Game programming books 1

[TheInsider]

Hi,
I have been looking for a good Windows game programming book for ages. I am about 3/4 through Andre' LaMothe's "The Black Art of 3D Game Programming". This is the greatest thing since sliced bread for someone who is new to game programming like me, but unfourtunately it is DOS based. Don't get me wrong, DOS is great, but I would like to create games like Driver, Quake, and Interstate '76. Obviously mine won't be as good, but I'd like to start to learn DirectX mainly Direct3D. I am sick of looking through the mixed reviews at Amazon.com. One person swears by a book, another swears at it! =) How do I learn this sort of programming? Has anyone successfully learned Windows 3D game programming fundamentals from reading a particular book - enough to start writing a game? Any game programmers out there who can suggest some good sources? I specialized in C++ OOP, and C Windows API in college. I'm a little rusty due to the fact that I have been developing databases in Visual Basic and Access for the last 1 1/2 years since graduating, so I don't need any super-advanced books right now.
Thank you for any suggestions. [sig]<p>Rob Marriott<br><a href=mailto:rob@career-connections.net>rob@career-connections.net</a><br>[/sig]

 

[tcollins]

I have found Inside DirectX and Inside Direct3D (Microsoft Press I think) to be not too bad. I'm kinda going the other way right now. I'm getting DirectX down, but have a need to actually 'create' windows using CreateWindow() functions. Now I need to know how to place a control or two in there. I'm trying to get around having to use the 'visual' part of the IDE. I want to be able to programatically create my own controls and such. Otherwise, I recommend the above two books if you want to do performance gamming in a Windowed environment. The two compliment each other and you need to know DirectDraw before you can do Direct3D as Direct3D is dependant on DirectDraw.