finsih your game...(correct?)"

As one of the articles said on this site: Program many little poor graphics games before moving on to the totally awesome graphic games.

Thanks again!

~Xier