| > 2. Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book I'd temper one's expectations on this one. It's a massive, unwieldy book, mostly speaking to old PC VGA graphics programming techniques, in pages taken verbatim from Abrash's previous Zen of Graphics Programming book. It definitely isn't focused on a specific game, but it does go a bit into the BSP tree stuff used in Doom, if memory serves. Maybe it's just because I had already read both his Zen of {Code Optimization, Graphics Programming} books, but I was rather disappointed upon acquiring and skimming the Black Book. Fabien's deep dives are more interesting IMHO, if looking for stuff about tech in classic id games. edit: BTW, if old [34]86/pentium-era PC optimization and VGA programming books is what you're after, the aforementioned Abrash books were goldmines at the time, and much more conveniently sized, physically speaking. I don't intend to throw shade on Abrash, it was just the Black Book that disappointed me, largely because of the high expectations set by his previous books. You can still find used copies of the Zen books readily on Amazon... |