Here's your main choices, DirectX, SDL or OpenGL. As for making a game without one, you couldn't wouldn't, unless it was a text-based game. I advise you start there.

Quote:Original post by red_sodium
Here's your main choices, DirectX, SDL or OpenGL. As for making a game without one, you couldn't wouldn't, unless it was a text-based game. I advise you start there.

You could always use the GDI; it's not actually to bad, even if it is a bit slow. It's simple to use, at any rate!

Experiment with the libraries and find out which one you like. But before you go into graphics programming, make sure you know the language you will be working with.

Yup,Witch and Not Which when it comes to putting the polygons to the screen.It began with the svga cards and no proper standards being made(right?).

OpenGL - easy,small,multiple OS
DirectX - huge,cool,the thing (well it's from microsoft)

GDI - quite easy to use,a bit slow,(easy as windows gui coding)

Mode13h - very,very simple,DOS based,res 320x200(256 colors)
SVGA - horrors (I am finding it out),quite as easy as Mode13h,if you can get it.

GCL - my little creation (:)),a gdi wrapper which provides you with quite fast framerates,better than using SetPixel(),currently has only 20 colors ,work in progress.Very similar to using mode13h.

It's your choice when it commes to choosing the API you want and on your knowledge as a programmer.I havent yet used DirectX and have found OpenGL to be very hassle free once you set it up,which is the same with the VGA graphics,which is a bit difficult since you have to compile as DOS in some memory model.GUI is much easier when it comes to flexibility and it works almost everywhere unlike SVGA.

Then again many of the tutorials on stuff like rasterization (i.e drawing lines,polygons,shading etc) ,which I have seen are in SVGA or Mode13h.That might make GCL something to look into.Sorry about not giving a link,since I am having a major rewamp to my site so have not had time to upload it yet.
But here is the link to the stuff I did a 1-2 weeks ago.
It's just the bare bones stuff,quite a mess and not like the poper class I am working on now nor does it allow buffer direct access.There is an example program with it but the latest version I am working on has some slight diffrences form the old one.So please dont take this one for evaluation since it does not even quater represent the true stuff.Just shows a fast way to put pixels in GDI.

GCL (prealpha v2)

When I have finished with my site,I will upload v3,with proper documentation or maybe it too will become a mess like SVGA.

//Edit:Corrected the .zip missing at the end of the GCL url

[Edited by - FireNet on August 17, 2004 8:37:47 AM]

Quote:Original post by AzCoder
I have often wondered why people bother with Direct3D. It seems to me that if you know both OpenGL and Direct3D, OpenGL would enable you to target more Operating Systems with similar performance and a better API.

D3D right now seems to have the performance (as well as officialy supported features) edge on Windows right now. And while OpenGL might be as elegant as D3D, DirectX as a whole is more elegant than OpenGL + fmod + other libs.

Diversity makes everyone happy.

I'd go with SDL (check my signature). Its got a very simple API to learn, but still offers all the important features, as well as OpenGL support. I think OpenGL is the best API to learn, but thats just an opinion. Check out the nehe tutorials (you can find a link in the "Hosted Sites" area.

Quote:Original post by FireNet

GCL (prealpha v2)

Object not found! (404)