Hi everyone,

Having attempted to follow a once popular c# programming book using DX9 and .NET1.1 (and hitting an infuriating impasse), I am now changing tack. To follow the book exercises, but replacing code from modern technologies.

Rather than go for XNA, I want to stick with a DX variant. The reason - simply I enjoy having more control and want to understand the inner workings of game engines at the moment. I'm quite passionate about that right now, and the experience of programming for me is not just about end results, but rather learning, understanding, and then results.

So, having read some interesting threads on the internet about how to stick with DX in the modern era, and learning that DX is deprecated with Microsoft seemingly wanting us to all move to XNA, I read that SlimDX and SharpDX can be used for the DirectX enthusiast of today.

I'm a c# programmer, so my quesitons is what environment should I plump for?
a) WinXP, .NET4, DirectX9c
b) WinXP, .NET4, SlimDX
c) WinXP, .NET4, SharpDX

Or maybe something else to go with c# and .NET4? I'm definitely up for coding my own game engines. I think I spent too long playing 8-bit games as a kid. That's what I blame anyway. I'm fascinated by the coders of that era.

Anyway. Thoughts on a postcard...

I would personally recommend SharpDX or SlimDX. They're extremely similar so which one in particular doesn't really matter.

SharpDX claims better performance than SlimDX - but its a tiny difference and both perform well enough to create just about anything.

SharpDX is mostly a computer generated wrapper for DX, and SlimDX is mostly hand coded. Functionally I'd say they're about 99% the same.

Hey orizvi! Thanks for the encouragement - I'm going to go for SharpDX - it seems to be more comprehesive from what I can find out on the interweb.