Interested in PC game development - advice needed

Why do people keep talking about C#? Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good language to learn about making games because, as Kreeeee puts it, it's a soft and squishy language and it's well supported for making games by MS. But it's still very rarely used in commercial game development. If you're an absolute master with C# and XNA but have never touched C++, you'd find it very difficult to get a job programming games. It's far too tied with MS platforms and the overhead is still too significant for most games.

Microsoft are really trying to hype it up as the next big thing in games, but at the moment it's uses are still fairly limited. I suppose it's pretty good for relatively small indie games though.

Lua is probably used a lot more than C# in game development.
 
First off you will need to learn to program. Java is a good place to start, its where i started ;) . In the software industy it is maily c#, c++ and java that are used, however in games it is mostly c++. At uni i did a unit in graphics and it is hard. Lost of maths involved. I good place to start is openGL. There are some really good tutorials here

http://nehe.gamedev.net/

Game development is as fun as you would think as it is just sitting in front of visual studio for 8 hours a day. If you get the coding bug though it can become quite injoyable though. Give it a go, see how you like it :)
 
Just remembered that The Chaos Engine Forums are supposed to be quite a good resource for people in the industry but I think you need to be able to verify your status as a games developer to join e.g. have an email address at a games company.
 
It's a soft and squishy language that provides a comfortable introduction to programming.
I wouldn't recommend starting with Java; it makes for lazy programmers. Start with C, then move onto Java and learn to appreciate packages and use them sensibly.
 
I wouldn't recommend starting with Java; it makes for lazy programmers. Start with C, then move onto Java and learn to appreciate packages and use them sensibly.


So most uni games prog courses are wrong, as they start on java.

anyhow I do games design, (modelling and level design etc) everyone seems to be pushing programming, so if you have any q's on the other side then ask :)
 
I'm on a CS course and they teach C first then Java. They don't really teach C++ at all, but by the time you'd find it useful you should be able to get on with it yourself.
 
I'm planning to do the masters course in games programming at abertay after my current degree/masters. Not worried about the maths at all - just need to get my programming skills up. From what I've read, if you want to go into proper game making you simply must know c++ and directX. Java, c#, c are all secondary in importance (for big games).
 
Well if we're talking game development across all platforms then DirectX doesn't matter that much. As long as you have some experience using APIs for 3D graphics hardware then that should be ok. After all DirectX is only useful for PCs and Xbox. I don't think it would particularly count against you if you knew a lot about OpenGL over DirectX.
 
Well if we're talking game development across all platforms then DirectX doesn't matter that much. As long as you have some experience using APIs for 3D graphics hardware then that should be ok. After all DirectX is only useful for PCs and Xbox. I don't think it would particularly count against you if you knew a lot about OpenGL over DirectX.

OpenGL != DirectX
DirectX = OpenGL + OpenAL + OpenInput + + +...
 
OpenGL != DirectX
DirectX = OpenGL + OpenAL + OpenInput + + +...

Yeah I suppose I should have said Direct3D instead of DirectX. But it doesn't really make a difference to my point. It doesn't really matter if you know about Direct3D, or any part of DirectX if you end up working on a DS game for example. It's the basic principles which matter.

Basically, if you're a competent programmer and you understand enough of the theory behind the graphics/sound/input/etc. then you should be able to get to grips with a new API in a very short amount of time.
 
One thing about game development. You really work long hours, managment in videogames is absolute crap. People working on GTA IV spent 6 months working like monkeys 12 hours 6/7 days a week. This might sound OK at the beginning but after working 3 years doing the same crap, and you might get a girlfriend, or **** you might even want to watch some footie and you can't it begins to be a problem. The money is decent and probably the only thing keeping you going is knowing that everyone thinks that what you do is cool (but your job isn't!!!).

The only thing I miss from the games industry is the freebies :)

Please refrain from swearing - Zefan.
 
Ezyryder you might want to remove the swearing there. Part of the problem is that games programming started largely as individuals programming in their bedrooms who could work as long as they wanted and at odd hours - for many the mindset doesn't seem to have moved on. However it does appear the quality of management varies considerably from speaking to my friends who are working in the industry so if you can then pick your company with care.
 
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