does anyone know how one would go about manually controlling the screen memory? i mean, like accessing pixel data without using SetPixel. basically, how does windows store pixels in, say, a bitmap dc? i want to be able to write to my back buffer without having to call the windows subsystems. without a context switch. anyone know where one can get this information?

there is a book, Windows Graphics Programming: Win32 GDI and DirectDraw, but it has been out of print for a long time.

If you want to use GDI then your choice possibly is http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/gdi/bitmaps_233i.asp (CreateDIBSection). I did it once with MASM but I was very stupid in trust that my new HD will never fail in the first two month but now Western Digital owns my data on that unusable HD (and they gave me a new HD of course (RMA)).

For DirectX look at the example in FASMW package

Regards

thanks man, i think that's just what i was looking for.
cool example: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vcsample/html/_sample_mfc_FIRE.asp
(using gdi)

sucks about the hd.

good article: http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/2151/dibs.html