High Performance Windows Graphics Programming: Your High-End Guide for Creating Fast, High-Impact Graphics with Microsoft's DirectDraw API [Paperback]

Stan Trujillo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 29, 1997 | Series: High performance

Covers basic to advanced topics, including optimization, true-color display modes, alpha blending, and key framing. Includes lots of ready-to-run optimized graphics programs that readers can modify to use in their own applications. Features custom-written Visual C++ AppWizard that lets readers create full-fledged DirectDraw applications from within Visual C++. Provides ready-to-use C++ and MFC routines.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stan Trujillo (Oakhurst, CA) has done programming work for Los Alamos National Laboratories, the California Institute of Technology, and the U.S. Department of Energy in areas such as graphics, neural nets, and distributed computing. He is an author of Cutting-Edge Direct3D Programming, C++ Games Programming, Windows 95 Games Programming, and other computer books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Coriolis Group (October 29, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576101487
• ISBN-13: 978-1576101483
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,634,391 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful but definitely not comprehensive, and lacking focus, April 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: High Performance Windows Graphics Programming: Your High-End Guide for Creating Fast, High-Impact Graphics with Microsoft's DirectDraw API (Paperback)

When I got this book, I was a total newcomer to Windows programming and the entire set of DirectX APIs, including DirectDraw, of which this book claims to focus on. My first problem was the code presented relies on MFC. While MFC does make for simpler code, you need to know some basic MFC to understand the code. While the author claimed that MFC was 'beyond the scope of the book', it would have only taken 10 pages or less to explain all the MFC needed to understand the code. This is very frustrating given the fact the book contains 3 fairly useless chapters - a chapter on video playback, one on collision detection and a 'bonus' chapter from his other book on Direct3D. It would have been better to see chapters on basic MFC, Visual C++ compiler (which he uses), and perhaps one on DirectSound. Overall, the book was very helpful to get me started with DirectDraw and DirectInput. However, if you intend to really use this stuff you're going to need more references such as "Inside DirectX", which fills in many of the gaps found in this book. Oh and by the way, the code leaves a lot to be desired.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Overall a good book on DirectDraw, April 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: High Performance Windows Graphics Programming: Your High-End Guide for Creating Fast, High-Impact Graphics with Microsoft's DirectDraw API (Paperback)

I got this book having no directdraw programing experience, a strong C++ background, and limited Win32/MFC programing experience. The first chapter gives a great crashcourse on Direct Draw, and the remaining chapters do a good job at explaining difficult concepts. Though I don't know if I would recommend this book to a beginer, a quick learner can pick up alot from the book.

5.0 out of 5 stars not for absolute beginners, February 14, 2000

By 

Floris van den Berg - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Performance Windows Graphics Programming: Your High-End Guide for Creating Fast, High-Impact Graphics with Microsoft's DirectDraw API (Paperback)

This book simply rules. Not only does the writer explain the ins and outs of the DirectDraw API *very* well, the author also discusses some common problems (and their solutions) that many programmers may face in a game or multimedia application. I never saw these problems discussed in any other book. For example Stan discusses how to eliminate the flicker of the mouse pointer as you draw it on a pageflipped surface, how to mix Windows MCI and DirectX and more. Usefull stuff indeed.

The book might not be too swell for beginners though. Stan assumes some basic knowledge about Windows and DirectX, meaning he doesn't explain how to set up DirectX, how to create a message loop, how to set up a window, and so forth. This is ofcourse good, because the book is not polluted with stuff that's already described in so many other books. But it means, as a programming newbie, you need at least another book to get the basic understandings. A good beginners book is Games programming for Dummies from LaMothe.

Authors who are interested in advanced graphics programming should get the Graphics Programming Black Book from Abrash. It's not specifically about Windows, but it contains some valuable resources nevertheless.