Best Book for Learning DirectX 11

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6 comments, last by Cromulent 10 years, 5 months ago

I'm a Unix convert to Windows 8.1 and would like to make the switch to DirectX 11 from OpenGL / OpenAL etc. Can anyone recommend a decent up-to-date book on DirectX 11 programming. There are quite a few on Amazon and so I'm looking for some personal recommendations as to which book is good to start with. I'm already pretty good at C and C++ programming so I don't need a complete beginner book, just something that describes the DirectX 11 API would be quite nice.

Most books are either targeted at programming novices or people who already have experience with DirectX. I guess I'm more looking for a nice reference manual more than anything else.

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I really like this book by Frank Luna. It's got a pretty solid progression from basics to more advanced topics in the first two-thirds, and the final third of the book focuses on some cool applied techniques.

Eric Richards

SlimDX tutorials - http://www.richardssoftware.net/

Twitter - @EricRichards22

When I made the move to D3D11 I picked up Practical Rendering and Computation with Direct3D11. I enjoyed it and would recommend it, as the first half of the book has a pretty good overview of the API (especially organization of resources, which can get confusing). The authors are active on these forums too (MJP, Jason Z).

Frank Luna book is incredible. It explains a lot of graphics techniques alongside decent DX11 API introduction. Practical Rendering and Computation is also very decent book, but I would say it is not for beginners, since it focuses on each pipeline stage a lot and explains it in depth. For example if you want to know the differences in buffers or something about GPGPU with DX11, it is very good choice.

There are some excellent resources online too; rastertek provides lots of information on commonly used DirectX techniques http://www.rastertek.com/tutindex.html

If you are already familiar with OpenGL you shouldn't need a book that much because you should already know most of the rendering stuff all it is is an API switch. Generally the MSDN documentation on DX is decent just don't forget to read all of the remarks section on it's pages.

The only real thing to learn is which parts of the API correspond to what parts in the GL API that you already should know.

Also seeing you are using windows 8 SDK you can skip all the sections on PIX unless you have a full version of Visual Studio 2012 or higher as PIX doesn't understand the DX11.1 or higher runtime that is included with that SDK.

Worked on titles: CMR:DiRT2, DiRT 3, DiRT: Showdown, GRID 2, theHunter, theHunter: Primal, Mad Max, Watch Dogs: Legion

+1 vote for Frank Luna "Introduction to 3D Game Programming with Direct3D 11" for introduction and turorials

AND

+1 vote for "Practical Rendering and Computation with Direct3D 11" as API reference book (MSDN library imo is not enough, it's too much cryptic )

of course don't forget the tons of online free materials, like:

- D3D book http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/D3DBook:Table_of_Contents

- rastertek and braynzarsoft tutorials

- the "legacy" microsoft DirectX SDK

- AMD & NVIDIA SDKs

"Recursion is the first step towards madness." - "Skegg?ld, Skálm?ld, Skildir ro Klofnir!"
Direct3D 12 quick reference: https://github.com/alessiot89/D3D12QuickRef/

Thank you all for the advice. I think I'll go with the Frank Luna book to start with. I always prefer to have documentation available in printed forms.

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