Diving into the deep end

Up until now the only game I have ever written in C was a "Snake" game, like the ones you get on nokia mobiles. It used the BC4.5 functions to draw squares instead of what I should have done, writing directly to the graphics card. I can't remember how the hell I did it, but it worked smoothly and I got a high score of 28,000.


Well, anyway, I have been out of the programming loop (pun not intended) for some time now, and I have been thinking of writing a 3D game in C. What a huge leap. My C skills are pathetic, I never use floating point variables because they are "scary". Can someone please point me to a good. free compiler (I currrently use LCC-Win32, but I don't think it has "the stuff" for 3d programming) that I can use for writing Glide/D3D(microsoft, urg) programs, give me a little help, maybe an example. I don't have an email address at the moment, so just reply in this thread.

DJGPP is a free compiler. I have never used it, but several other people on this board have, and several use it as their primary compiler.

DJGPP is great. However, if you are afraid of floating point values it is going to be hard to write a 3D engine. Using integers via shifts and fixed-point math is actually slower than just using the FPU. Plus, unless you want jittery polygons like in the early Tomb Raider's I suggest you use floating point values. Compare Quake 1+ with Tomb Raider 1 and you'll clearly see the difference.

Floating point values are not hard to use, especially if you know asm and code for the FPU. Anything less will probably not give you the speed that you are going to require in an engine.

DJGPP is www.delorie.com - go to the zip picker and check what you want. Make sure you get RHIDE so read the screen carefully.

You mentioned Glide, dont waste your time there. Use D3D or OpenGL.

Poor 3Dfx. I used to love it, but Eber is right. Not worth your time.

i recomend devC++ from www.bloodshed.net