well, heres my question... I am about to do a 3d software renderer... I know DirectX and OpenGL, and I''m just gonna go backwards a bit (learn real 3d)... It would be cheap to draw lines on a DirectX surface, and I would like to just keep away from DirectX/OpenGL help... What do I use? The windows GDI? Some Dos emulation layer?

We wrote a 3D renderer for a class I took at DigiPen. Most of use used windows GDI if you do use windows gdi make sure you use CreateDIBSection (look up DIB in MSDN) but some used DirectX which gives you direct access to the pixels (so does DIBSection) but it appeared to be faster (maybe the flipping). So you can use either one you choose or you can design it to use both?