One book I'd recommend for this is Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book. Of course it's a bit dated but there's a lot of knowledge to be learned from it and it has good discussions about why and when to optimize...
Plus some of the more dated chapter can be seen as a good history lesson :-)
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It's got a lot of great insight into how to reason about low-level issues, but Abrash (who is now a programmer at Valve, I think; first in the credits for Portal 2) isn't just a cranky assmebly hacker. He recognizes when problems are better solved at a higher level, and tells the reader as much in several amusing chapters.
This is a great book just as a read. I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a "technical book"... But I'd recommend it as a nice beach read for most programmers I know.
I couldn't locate that book in any library as a poor high school student bumping up against his own x86 assembler and graphics limitations. Years later, I managed to track down a copy of the paperback reissue. It was already well out of date, but I greatly value it to this day. Not only is it chock full of very interesting solutions, but the writing itself manages to be highly informative without being dry. It's an excellent example of technical writing done well.
Comments
One book I'd recommend for this is Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book. Of course it's a bit dated but there's a lot of knowledge to be learned from it and it has good discussions about why and when to optimize...
Plus some of the more dated chapter can be seen as a good history lesson :-)
http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_/technical/graphics-p...
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It's got a lot of great insight into how to reason about low-level issues, but Abrash (who is now a programmer at Valve, I think; first in the credits for Portal 2) isn't just a cranky assmebly hacker. He recognizes when problems are better solved at a higher level, and tells the reader as much in several amusing chapters.
Also, the man's a fucking beast: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,21...
This is a great book just as a read. I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a "technical book"... But I'd recommend it as a nice beach read for most programmers I know.
I couldn't locate that book in any library as a poor high school student bumping up against his own x86 assembler and graphics limitations. Years later, I managed to track down a copy of the paperback reissue. It was already well out of date, but I greatly value it to this day. Not only is it chock full of very interesting solutions, but the writing itself manages to be highly informative without being dry. It's an excellent example of technical writing done well.