i agree that the GDI isnt great as it isnt as powerfull as these direct device driver interfacing engines like DirectX and OpenGL but i find it a great tool for game programming ive created a collection of very efficient classes for buffering screen blitting, sprites etc and can blit full screen (800x600mode cpustats: 900mhz 256sdram intel810 [lol] graphics) at a frame rate of 125fps and the gdi can be used as a failsafe for some functions that people may not be sure about in other engines also it can be directly integrated with say a game coded in directx or opengl, with all of these points being usefull to any game programmer why do people say to newbie game programmers to avoid the gdi? the way i found it was that being able to program using the gdi and getting the grasp of screen buffers, alpha blending and layers would allow some1 to learn game engineering in directx or opengl alot faster,, oh well i guess thats just my view on that whatd u guys think?