The DirectX 7 (good for DirectDraw/2D) and 8.1 (Direct3D) Software Development Kits (SDKs) are excellent resources. They''re available for free from Microsoft''s site. (something like http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/ or so, do a search on microsoft''s download site if that doesn''t work)
Good resources are also available from nVidia and ATI - check their Websites'' "Developers" sections to get the newest SDKs.
The book I''m currently reading is "3D Game Engine Design" by David H. Eberly. If you want absolutely in-depth theory on the math and algorithms involved in realtime 3D graphics, get a copy of it, Amazon have it. It''s an excellent book, and it''s been pretty hard for me to understand some math parts of it - you probably won''t have much trouble. (I only just graduated from grammar/high school)
I know, books aren''t free, but this one will give you a complete reference and goes into more detail than you''re likely to ever need unless you also plan on writing a software renderer.
For getting started that should definitely keep you busy for a while. Once you''re really into it, get various white papers/dev docs from nVidia''s developer site. Although they obviously lean towards GeForce implementations, many of the described techniques are generally applicable.
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hillip@xenoage.de''>JQFull Speed Games. Period.
heres alittle background..
I''m a forth year Computer Science undergrad so I''m not at all afraid to tackle any mathematics, im comfortable coding in C/C++/Java and both 68k/SPARC ASM, pretty much anything thats imperative.
i know my basic data structures and algorithms, ive implemented my own simulator for a (harvard based 
) CPU architecture as well as basic Operating System duties ( (VM) memory & cache management and implemented a simple compiler ..using primarily front end stuff (scanning/parsing/semantic analysis/sparse optimization and linking) using flex/lexx/YACC/Bison
ok this sounds alittle like a resume..but i typed this just to let everyone know that im actually looking for more advanced theory on rendering/engine design
i have to start from the beginning, i have created an automaton based game using the console as an interface and i would love to polish it up and move it over to 3D ...kind of like a DOS checkers to DirectX
all the resources here are articles and im not quite sure where i can begin...id like to get a prototype up and running asap, akin to the software engineering concept of spiral development or maybe versioning ...can anyone guide me?
