DirectX Detailed Tutorial?

[ResidentBiscuit]

This is why I think people should learn from reading documentation, and refer to tutorials if you need clarification on a certain thing. I think this allows for more trial and error and actual learning.

[BHX]

Like I said, if all you do is follow tutorials and don't take anything from them other than copying and pasting, you'd be able to connect the lines yourself.

Not necessarily. Knowing Microsoft's history of forcing you to use their things on their OS it may never occur to anyone to use other GUI libraries to do the window Direct X draws to. The fact that all tutorials show doing the window with the Win32 API makes it look like that is the only way you can do it. I never even considered using another GUI library because of that very fact. I assumed it was just MS up to their old tricks and forcing you to use their APIs to make Direct X games.

The problem I have with Direct X is that it locks you into making games for only Windows. I prefer cross platform libraries and I push them over libraries like DX or XNA (I recommend Allegro/SDL/SFML mostly and looking into other libraries while I am at it.

[o1vk4iN6]

So you can only do something if someone else does it or tells you to do it? I don't see what you find so hard about finding your own solutions rather than relying on the internet to do everything for you. It's bad to make assumptions from rumours and people slandering a company.

And like my second post stated, that's one of the many reasons I preference opengl.

[BHX]

This is why I think people should learn from reading documentation, and refer to tutorials if you need clarification on a certain thing. I think this allows for more trial and error and actual learning.

I don't remember ever seeing in the DX documentation that you can use another GUI to make the window. All the documentation uses Win32API for making the window.

It's bad to make assumptions from rumours and people slandering a company.

It's not rumours or slander, they have a track record of it. They got in trouble in the '90s for trying to "monopolize the internet" because they were only including IE on Windows so you were forced to use their browser out of the box to download the one you want to use or just kept using IE because it was there. To develop a game as an Indie developer on 360 you are forced to use XNA. Same with the Windows phone. Using Direct X only works on Windows (unless you want to fight VMs).

Probably why so many companies use cross platform libraries to get more buyers as they realize a lot of people prefer Mac, Linux, and Windows (not to mention smart phones and tablets). I believe it doesn't matter what library you use to make a game, but I do feel that using a library that staples you to one OS can severely handicap your programming due to the different ways systems do things that you don't learn because of using Direct X. OpenGL and any other cross platform library is, in my opinion, far superior than Direct X in that regard as you learn to handle more problems when doing cross platform applications and games than you do when locking yourself into one OS due to an OS specific library.

I suppose if you want to develop for just Windows then learning DirectX is fine. If you want to develop across Windows/360/Phone 7 then XNA. If you want to do across Mac/Linux/Windows/iOS/Android then Allegro/SDL (not sure what OSes SFML support outside of *nix/Windows/Mac). OpenGL is always good no matter what OS you are developing for, also PhysFS, enet, and OpenAL just to name a few.

I don't see what you find so hard about finding your own solutions rather than relying on the internet to do everything for you.

Finding my own solution isn't hard, but never thought about looking for another GUI library to do the window that DX draws to.