haha time to reopen this post :P

now i have a little more c++ expirience under my belt but not too much dx (I know the basics)

my question is this. do we have to do our own matrix transformations? I figure we probably do but is there a way to utilize 3dgs transformation code temporarily to see if my rendering code is right, and then after I am sure of that, then start redoing the transformations (im no longer trying to use irrlicht, I'd like to attempt to re-write the renderer).

I think this depends on the coordinate system you use, if your renderer uses the DirectX coordinate system and a similar scaling as A7 you can use the transformation matrices, and otherwise you have to calculate your own matrices. Directx has simple functions for transformation matrices so it shouldnt be a problem.