Bargen and Donnelly walk beginners through the features of DirectX, beginning with its underlying COM architecture and basic concepts for all DirectX programmers, such as surfaces, double-buffering, and "blting" (or copying) graphics. The rest of the book explores the fundamentals of programming with the various aspects of DirectX. These include DirectDraw (for 2-D graphics), DirectSound (for sound), DirectPlay (for multiplayer gaming) and DirectInput (for mouse and joystick input). Also included are the basics of Internet gaming. Direct3D, the part of DirectX that handles 3-D rendering, is wisely omitted here in the interest of simplicity.
The samples in the text are small and manageable enough for any experienced C programmer to handle; the accompanying CD includes a copy of DirectX 5.2. DirectX has a well-deserved reputation for being tricky, but Inside DirectX has all you need to get started on writing games and other high-performance multimedia applications. --Richard Dragan