I was looking at some books for Direct X on Amazon, and one of the reviewers said that you must know C++ and MFC. C++ is no problem, what IS MFC? Is it a progamming language? I've never even heard of MFC... so, can someone please give me a vague description of what this is? And if any of you reccamend a Direct X book, I'd appreciate that too! Thanks again! Programming::~Fredric(const Annoy_Ance) Edited by - Fredric on 3/12/00 3:11:19 PM

MFC stands for Microsoft Foundation Classes if I''m correct and it is a package to handle every win32 related thing you can ever imagine. Ofcourse you don''t have to use mfc and you can use all the raw API calls instead. Lots of people don''t like mfc and use the borland builder package instead. I rarely use mfc cause i go fullscreen and do my thingy there. THe things I''ve seen from mfc were pretty cool imho.

Anyway, my bet is that you don''t need to know mfc to understand the book. I certainly didn''t need to know mfc to use direct3d.

Jaap Suter


Mmmm, I''ll have to think of one.

MFC is an API designed to encapsulate the C Win32 API. You don''t need to know it for directX but you should know a little of the C Win32 API. Lamothe''s books cover the Win32 stuff but I won''t recommend his, as I''m not a particular fan of his writing style and ideas. But most people do like his books.



ECKILLER

Thanks for the help you too! I''ll check that book out at my local book store and see if I like the first few pages/introduction.

I hate Andre''s books (I have his two best ones). Even if you know C, then the books still hardly make any sense. Once he gets into using images, and anything involves something complex, he simply slaps the code onto a page and doesn''t give in an depth description of WHAT it is. *puts on flame-reppelent mask, suit, and jock*
Anyways, thanks. Do you guys reccamend Direct X? I want to learn Direct X as well as OpenGL...

Programming::~Fredric(const Annoy_Ance)

In my opinion Direct3D is just as easy to use as OpenGL when you wan''t to do something more than a spinning box. Most of those who disagrees with me (believe me, there are plenty) probably hasn''t bothered to check on DX7 and learned to utilize the D3DX library. D3D together with D3DX basically handles the same way as OpenGL, both work by setting states. OpenGL does have better platform portability though (nothing to argue about there).

I don''t want to recommend either, it is a matter of preferences. In my opinion both are equally good, and use them both (more Direct3D though, but that''s just me).

Even if you don''t want to use D3D for your application and choose to use OpenGL (or something else), you can still use the other parts, e.g. DirectInput, DirectSound etc.

(That flame-repellant suit is probably a good thing to put on right now )