Games Programming Links

Games Programming Sites

GameDev - game development news, articles and a busy forum
DevMaster - a worthy replacement for the now closed Flipcode
Riemer’s - DirectX tutorials for C# with XNA and C++
Triple Buffer - some great DirectX tutorials
32bits - has some good DirectX tutorials
Nomad - games programming
AIWisdom - site for games AI

Manufacturer Sites

NVidia developer - aimed at the developer has lots of good articles and downloads for the graphics programmer.
ATI developers - as above but aimed at he ATI range of graphics cards

Reference Sites

Programmers Heaven C++ FAQ - a brief FAQ for complete beginners to C++
C++ FAQ - this is huge but extensive , the next link might be better for simple look up
C++ FAQ Lite - this is a smaller FAQ but is quick to find simple answers in
Vector FAQ - everything about vectors
Matrix FAQ - everything about matrix

General Programming

CodeProject - Source code and Tutorials
Programmers Heaven - as above
Bruce Eckel’s Free Books - A few good C++ books are free to download from here

Maths

Essential Math for Games Programmers - a very useful collection of slides on the maths needed for game creation
3D Maths - quite a nice site with information on vectors, matrices etc.
MathWorld - comprehensive site answering all your maths problems
Matrix FAQ - everything about matrices and quarternions

Free 3D Models and Editors

Obtaining free models for your games is not that easy, most sites seem to be just trying to sell nowadays. However I have found the following sites with free models:

3DCafe - a large collection of 3D objects under various categories
Klickers - common 3D objects and some textures
3D Plants - lots of plant models
FAWS - a number of common 3D objects

Editors / Tools:

Pandasoft - .x file exporter for Maya and Max:
Blender - popular free 3D package
DeleD 3D Editor - another free 3D editor

Textures

Some places to get free textures and sprites

General Textures

Image*After - free photo and texture collection
Texture Bin 342- various textures
Mayang - 3800 free textures to download
Burning Well - free for any use images
Blender textures - a free texture disk

2D Sprites and Tilesets

Sprite Database - lots of sprites
The Shyguy Kingdom - lots of sprites including classic game sprites and new custom ones
Game Sprites - a collection of sprite sheets from old classic games
Reiner’s tilesets - many high quality free sprites including 3D style sprites
molotov.nu - mainly RPG tilesets
game maker - resources originally for Game Maker but in transferable format. As well as sprites these resources include sounds etc.
game sprite archives - lots of sprites from old game systems
Fenrir’s Sprite Domain - Fenrir's Sprite Domain has many sprites from old games
The Leaf Forest Zone - Sonic sprites
RPG Underground - RPG sprites
NES-SNES Sprites - includes 40,000 SNES sprites and 24,000 NES sprites
Retrogamezone - sprites from old games
Background HQ - 2D game backgrounds
Blambot fonts - comic fonts and lettering

Applications

ppFonter - a tool for converting true type fonts to bitmaps

If you know of any more I would appreciate the link.

Sound / Music

FMOD - free (for non-commercial use) cross platform audio API
OpenAL - another free cross platform audio API
FindSounds - masses of free sound effects
Sound Effects Archive - some good sounds but be aware of all the pop up ads

Amazon keyword book searches

Search for DirectX related books at Amazon:
Search for Games Programming related books at Amazon:

Amazon Book Shops:

Other Sites

GamerBeef - daily updated gaming news from all genres and consoles