Directx8 or Directx7 for a 2d engine....
masterbooda	I just want opinions on the topic of which would be better for a 2d game engine.... I myself am leaning towards Directx7 because of the compatiblility issue, anybody can run it and even though you lose alot of the "3d effects" you can still code a pretty decent game in it...especially 2d... I say leave directx8 for 3d, for its time to keep the 2d where it belongs .......... of course I'm clinically insane[:p] and speak to my poor forgiving wife in code...... "If hungry then goto restaurant"..... god bless her...... Opinions....[?][?] DaBooda Out....
Eric Coleman	If you want as many people as possible to use your game engine, then you might want to consider stepping back even further to DirectX 5 or 3. Or even use the windows API. For programming, DirectX 7 or 8 would be easiest, but are you considering yourself or the people that will play the games?
masterbooda	I'm really not concerned on how easy it is for me to create the engine, I'm just curious to see what would people rather code with.... I think that a lower directx version would make for a better 2d game because the programmer has to be a little more creative... and they will concentrate on the game aspect and not the look of it... I still program games in QBasic..... I believe this is a must for any game programming enthusiast, because it really forces you to derive better ways of making a game...
sdw	DX 3 or 5? Isn't that a little extreme?
Spodi	Many games these days require at least DX7, so unless someone just bought a really old computer and have never played any games on it, they might have to download DX7. Elsewise, dont think so.
masterbooda	I haven't programmed anything below DirectX7, for I didn't even get into directX programming until that version came out, and I saw a demo using it, After finding the major limitations of windows api(the speed sucks), I went kind of headfirst into it....being a little nastaligic, yes I am, but not that nostalgic...And I have noticed something with my new xfx 5600 128mb card....it doesn't support some directx7 calls....so its kind of a mixed bag........I guess I can port my engine in both, I will make the directx7 version have fewer effects....
EACam	I think you should go with dx8 or 7...either one. Even better, make it use DX8 by default, but if the users computer bugs up a whole bunch with it (do some tests), ask them if they want to resort to Dx7 and loose practically all the effects. Of course, that would be kind of annoying to program, but you said yourself you don't care about that [:)].
sdw	I'm thinking about using a dd7/d3d7 hybrid engine. Wouldn't something like this still work well on lower end computers?
Sr. Guapo	DirectX7 is getting very old, and most computers can support it in some ay. My old Voodoo3 card on a pentium III @ ~500MHz ran directX 8 just fine (a little slow). Also, DirectX8 isn't as bad a it seems on 2D. There are some good tutorials on it on directx4vb.com. No offense or anything, but if your computer can't even support DX7... [V]
Eric Coleman	Older video cards will work with newer versions of directX, for example, my 4MB "ATI RAGE PRO TURBO" card works with directx 9, but none of the directx 9 features work on my card. I used to have a voodoo3 untill it broke, and now I'm back to the original card that was in my PC, the ATI card. I know from experience that a voodoo3 isn't even directx 7 compliant. It works with directx 7, that's for sure, but it doesn't support many of the directx 7 features, such as projection and sphere texture mapping, bump maps, or stencil buffers. The reason for using DirectX 8 over DirectX 7, or Directx 9 over previous versions would be to use specific features that it offers. If you're not going to be using those features, then I think you're needlessly raising the requirements for your game.