I have been working through the book Windows Game Programming for Dummies and so far it has been excellent. I am about half way through the book and I am planning on finishing.

However, the books is from 2002 and it uses DirectDraw7 for the graphics component of DirectX. It is my understanding that DirectDraw has been depreciated and that now Direct3D is used for both 3D and 2D graphics.

So the question is:

If I want to make a 2D game, would it be better to use DirectDraw or Direct3D. Also, how similar are the syntaxes between the two (ie: would I have to learn how to work with a lot of new classes if I were to learn Direct3D. Finally, does DirectDraw have better performace due to less overhead that Direct3D, or is this not the case.


Thanks,

Mike