VBGamer

Hey there, No there not stupid at all =) You gotta start somewhere right ? 1) Yup, you can create User Controls (to place on your form) or classes (just hit Add Class Module, instead of a form or module etc) 2) Well depends, you say you are a newbie to VB6 so do you mean Tutorials on VB or Gaming ?? For gaming, goto the SITE OF THE WEEK section on the main page (top of right hand menu) and at the bottom or a few sites which have one the award, they are all pretty damn good sites =) For VB, try starting at VBExplorer.com, also www.planet-source-code.com/vb has sample for almost anything imaginable =) 3) Apart from here =) Again the sites on the SOTW page are a great place to learn. 4) SPEED !!! Many of us need to do things like Alpha Blending/Pixel Manipulation HEAVY maths or AI etc. Since VB doesn't support pointers, and is slow at memory manipulation (and because of it's complete lack of Bit Manipulation functionality) Sometimes C++ or ASM DLL's are the answer, we can then access the DLL through VB, which allows us to still have the same great features in VB, and the speed of C++/ASM through the DLL for things which require raw speed. 5) Well if they are they are STUPID !!! =) Despite popular belief amongst new developers (as shown on this board recently by someones comments "I don't need to learn any DirectDraw, cos i don't need to draw lines and crap" !! =), to work in Direct3d, you still need to know almost everything there is to know about DirectDraw. Learning and sticking to DirectDraw only to start with will stand you in good stead when you do make the transition (if at all) to 3D. It will teach you the basics, such as hardware enumeration, surfaces, initialisation, error trapping etc etc (the list is endless). I know that there ARE a lot of people jumping straight into the world of 3D, but to be honest, learning 2d will both improve your coding ability (therefore creating cleaner, faster, more usable code) and prepare you for everything you will need to know to start learning D3D. As for the ratio, well actually people writing 2D games is a LOT higher. I think a lot of people are turned away by the mathmatics involved in using Direct3D IM. And as D3D RM is pretty much dead (or "unsupported" is the official word from M$) a lot of people discard it since it does not have any of the great advantages which IM users now get. (RM has not actually been updated with new functionality or hardware advantages since DX6). Hope this answers some of your questions. Good luck, and stop by here whenever you like =) Adam Sysop