Borland's free command line tools

Get the stuff

From Borland can you get the free command-line tools. The package does not have an assembler or profiling support so if you has to write time critical applications is Mingw32 much better. Since many windows program spent most of the time in some DLLs is the speed of the generated code not critical. If you have the space so get them both.
Some advantages of bcc32:

easy to get and setup
very fast compiling and linking
complete windows support
great tools
good support

Get started

Here is a very good page to get started. From Borland is it possible to download help files and search for information. Make sure to understand how to use ilink32 because you have to if you want to add resource files to your programs. Microsoft has the Platform SDK with tools and documentation about windows. The tools lib and link from the SDK can be useful since is often easier to use coff2omf in order to create the import libraries for bcc32. Other tools is for creating resource files and COM stuff among other things.
If you do not want to use emacs is pfe an easy to use alternative.

OpenGL, DirectX and other libraries

I have uploaded some libraries for DirectX 8 except DirectShow. Michael Fötsch did recently uploaded some DX8 with dlls for some of the static libraries .
Not tested by me but I think you need some complement to his DirectInput like this .
An alternative to DX8 can be the DX7 libraries for Borland from Microsoft but the DirectInput library did not work for me so I created my own library that seems to be OK. Get them in case of similar problems. I think that bcc32 only support nameless unions in C++ and that is something to have in mind when doing DirectX programming. The DirectX samples in the Platform SDK is edited for Borland support but not the VC samples.
The master makefile for the DX7 samples in the Platform SDK can not be used to build the programs with bcc32. Use the makefiles that are in each of the sample directories instead. If you have the compiler in c:\borland\bcc55\ can you edit the makefile this way :

1. change
        !include "$(DXSDKROOT)\include\dxsdk.inc"
    to
        BORLAND=c:\borland\bcc55\include
        !include "$(BORLAND)\dxsdk.inc"
2. change
        $(rc) $(rcflags) ...
    to
        $(rc) -i$(BORLAND) $(rcflags) ...
3. if INCLUDE is assigned a value so change that to INCLUDE=..\..\include;
4. if you want to build the retail versions is it best to edit the dxsdk.inc file so it compiles with -O2 instead of -Od and it is probably better to generate code for something newer than a 386 (-3).
5. it is not possible to build the MFC samples with the free command line tools but some other examples will work if you remove the including of some missing header files.
6. if you are using my DirectInput replacement is it necessary to replace all occurrences of "dinput.lib" with "dinp1.lib dinp2.lib"
7. some of the examples are depending on the data in the media directories.
Perhaps can my DirectX for Mingw32 page be of some use but it seems like bcc32 has even harder with the MSVC code than Mingw32.

OpenGL is included in the package and works without flaws but GLUT is something that has to be downloaded. If you do not want to compile it yourself is my precompiled GLUT online. The GLUT sources comes with a lot of good samples and I have some GLUT makefiles that can be used. Check out the GLUT for Mingw32 page for more information. Among other things can you find the GLUT man pages .
Many of the libraries for Mingw32 can also be used with bcc32 such as SDL , Allegro and V .
To install Allegro 3.9.33 :

Get all33.zip and unpack it
Download all3933_bin.zip and unzip it
Unpack this archive and follow the instructions in readme.bcc

Allegro 3.9.34 has been released and here is the corresponding archive.

My OpenGL port of the Direct3D sample "Boids"

The port is using GLUT and allegro. I called it GLboids.

A little GLE program

A simple tunnel ride program that uses the GLE library.

NeHe tutorials and glaux

Nehe productions has the best OpenGL tutorials ready for download. Some of the tutorials is using the outdated glaux library for loading bitmaps this library is replaced with GLUT and not in the package from Borland. I think that the header file is included and you can use the glaux.lib that is in the ports of the NeHe tutorials for Borland C++ builder. The builder code itself uses VCL and requires the full Borland C++ builder.
If you want to compile glaux yourself is it at Ronald Pravers's home page.
Get the code for Visual C++ and build the programs with something like "bcc32 -W lessonx.cpp glaux.lib" this works but some of the later tutorials has little MSVC code but this is easy to correct or you could try to compile it with the -Vd switch.
Tutorial 23 is using DirectInput and I had to link with my own DirectInput libraries .
I have tested all tutorials without problems you can get the makefiles.
You can also compile the Mingw32 ports if you installed Allegro, the files are on the main page.

A quick and dirty loader for OpenGL extension functions

I made a page about how you can get the latest OpenGL functions and a little library called QDGL to do that.

Hacked version of the NeHe framework using different fullscreen modes

NeHe tutorial 5 with a different framework

GLUT with DirectInput example

NeHe tutorial 23 with both native GLUT input functions and Win32API/DirectInput.

NeHe's shadow volume tutorial with the rtshadow library

An easier way to do shadow volumes is by using Mark Kilgards library rtshadow. I used it to test an alternative to tutorial 28.

Another version of NeHes shadow volume tutorial demonstrating Carmack's reverse

The program can also try to pick the best one. Download it and see how Carmack's reverse can improve your shadows.

Simple example of dynamic sphere maps

You are a red ball that moves around in this hacked NeHe 10 GLUT port. Take a look at your reflection in the sphere.

OpenGL and linux

OpenGL and linux is a good combination. Visit my OpenGL and linux page .

Kenny Hoff's real-time realistic lighting effects

Also lot of other stuff with makefiles for Borland. Really cool, take a look here.

Borland links

Borland and MSDN is the most important but it is many Borland pages on the net.
BCBDEV information and links
Scott Heiman's web page great page
The bits another great Borland page

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