Chapter 1 Windows Hello and welcome to the first stage of your journey into the depths of advanced 3D game development with DirectX 10. The first part of your exploration of the world of 3D game programming will start with a look at the foundations of Windows, upon which you will build your knowledge empire. We'll take a quick look through operations like opening and clos- ing a program, handling rudimentary input, and painting basic primitives. If you're familiar with the Windows API, you should breeze through this chapter; otherwise, hold on to your seat! In this chapter you are going to learn about: n n The theory behind Windows and developing with the Win32 API How Win32 game development differs from standard Windows programming Messages and how to handle them The standard message pump and real-time message pump Win32 programming n n n