Yeah, I'm using OpenGL currently, freeglut for all the Windows specifics, glew for the extensions, etc. My goal is to have a game engine to run on Windows, but games that will support handheld devices (Android, iOS, etc), Windows, Mac, and so forth. The utilities (map editor, asset creation tools, profiler, scripting, console, resource manager, etc) will probably be Windows specific for my machine, but the target-specific code will be recoded per-platform (for things like the Java Android dev kit, C++ WinSDK, XCode, etc). The engine itself will supply data for the code to work on and compile. My goal is for it to require the least amount of recoding possible, such as using cross-platform APIs like OpenGL.
So I probably need to know about the GUI fundamentals, DLLs, reading/writing files, etc. Petzold's book seems to cover all that to a basic extent. Hart's book is moreover a little more arbitrary for me, it covers the performance-specific aspects of the WinSDK. I've edited the link to display the 4th edition instead of the 3rd.
But I know what you guys mean, an essential game would just require 3D operations overall. I'm hoping that a game engine that I know inside-out will help ease this process in the long run, though. So I suppose my question now is... is Hart's book worth the read? Petzold's looks more well known and essential, so I'll probably try that first unless there's a more modern variation of it around. Any other books suggestions is appreciated, too.
AndrewT - I'll read that tutorial, looks good so far.
