Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book is a collection of the author's previous books on assembly language and graphics programming, as well as past columns for Dr. Dobb's magazine. Though much of the book (such as 8088/286/386 assembly language optimization and VGA graphics programming) is out-of-date by now, the reader can see some of the larger tendencies in the author's work over the years - a reliance on profiling in order to test code, and creative thinking to improve performance wherever possible. This text features assembler optimization for a variety of problems including searching algorithms, and records the author's approaches to optimizing code for the evolving line of Intel CPUs, from the 8088 on to the early Pentium lines. The last few chapters of this book are more relevant, and include a series of explorations of some of the technology behind the popular Doom and Quake 3-D games by id Corporation (where the author worked). Optimized solutions to 3-D graphics problems from texture mapping, hidden surface removal, and Binary Space Partitioning (BSP) trees are explained. Current gaming and 3-D technology, such as Direct3D and VRML is left out, but it's clear that game programmers like the author will continue to push the limits of current hardware technology in inventive ways. This book is clearly targeted at game developers and serious assembly language programmers, not for the general reader.

lgli/Abrash - Graphics Programming Black Book.pdf

lgrsnf/Abrash - Graphics Programming Black Book.pdf

zlib/Computers/Computer Graphics & Design/Michael Abrash/Michael Abrash’s Graphics Programming Black Book_3415434.pdf

Abrash, Michael

Coriolis Group, LLC, The

Thomson

United States, United States of America

No cd-rom or Software; Book Only, 1997

Special ed, Albany, N.Y. [u.a, 1997

Special Edition, US, 1997

0

lg2174036

{"edition":"special ed","isbns":["1576101746","9781576101742"],"last_page":1450,"publisher":"Coriolis"}

Include index.

The Best Optimizer is between Your Ears
A World Apart
Assume Nothing
In the Lair of the Cycle-Eaters
Crossing the Border
Looking Past Face
Local Optimization
Speeding Up C with Assembly Language
Hints My Readers Gave Me
Patient Coding, Faster Code
Pushing the 286 and 386
Pushing the 486
Aiming the 486
Boyer-Moore String Searching
Linked Lists and Unintended Challenges
There Ain't No Such Thing as the Fastest Code
The Game of Life
It's a Wonderful Life
Pentium: Not the Same Old Song
Pentium Rules
Unleashing the Pentium's V-pipe
Zenning and the Flexible Mind
Bones and Sinew
Parallel Processing with the VGA
VGA Data Machinery
VGA Write Mode 3
Yet Another VGA Write Mode
Reading VGA Memory
Saving Screens and Other VGA Mysteries
Video Est Omnis Divisa
Higher 256-Color Resolution on the VGA
Be It Resolved: 360x480
Yogi Bear and Eurythmics Confront VGA Colors
Changing Colors without Writing Pixels
Bresenham Is Fast, and Fast Is Good
The Good, theBad, and the Run-Sliced
Dead Cats and Lightning Lines
The Polygon Primeval
Fast Convex Polygons
Of Songs, Taxes, and the Simplicity of Complex Polygons
Those Way-Down Polygon Nomenclature Blues
Wu'ed in Haste; Fried, Stewed at Leisure
Bit-Plane Animation
Split Screens Save the Page-Flipped Day
Dog Hair and Dirty Rectangles
Who Was that Masked Image?
Mode X: 256-Color VGA Magic
Mode X Marks the Latch
Mode X 256-Color Animation
Adding a Dimension
Sneakers in Space
Fast 3-D Animation: Meet X-Sharp
Raw Speed and More
3-D Shading
Color Modeling in 256-Color Mode
Pooh and the Space Station
10,000 Freshly Sheared Sheep on the Screen
Heinlein's Crystal Ball, Spock's Brain, and the 9-Cycle Dare
The Idea of BSP Trees
Compiling BSP Trees
Frames of Reference
One Story, Two Rules, and a BSP Renderer
Floating-Point for Real-Time 3-D
Quake's Visible-Surface Determination
3-D Clipping and Other Thoughts
Quake's Hidden-Surface Removal
Sorted Spans in Action
Quake's Lighting Model
Surface Caching and Quake's Triangle Models
Quake: A Post-Mortem and a Glimpse into the Future

No one has done more to conquer the performance limitations of the PC than Michael Abrash, a software engineer for Microsoft. His complete works are contained in this massive volume, including everything he has written about performance coding and real-time graphics. The CD-ROM contains the entire text in Adobe Acrobat 3.0 format, allowing fast searches for specific facts.

-- Includes everything that master Abrash has ever written about optimization and real-time graphics.
-- Explains the intricacies of Intel CPU operation and other "black art" performance issues.
-- Treats both 2D and 3D graphics in great detail, with an emphasis on speed.

What was it like working with John Carmack on Quake? Like being strapped onto a rocket during takeoff-in the middle of a hurricane.

2018-01-22