I know there are a number of choices available for graphics programming, foremost of these as far as I know being OpenGL and DirectX.  I can't pretend to know what the actual market or developer penetration percentages of each of these platforms are, I have chosen to go with OpenGL as my choice (at least now) for the following reasons:

• For at-home, personal development, I'll take Open Source over Microsoft every time; free is always better to start with.  If I need some feature that I can't get for free in the future, then I might consider reconsidering...but it has never happened yet.
• I learned graphics programming back in college with OpenGL, so somewhere in the dark corners of my mind is a four-month headstart in using OpenGL.
• I already installed OpenGL on my laptop years ago.  I might be a few versions behind, but I'm betting that the basic features are backward compatible.  I can hit the ground running.

Similarly, there are a number of choices with regard to the compilers that can be used, the big dogs being Borland's free command line C++ compiler and Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler.  I've gone with Borland's because:

• Once again, free product trumps Microsoft product.
• Once again, I already have the Borland compiler installed on my laptop.

I suppose the reasonable thing for me to start this category with would be a tutorial on how to install and configure these tools on your own computer.  I will not be doing so based on the reasons in yet another bulleted list, like so:

• I installed them years ago, and am not entire confident that I'd be able to quickly repeat said feat.
• There are a number of other tutorials extant on the 'Net that I can point you towards, which can be found below.

Good luck,
Derek

http://www.gantless.com/borland.html

http://www.allanpetersen.com/opengl.htm