10 years ago there was a area on GEnie (GTE's information service) that was for computer game developers.  It was very active with professional developers from all over and fairly fun to participate in.  Today I tried to find something similar.   I couldn't.  Where is it?  Does it exist?

I'm looking for a place I can ask serious development questions.   Here are the questions I want to ask today.

1) Is there a free or cheap code example or api that will setup DirectX and/or OpenGL in a specified fullscreen mode for me?  I've got code to do this but I hate it.   I want something as slick as say the 3dmark benchmark or the RivalLights screensaver but I don't want to have to spend a week writing and debugging my own code when somebody else as already done this.  Note: I don't need a 3D api, I can do that part, it's easy and I've got my own ideas for that but the busy work of setting up a fullscreen in DirectX or OpenGL in a user specified mode in a completely clean way (ie, never crashing the user's machine no matter where an error happens) is a big pain in the ass.

2) I need to draw text on the screen.  8x8 pixel text.  For example maybe I want to implement a console like Quake or maybe I just want to print 64 floating point numbers on the screen in real time during gameplay for debugging.  What's the best way to do this in DirectX and OpenGL.

Lets say I need an 8x8 font with about 96 characters. Should I store it as 1 bit, 8 bit or 16 bit or does it matter. Should I load it as one texture and then draw polys and set the UVs to point to each character or should you load it as 96 textures and select textures, or OpenGL, should I create a gl execute list for each character a init time?   Is there some other way I should do it?. Are there any special settings that I would usually set differently when drawing this text then when drawing a normal 3D poly (like maybe I should turn off bilinear filtering or maybe I need to set some special mode so left edge pixels are not lost). I really have no idea and I'd like to ask somebody if there is a "best" way before I go an do it the "not best" way 😉

If anybody knows where I can ask this question and get a knowledgeble answer please tell me.