Engine Designed around shaders

Uh, that's fine. Many engines these days use a programmable-pipeline renderpath exclusively, if for no other reason than because it's simpler. In terms of documentation, the documentation for your chosen API will be the most useful for you (since the engine itself won't tend to care about the particular visual effects being implemented).

Well, seeing how my project is mainly just a hobby thing, I found that throwing out fixed function simplified my code a lot. It might be possible to use vertex shaders for per vertex lighting (which should work on old cards too).

Ok so fixed function is out, but my renderer is plugin based. I need some type of general outline for my shader system, so that when I write a directx or opengl renderer they have an organized design, and produce the same quality image.

CgFX for opengl or Effect files for DirectX may be a great help to you. You can google for whichever you would like to use, but they will allow you to wrap your renderstate changes, shaders, and passes into a single interface which helps out the hobbyist writing this post :)

My engine is designed around effect files, meaning I can still use fixed function for fallbacks [smile]

If you want to be serious, and have fast rendering - drop DX effects, they are slow, and they are black-box. And perhabs - too general.
Writing something that can compile HLSL from a file, and produce one PS&VS is very easy - maybe just adding a support for describing render states would be helpful, and that's it.
Shader based - that alone means nothing.
What decisions would you made about materials, about lighting & shadowing?
Can a shader be plugged in the system, and somehow magically all will work...?
(there are ways to do that, but at a cost, of course...).
How these shaders will be managed, how will be bind to instances (shader variables management) and how will scale to meet the requirements of the scene - number and type of lights, fog, shadows, etc.
That's a whole lot to be thinking of.
Dropping FFP is just a very tiny step. Drop it. We dropped it, and I don't sorry even a bit...
But ps11 is still viable option. :)

I chose to go with just using plain HLSL shaders in txt files to begin with, as I didn't want to have all the overhead of effect files confusing me at first.

The DirectX Docs are pretty good for information about HLSL shaders, but the info you need to simple get a "hello world" shader working, is spread out quite a bit.

I'll try to put here all the base code you might need.

//vertex shader filefloat4x4 worldViewProj;float4 vLight;struct VS_OUTPUT{    float4 Pos  : POSITION;    float4 Diff : COLOR0;    float2 Tex1 : TEXCOORD0;    float2 Tex2 : TEXCOORD1;};VS_OUTPUT vs_main(float4 inPos : POSITION, float3 inNormal : NORMAL, float2 Tex1 : TEXCOORD0, float2 Tex2 : TEXCOORD1 ){    VS_OUTPUT Out;    Out.Pos = mul(inPos, worldViewProj);		Out.Diff = -dot( inNormal, vLight );	Out.Diff = saturate(Out.Diff);	Out.Diff += 0.2;        Out.Tex1 = Tex1;    Out.Tex2 = Tex2;    return Out;}//pixel shader file float4 ps_main( float4 inDiffuse: COLOR0, float2 inTx1: TEXCOORD0, float2 inTx2: TEXCOORD1 ) : COLOR0{    float4 outColor = 0;    outColor.r = 1;    return outColor;}//in your headerIDirect3DPixelShader9* mlpSplatPixelShader;IDirect3DVertexShader9* mlpVertexShader;ID3DXConstantTable* mpVSConstantTable;//in your cpp, when you initialize	D3DCAPS9 caps;	mlpD3DDevice->GetDeviceCaps(∩︀);	ID3DXBuffer* pShader = NULL;	HRESULT hr;	//vertex shader	if(caps.VertexShaderVersion >= D3DVS_VERSION(1, 1)) 	{		// Compile the vertex shader		hr = D3DXCompileShaderFromFile(			"GraphicsEngine/shaders/mapHLSL.vsh",			NULL,			NULL,			"vs_main",			"vs_1_1",  			/*D3DXSHADER_DEBUG*/D3DXSHADER_SKIPVALIDATION, 			&pShader, 			NULL, // error messages 			&mpVSConstantTable );		if( FAILED(hr) )		{			LOG("Error! Failed compiling vertex shader from file");			SafeRelease(pShader);  			SafeRelease(mpVSConstantTable);  			return hr;		}		// Create the vertex shader		hr = mlpD3DDevice->CreateVertexShader( (DWORD*)pShader->GetBufferPointer(), &mlpVertexShader );		SafeRelease(pShader);  		if( FAILED(hr) )		{			SafeRelease(mlpVertexShader);			SafeRelease(mpVSConstantTable); 			return hr;		}	}	else	{		LOG("Error! Video card does not support Vertex Shader 1.1 ");		return E_FAIL;	}	//pixel shader	if(caps.PixelShaderVersion >= D3DPS_VERSION(1, 4)) 	{		hr = D3DXCompileShaderFromFile(			"GraphicsEngine/shaders/mapHLSL.psh",		    NULL,			NULL,			"ps_main",			"ps_1_4",			D3DXSHADER_SKIPVALIDATION,			&pShader, 			NULL, 			NULL );		if(FAILED(hr))		{			LOG("Error! Failed compiling pixel shader from file");			SafeRelease(pShader);			return hr;		}		//create the pixel shader		hr = mlpD3DDevice->CreatePixelShader((DWORD*)pShader->GetBufferPointer(), &mlpSplatPixelShader);		SafeRelease(pShader);  		if( FAILED(hr) )		{			SafeRelease(mlpSplatPixelShader);			return hr;		}	}	else	{		LOG("Error! Video card does not support Pixel Shader 1.4 ");		return E_FAIL;	}//in your cpp, just before rendering 	mlpD3DDevice->SetVertexShader(mlpVertexShader);	mlpD3DDevice->SetPixelShader(mlpSplatPixelShader);	matViewProj = matView * matProj;	D3DXHANDLE hMatrixConstantHandle = mpVSConstantTable->GetConstantByName( NULL, "worldViewProj" );	mpVSConstantTable->SetMatrix( mlpD3DDevice, hMatrixConstantHandle, &matViewProj );	//set the sunlight	D3DXHANDLE hLightConstantHandle = mpVSConstantTable->GetConstantByName( NULL, "vLight" );	mpVSConstantTable->SetVector( mlpD3DDevice, hLightConstantHandle, &sunLight );

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Original post by Zemedelec drop DX effects, they are slow

Not true anymore. They got serious speed boost in Summer 2004 SDK update.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster Material/shader implementation Shader system questions

Those are very good threads, and I recommend you to read them both. Although the shader system described in those threads is quite complicated, it can give you some ideas.