how much of windows programming is needed by a game programmer or is it even a must?
also which dyu think is easier to learn dierectx or openGL?? holler

Whats up teleporter. In game programming u need little or no knowledge of windows programming because the game engine takes care of that except u want to build ur game engine from the scratch. There are different engines used to build 3D games. The game engine takes care of the main logics of the game. It takes care of the windows programming aspect of the game. The graphics engine takes care of the screen or graphics of a 3D game. We also have the terrain engine that takes care of the environments in the game. But for a 2D game, thats less complex than 3D, a simple game engine can take care of most of the things u'll need in to make a 2D game.

For the case of directx and opengl. They are both tight but from my observation, it seems opengl is more popular. From my view, i repeat. I was thinking of which one to learn myself but the problem has been how to get a concise tutorial on both subjects. If u know how i can get it, pls holla at me. Thanks.

hey geebengs thanks for the info, so most o'time the engine prgrmaers need knowledge o'windows prgmng, what o'the graphics engine prgmers?

i got few opengl bks, dunno if u hav 'em already though. what kinda prgming u into? holler

hey teleporter, sorry for the late reply. I'll appreciate it if u can send me the opengl book u've got. Though, the truth is that i'm still making research to see which is better between opengl and directx- it seems directx is gaining an upper hand. The point i got from a friend is that directx has a major advantage over opengl in the area of speed which makes it more suitable for game development. He said that with directx, u can access the video card directly and program the video card to do what u want. This makes ur game come out faster and easier to code. Unlike, directx, opengl has an interface on top of the video card, which means u can't access the video card directly.
I'm expecting more advanced game programmers in the house to criticize the point above.

I'm into game programming. I'm just about to conclude a 2D tank game which i've been working on. After the 2D game, i'll go straight into 3D game programming.
Holler.

Hey teleporter, i've finally gotten what we've been loking for. Check out this page: www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1775.asp. After reading through the article, then also check out comments on the article on this page: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?key=featart&uid=1775&forum_id=35&topic_title=direct3d+vs.+opengl%3a+which+api+to+use+when%2c+where%2c+and+why&PageSize=25&WhichPage=1. It will help. Later.

geebengs i think u should reobserseve the differences and the concepts behind opengl and directx again. directx is a microsoft technology and opengl is an open source technology.

directx sits on top of the hal and partly the gdi of windows and does no direct communication with the graphics card. the dame version of directx runnig on microsoft's Xbox still sit on top of the hawl of windows xp running on the console.

opengl on the other hand is an entirely device independent graphics technology. communicating directly with the grpahics card.

opengl is much more intuitive than directx (note: my experience is with directx 8 and 9. directx 10 maybe better but i haven't looked into it yet). my advice for a beginning graphics programmer would be to start off with opengl, get familiar with the concepts, then get into directx.

if you're programming on a win32 platform, then directx is the way to go. opengl doesn't perform as well unless you know what you're doing.

with regards to learning win32 programming, you only have to know the basics, i.e. how to set up a win32 window. nehe's lesson -> http://nehe.gamedev.net/data/lessons/lesson.asp?lesson=01 is all you might ever need to know.

i also assume you're using c/c++

I'll appreciate it if u can send me the opengl book u've got

i'll send 'em to u soon, its called opengl superbible, got it from this nairaland forum. u said u made a 2d tank game, on the average, how long does it take to make/ be versed in 2D games/2D game programming. i'll be learning 2d but want to go into 3D as soon as possible coz thats likely my major

i don't really get the concept of console programming, the X-box as abx says uses the directx api right?, what makes programming games on the x-box diff than progrmmng games on the pc?

what dyu guys think of a game company start-up

game pogramming isn't all about the renderer. with consoles, you have to worry about the general architecture (processor, GPU, cache, RAM), memory management, endianess of the machine, etc

geebengs i think u should reobserseve the differences and the concepts behind opengl and directx again. directx is a microsoft technology and opengl is an open source technology.

directx sits on top of the hal and partly the gdi of windows and does no direct communication with the graphics card. the dame version of directx runnig on microsoft's Xbox still sit on top of the hawl of windows xp running on the console.

opengl on the other hand is an entirely device independent graphics technology. communicating directly with the grpahics card.

well, as u said, maybe i'll reobserve the differences btwn directx and opengl just to be able to reaffirm my points more confidently. But from the research i made lately, i directx is an api that was developed mainly for game programming. It is a microsoft technology and therefore works perfectly on windows platform. opengl is was developed for more general graphics deveopment in mind and does this perfectly well for high-end graphics application(like 3dmax, maya, autocad, etc) on different platforms. So the conclusion is if u are a game programmer on windows platform, directx is the right api for u. But if u are into high end graphics applications like animation softwares and modelling, opengl is the perfect api for you. This does not however mean directx can't be used for programming graphics applications and opengl can't be used for game programming, the point is that one is better in doing one thing than the other in both uses. I hope u understand?

on the average, how long does it take to make/ be versed in 2D games/2D game programming. i'll be learning 2d but want to go into 3D as soon as possible because thats likely my major

This depends, ifu already know a programming language which u can use confidently, which i presume u have, its just about getting a 2D game engine and get someone who can put u through the steps in programming a game. Also very important is understanding how to use the game engine. Once u get all these, u can program good 2D games depending on how creative u are.