Managed DirectX 9 Kick Start : Graphics and Game Programming

[ThePentiumGuy]

Hey guys,

i might be getting this book to learn D3D

does anyone have any opinions.. reviews.. etc about this book

any comments woul be great,

 

pent

[wyrd]

Read the amazon reviews.

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672325969/qid=1081444179/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-3101196-9579229

 

My own personal opinion; It's horribly written and organized, but contains good information. It's also written by Tom Miller, who is the authority on Managed DirectX.

[ThePentiumGuy]

thanks

yeah i checked out the reviews,

is the book hard?

[wyrd]

You'll have to judge that for yourself.

[rifter1818]

I just bought the book

 

And i found it very very good. Little less than i wanted on HLSL but im prolly gonna buy a book specific to that, i thought it was well worth what i paid for it (40-50 Canadian)

[ThePentiumGuy]

wyrd: :-p ok ill check it out at the bookstore

rifter1818: whats HLSL? the high level shader language thingy?

 

judging from the reviews on amazon and on this forum im leaning towards buying it, the price is well set(only $25 on amazon :D),

the main reason i wanted to buy this book was to learn more about the 3d aspect of D3D - .net game programming with directx9.0 covered 2d and now im trying to advance towards 3d

 

thanks for the replies,

pent

[DrunkenHyena]

The book is nice in that it shows you a very broad view of DirectX. Unfortunately there is almost no depth. Fullscreen mode is covered near the end of the book and again very shallowly. Lost Devices are almost completely glossed over. Alt+Tab out of his *1* fullscreen sample, and it crashes.

 

Almost nothing is explained. You're shown a method of doing things with no real explanation of why you'd do things that way rather than any other. Some things are done very differently than the SDK samples with no explanation as to why or what the benefits are.

[ThePentiumGuy]

thanks hyena(ive seen you on some other forum before........)

welll....i have to look at afew things here:

the price is nice

i dont mind if its horribly written :-p

i only care if it contains info

 

however - DrunkenHyena mentioned it doenst go into detail, which is exactly what i'm looking for.........

 

 

im not really sure now o_O - if a book doesnt go into detail(especially with DirectX), it can get confusing bdecuase it'll be hard to put it all together...

 

im gonna go and check out more reviews,

in the meantime, does anyone have any better/alternate alternatives,

Edit: Alternate Alternatives???? wth was i talking about lol!

thanks,

pent

Edited April 12, 2004 by ThePentiumGuy

[nikhilhs]

I love the book. It helps to know a bit about 3d computer graphics theory and the math behind it. Within a few weeks of it, I'm writing my own engine. The book gives you the DX9 code. And their source code is very well documented and explained. And it works without downloading any updates. I loved it so much, that I've ordered the C++ version in the series.

[wyrd]

Go down to the book store and thumb through it yourself, or find it on the publishers web site and read the sample chapters.

[ThePentiumGuy]

nikhilhs: where's the C++ version?

and is it unmanaged?

 

pent