Only 1 left in stock.

Ships from and sold by M and N Media Canada.

CDN$ 71.73 + CDN$ 46.90 shipping

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Buy Used

CDN$ 17.08 + CDN$ 46.90 shipping

+ CDN$ 0.00 shipping

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by ThriftBooks / Blue Cloud

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See this image

.NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Paperback – Apr 8 2003

by Alexandre Santos Lobao (Author), Ellen Hatton (Author)

10 customer reviews

See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Amazon Price

New from

Used from

Paperback

"Please retry"

CDN$ 71.73

CDN$ 19.95

CDN$ 15.03

Paperback
CDN$ 71.73 16 Used from CDN$ 15.03 7 New from CDN$ 19.95

Study Supplies for your test preparations

Written in easy-to-understand language, this book is a must-read if you'd like to create out-of-the-ordinary, yet simple games. Authors Lobao and Hatton demonstrate the ease of producing multimedia games with Managed DirectX 9.0 and programming the games with Visual Basic .NET on Everett, the latest version of Microsoft's Visual Studio.

The authors emphasize simplicity, but still explore important concepts of Managed DirectX 9.0, such as Direct3D, DirectSound, DirectMusic (using the COM interface), DirectInput (including force-feedback joysticks), DirectShow, and DirectPlay. Additional chapters discuss game programming technologies: Speech API for generating character voices, GDI+ for simple games, and multithreading. A bonus chapter even shows you how to port a simple game to a Pocket PC.

The book includes two chapters' worth of sample games. The first presents a game with simple features; the second extends that game and presents additional concepts. A library of game programming helper classes is also created, step by step, in both chapters.

Product details

Paperback: 696 pages
Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (April 8 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1590590511
ISBN-13: 978-1590590515
Product Dimensions: 17.9 x 4 x 22.4 cm
Shipping Weight: 1.1 Kg
Average Customer Review: 10 customer reviews
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #4,367,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #83 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Graphics & Multimedia > DirectX
- #2598 in Books > Computers & Technology > Microsoft > Development > .NET
- #5307 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science & Information Systems > Software Design & Engineering

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

See Complete Table of Contents

Product description

About the Author

Alexandre Lobão is a passionate man. His first passion was reading, starting with large books—Mark Twain, Érico Veríssimo, Jules Verne, Monteiro Lobato, Alexandre Dumas, and others—when he was seven. When he was twelve, he discovered his two next passions: playing and creating games (by that time on his first Apple computer), and writing.

Many years later—he’s about forty now—these passions flourish. Now he’s a teacher of academic game development courses, has written four books on the topic, and has participated in some Brazilian game development contests both as a contestant and as a judge. He has also written short story books, children’s books, and young adult books, and in 2008 he released his first romance, The Name of the Eagle, currently only available in Portuguese. And, of course, he still loves to read, from Ken Follett to Paulo Coelho.

His ultimate passions—starting in 1995 and still burning now—are his wife, Waléria, and his kids, Natália and Rafael.

Alexandre believes that lives needs passion to be lived entirely, and hopes that this book helps light this passion in readers’ hearts. You can find his work at http://www.AlexandreLobao.com.

Customer reviews

3 star (0%)

Write a customer review

See all 10 customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

A customer

This book fails to teach VB or Game Programming!

November 24, 2003

Format: Paperback

I had been waiting for this book to come out for months. After multiple delays, it finally arrived. And, I am very disappointed. Clearly a lot has been removed from the book since its initial concept.
The "Game Programming" aspect of the book is just one Chapter. There are references to a mysterious Chapter 6 throughout the book, but Chapter 6 does not exist. My guess is that it was removed before publication.
This book is not even good if you are new to programming. There are several places that assume you have an understanding of C/C++. Novice programmers will be quite frustrated by this.
I originally bought this book as a gift for my young nephew who has not programmed in any language, hoping it was going to teach VB in the context of game programs. Unfortunately it fails to cover VB from a novice perspective, and there is only one chapter on games. Hardly worth putting Game Programming in the title.
My recommendation is to find another book. Unfortunately this one does not live up to its promises.

CommentWas this review helpful to you?

Yes

Markus Egger

Good, but basic introduction

July 19, 2003

Format: Paperback

This is a pretty good book. It is very easy to read although the subjects discussed aren't really trivial. The book touches on a wide array of topics, ranging from GDI+ to DirectInput and DirectAudio, as well as DirectDraw.
However, the potential buyer should be aware that this is a very basic book. If you want to write the next Doom, this book will not teach you how to do that. In fact, considering that this book has "DirectX" in the title, it covers very little 3D programming. However, this book DOES teach the basics of game development and almost all aspects that go along with that, from simple graphics to controlling sound, and controllers such as force feedback joysticks. But as I said: Most of it is pretty basic. But if you have no experience with game development whatsoever, reading this book will be an excellent first step...

CommentWas this review helpful to you?

Yes

Carl Klutzke

The farther I read, the more disappointed I became

October 10, 2003

Format: Paperback

I can forgive the horrible editing, I suppose: sadly, I've gotten used to it, as it seems endemic to the computer book industry (and there are no errata on the publisher's web site). I could forgive the horrible misunderstanding of inheritance concepts in object-oriented programming (a sprite derives from a game field???). Mostly I could forgive these because the authors have a nice, clear style, and seem to understand fundamental game development principles that I am still learning, like collision detection. But when I was able to greatly enhance the performance of the example in chapter 3 because I already understood culling even though the authors don't, I became annoyed. And I just gave up when the example from chapter 4 ran at an unplayable speed: I just couldn't navigate the river in this game, the performance was so bad, and that was without moving enemies or the ability to shoot. Additionally, this example crashed both computers I tried it on twice. I won't even try to resell this as a used book: I'd be doing the buyer a disservice.

CommentWas this review helpful to you?

Yes

This book rocks! Great way to start learning game writing!

April 16, 2003

Format: Paperback

Alexandre Lobao and Ellen Hatton have done a great job with this book!! This is a great entry level book that will teach you the basics of game programming without requiring a degree in Math or Computer Science. This book is delightful to read, because it intersperses graphics programming techniques with discussions about good game play. The appendices also include some notable articles about game playing, game projects, and the "science" of making a good game. Some hard-core developers may be put off by the fact that the examples are in Visual Basic.NET, but I strongly advise against such a bias -- VB.NET code is just as efficient in execution as C#, and you would miss out on a GREAT opportunity to learn about game programming AND have fun. Lastly, I want to say that their writing style is very nice -- well thought out and not pretentious at all. Thank you, Alex and Ellen!

CommentWas this review helpful to you?

Yes

S.O.

Great Concept, Poor Editing

May 31, 2003

Format: Paperback

I've gotten about halfway through this book in the past two weeks and I feel like I'm learning enough where I can start writing my own simple games once I'm done with it. I started from knowing VB.net pretty well (for business apps), but not knowing the first thing about DirectX or Game Programming. That said, the editing of the code samples in this book is atrocious. The code samples in the book almost never match those on the CD and you have to figure out "what they mean" most of the time, debugging stuff yourself. Another dumb thing is that whoever wrote the code doesn't know how to use arrays, and always Dims a 4 element array as MyArray(4) instead of (3). Lastly, they don't tell you to enable "key preview" on your forms, so if you didn't know to do that from reading it in another .Net book, the keyboard handler functions would never work for you. Bottom line is that this book can help you learn elementary game programming in VB.net, as long as you know the language reasonably well (decent VB6 would be enough), and you won't get too frustrated trying to reconcile the code in the book and on the CD. It's too bad: If they had gotten their act together, this could have been a 5 star book.

CommentWas this review helpful to you?

Yes

Want to see more reviews on this item?

Go to Amazon.com to see all 16 reviews

Most recent customer reviews

Amazon Customer

My Xperiment with this book

In the beginning, the title of this book attracted me a lot as a VB.NET programmer aiming to add some 3D content to my programs. The title seemed close enough to my ojective.Read more

Published on June 17, 2004

Brian N.

Stay FAR FAR away

I've been buying books from Amazon for years now, and not once have I actually written a review about one.Read more

Published on January 24, 2004

Thomas B. Knowlton

Too many errata for this to be an effective teaching book

Like a few others who have posted here I was excited to see this book. How disappointed I was to find that the book was a complete mess.Read more

Published on December 27, 2003

Håkan Reutman

Disappointed!

I should have waited until there was reviews on this book before I bought it. Im trying to get the hang of multiplayer game programming in a 3D environment and the introductional...Read more

Published on April 29, 2003

~toki

Nothing of 3D

If you want to read something of 3D forget this book.
This book cover 2D programming.
There are a chapter talking about 3D (basic concepts).

Published on April 24, 2003

Where's My Stuff?

Track your recent orders
Use Your Account to view or change your orders

Delivery & Returns

See our shipping rates & policies
Return an item (here's our Returns Policy)

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations

IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Warehouse Deals Open-Box Discounts	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

.NET Game Programming with DirectX 9.0 Paperback – Apr 8 2003

Product details

Product description

About the Author

Customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Want to see more reviews on this item?

Most recent customer reviews

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery & Returns

Need Help?