   Looking for resources, have some DirectX questions
Resources:I'm looking for any free, goal oriented book, tutorial, or video tutorial covering any relevant programming language. In other words, through the lessons you learn Python, C++, C# or Visual Basic. No Java or PHP as I will be working offline and I wish to learn a language you could actually create a video game with. By goal oriented I mean I'm looking for something which will help me learn how to program, but it's not laid out like a textbook. I have no interest in a lesson where your first program is "Hello World!" and each chapter or section is devoted to each component of the language. Instead I would like to build something as I learn, so that the completion of an interesting project, whatever it may be, is enough to help me keep going. I'm a visually oriented person so I can't plow through meaningless lesson after lesson in a college textbook style lesson and expect to stick with it. So the keywords are free, goal oriented, and relevant languages.Please don't tell me to search for it, I spent literally hours searching yesterday here at the library. I came up empty handed, and overwhelmed with links to the same site over and over again. I'm not asking for you to search for me either. I am just asking for any interesting links you may have picked up and don't mind sharing - that's all. Sometimes a good website never shows up in Google, and the only way to locate it is by word of mouth.One final note... Video Tutorials are the absolute best medium to learn by in my opinion, so if you know of a free goal oriented series please share the information! It would be very much appreciated. If such a series does not exist but you wouldn't mind making one, please consider it!DirectXI also need transitional information. By that I mean I'll be working with old books, some going back to 2005. The authors of many of these no longer provide updates for current readers of their books. I have Visual Basic Game Programming for Teens, Programming Role Playing Games with DirectX, and a few other titles coming in. They require usually Visual Studio 2005. Microsoft, being as they are, say they provide backward compatibility but do something else. I am downloading Visual Studio 2005 SP1, and have a link to the 2008 Visual Studio Express pack. I just need a guide or something that outlines each and every change between versions, so when the book tells me to type in one thing I know to type in something else. I wish I knew how to better describe what I'm trying to ask for here...Once again I am not asking you to search for me. I'm just asking you to share any links you may have, and to provide any information you may have picked up and jotted down that would be of assistance.Thanks for hearing me out! Your help is greatly appreciated!- Deathbliss   
  No idea about the resources, but:Quote:Original post by DeathblissMicrosoft, being as they are, say they provide backward compatibility but do something else. I am downloading Visual Studio 2005 SP1, and have a link to the 2008 Visual Studio Express pack. I just need a guide or something that outlines each and every change between versions, so when the book tells me to type in one thing I know to type in something else. I wish I knew how to better describe what I'm trying to ask for here...There's very little difference between VC2005 and VC2008, the only difference I can think of offhand is that the express version of VC2008 has the platform SDK with it where as the express version of VC2005 doesn't.D3D is also backwards compatible, but the D3DX library isn't. There's been a lot of significant changes to the D3DX library around the start of DX9, and you'll probably have difficulty getting older code to work with the newer version. Programming Role Playing Games in particular makes extensive use of the D3DX library.   ;  OK, so I can't use the DirectX 9.0 SDK with the older books? I need the DirectX 8.0 SDK, and the Visual Studio version I have doesn't matter? But I should be safe if I use Visual Studio 2005 SP1 and the DirectX 8.0 SDK?- Deathbliss   