Hi everyone, My parents recently picked up two Game Programming books for me. One is “Beginning C# game programming” by Ron Penton, the other is “Beginning C++ game programming” by Michael Dawson. I was pretty excited; I zipped through both books and saw that C# teaches some basics of DirectX to display a Top-Down space shooter as the last project. But the C++ book just teaches Dos based games, one of them being tic tac toe. I’m having some trouble picking which book I should focus on. I would love to jump right into working with DirectX, but I have a feeling I should start small and do the C++ dos games, then go out and buy a more advance book. Just so you all know, I never programmed games before, but I have done C# and C++ app projects. Which book should I focus on? Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

Quote:Original post by Kaize
I would love to jump right into working with DirectX, but I have a feeling I should start small and do the C++ dos games

Just jump right into DirectX, if that's what you feel is best. Managed DirectX with C# is IMHO very comfortable to code. But if that starts feeling too hard, you can always ask help here. [smile] You said you have programmed some apps with C# and C++, so I assume you already know at least the basics of programming.

Have fun in the world of game programming!

Can't pick which one to read? Read them both. Never any harm in knowing both C++ and C#.

Thanks guys, I've picked the C# gaming book to work with, and so far its been great. I was just alittle worried about jumping right into Directx without doing some minor dos based games first.

IMO do the c++ code book first. Learn the concepts of programming first as just a simple dx window D3D or Win32 is quite complicated and uses typedefs and pointers that as a beginner are difficult to understand

The c# may give you graphical results faster and it always seems like the best idea but i say stick to understanding the object oriented paradigm and its uses. You Will give up if you go for dx, ive been programming for around 3 years now and dx still confuses me, especially classing it all up so that i can reuse it . . which brings us back to understanding OO implementation.

So. in short, learn to code, dont worry about the console window cos a robust functioning and playable game such as blackjack or something is as rewarding as building pong, another popular starter program. Pong is i will tell you actually quite difficult to program(if you are brand new at this) despite how simple it looks, so stick with code and hold back the temptation of dealing with graphics and API's.

Of course these are my opinions but game creation ISNT easy using c++ and other industry standard languages/API, make plenty of coffee and strap urslef in cos programming is a hairloss and aggravating experience.

Quote:Original post by counterrabbit
IMO do the c++ code book first. Learn the concepts of programming first as just a simple dx window D3D or Win32 is quite complicated and uses typedefs and pointers that as a beginner are difficult to understand

The c# may give you graphical results faster and it always seems like the best idea but i say stick to understanding the object oriented paradigm and its uses. You Will give up if you go for dx, ive been programming for around 3 years now and dx still confuses me, especially classing it all up so that i can reuse it . . which brings us back to understanding OO implementation.

So. in short, learn to code, dont worry about the console window cos a robust functioning and playable game such as blackjack or something is as rewarding as building pong, another popular starter program. Pong is i will tell you actually quite difficult to program(if you are brand new at this) despite how simple it looks, so stick with code and hold back the temptation of dealing with graphics and API's.

Of course these are my opinions but game creation ISNT easy using c++ and other industry standard languages/API, make plenty of coffee and strap urslef in cos programming is a hairloss and aggravating experience.

I agree with the rabbit, learn to code with c++ before you move onto less involved languages, mostly because learning c# first will give you bad habbits that will be hard to break when the time comes

also knowing what went into games when they were all made for DOS is invaluable when you start coding for windows.