title: 2D graphics with Direct3D
body: <p>I'm trying to use Direct3D to render 2D graphics, as recommended by everyone since DirectDraw's deprecation. There really isn't any 3D-ness I care about, and just want to be able to do things like draw lines, circles, and blit images onto each other. My questions are thus</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>I need to load a lot of images from files, and draw them onto each other. Would textures be the way to go?</li>
  <li>Very stupid question, but I can't seem to find anything: How do you render one surface onto another?</li>
  <li>Should you render everything onto a single texture and then draw that to screen as a sprite, or just draw many textures?</li>
  <li>How do you draw lines, etc, onto a texture/surface/sprite? I assume there's a better way than getting a device context and using GDI to draw on it?</li>
  </ol>