DirectX logo since DirectX 9 Details Type API Included with OSR2 and all subsequent releases Related components Microsoft DirectX is a collection of (APIs) for handling tasks related to, especially and video, on platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as,,,,, and so forth.

May 3, 2012 - 53 sec - Uploaded by How-to VideosIf you are looking for steps to enable or disable hardware acceleration on a Windows® XP.

The name DirectX was coined as a shorthand term for all of these APIs (the X standing in for the particular API names) and soon became the name of the collection. When Microsoft later set out to develop a gaming console, the X was used as the basis of the name to indicate that the console was based on DirectX technology. The X initial has been carried forward in the naming of APIs designed for the Xbox such as and the (XACT), while the DirectX pattern has been continued for Windows APIs such as and. Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development of for and the line of consoles. Direct3D is also used by other applications for visualization and graphics tasks such as CAD/CAM engineering. As Direct3D is the most widely publicized component of DirectX, it is common to see the names 'DirectX' and 'Direct3D' used interchangeably. The DirectX (SDK) consists of in redistributable binary form, along with accompanying documentation and for use in coding.

Originally, the runtimes were only installed by games or explicitly by the user. Did not launch with DirectX, but DirectX was included with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2. And both shipped with DirectX, as has every version of Windows released since. The SDK is available as a free download.

While the runtimes are proprietary, closed-source software, source code is provided for most of the SDK samples. Starting with the release of Windows 8 Developer Preview, DirectX SDK has been integrated into Windows SDK. Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Development history [ ] In late 1994, Microsoft was ready to release, its next. An important factor in the value consumers would place on it was the programs that would be able to run on it. Three Microsoft employees—Craig Eisler,, and Eric Engstrom—were concerned because tended to see Microsoft's previous operating system,, as a better platform for game programming, meaning few games would be developed for Windows 95 and the operating system would not be as much of a success.

This was compounded by negative reception surrounding the Windows port of the video game. The game used, which crashed on that came shipped with it following a partnership between and, as the display drivers used by the Presarios were not thoroughly tested with the API. DOS allowed direct access to video cards,,,, and all other parts of the system, while Windows 95 – with its protected memory model – restricted access to all of these, working on a much more standardized model. Microsoft needed a quick solution for programmers; the operating system was only months away from being released. Eisler (development lead), St. John, and Engstrom (program manager) worked together to fix this problem, with a solution that they eventually named DirectX. The first version of DirectX was released in September 1995 as the Windows Games SDK.

It was the replacement for the DCI and WinG APIs for. DirectX allowed all versions of Microsoft Windows, starting with Windows 95, to incorporate high-performance multimedia. Eisler wrote about the frenzy to build DirectX 1 through 5 in his blog. DirectX 2.0 became a component of Windows itself with the releases of OSR2 and in mid-1996.

Since Windows 95 was itself still new and few games had been released for it, Microsoft engaged in heavy promotion of DirectX to developers who were generally distrustful of Microsoft's ability to build a gaming platform in Windows. John, the evangelist for DirectX, staged an elaborate event at the 1996 which game developer Jay Barnson described as a theme, including real, togas, and something resembling an indoor carnival. It was at this event that Microsoft first introduced and, and demonstrated multiplayer being played over the Internet. The DirectX team faced the challenging task of testing each DirectX release against an array of and. A variety of different graphics cards, audio cards, motherboards, CPUs, input devices, games, and other multimedia applications were tested with each beta and final release.

The DirectX team also built and distributed tests that allowed the hardware industry to confirm that new hardware designs and driver releases would be compatible with DirectX. Prior to DirectX, Microsoft had included on their platform.

At the time, required 'high-end' hardware and was focused on and uses. [ ] Direct3D was intended to be a Microsoft controlled alternative to OpenGL, focused initially on game use. As 3D gaming grew, OpenGL developed to include better support for programming techniques for interactive multimedia applications like games, giving developers choice between using OpenGL or Direct3D as the 3D graphics API for their applications.

At that point a 'battle' began between supporters of the cross-platform OpenGL and the Windows-only Direct3D. Incidentally, OpenGL was supported at Microsoft by the DirectX team. If a developer chose to use OpenGL 3D graphics API, the other APIs of DirectX are often combined with OpenGL in because OpenGL does not include all of DirectX's functionality (such as sound or joystick support).

In a console-specific version, DirectX was used as a basis for Microsoft's, and API. The API was developed jointly between Microsoft and, which developed the custom graphics hardware used by the original Xbox. The Xbox API was similar to DirectX version 8.1, but is non-updateable like other console technologies. The Xbox was code named DirectXbox, but this was shortened to Xbox for its commercial name. In 2002, Microsoft released DirectX 9 with support for the use of much longer shader programs than before with pixel and vertex shader version 2.0. Microsoft has continued to update the DirectX suite since then, introducing Shader Model 3.0 in DirectX 9.0c, released in August 2004.

As of April 2005, was removed from DirectX and moved to the instead. DirectX has been confirmed to be present in Microsoft's.

Logos [ ] The original logo resembled a deformed. Controversially, the original name for the DirectX project was the 'Manhattan Project', a reference to the., head of Microsoft DirectX evangelism at the time, claims that the connotation of the ultimate outcome of the Manhattan Project (the ) is intentional, and that DirectX and its sister project, the (which shares a similar logo), were meant to displace Japanese videogame-makers from their dominance of the.

However, Microsoft publicly denies this account, instead claiming that the logo is merely an artistic design. DirectX 9.0–11 Components [ ] DirectX is composed of multiple APIs: • (D3D): for drawing. •: for enumerating adapters and monitors and managing swap chains for Direct3D 10 and up. •: for 2D graphics.

•: for fonts. •: for Computing. • DirectX Diagnostics (DxDiag): a tool for diagnosing and generating reports on components related to DirectX, such as audio, video, and input drivers. • DirectX Media Objects: support for streaming objects such as encoders, decoders, and effects. • DirectSetup: for the installation of DirectX components, and the detection of the current DirectX version. • higher-level audio API. •: low-level API for audio.

Microsoft has deprecated, but still supports, these DirectX components: •: comprising DirectAnimation for 2D/3D web animation, for multimedia playback and, DirectX Transform for web interactivity, and Direct3D Retained Mode for higher level 3D graphics. It also contained for and for accelerated video playback. Deprecated in favor of. •: for drawing 2D Graphics ().

Deprecated in favor of, though still in use by a number of games and as a video renderer in media applications. •: for interfacing with input devices including,,, or other.

Deprecated after version 8 in favor of for controllers or standard WM_INPUT window message processing for keyboard and mouse input. •: for communication over a local-area or wide-area network. Deprecated after version 8 in favor of and. •: for the playback and recording of waveform sounds. Deprecated since DirectX 8 in favor of and XACT3.

• (DS3D): for the playback of. Deprecated since DirectX 8 in favor of XAudio2 and XACT3. •: for playback of soundtracks authored in. Deprecated since DirectX 8 in favor of XAudio2 and XACT3.

DirectX functionality is provided in the form of -style objects and interfaces. Additionally, while not DirectX components themselves, objects have been built on top of some parts of DirectX, such as Managed Direct3D and the XNA graphics library on top of Direct3D 9. Versions [ ] DirectX 10 [ ]. Microsoft DirectX 10 logo wordmark A major update to DirectX API, DirectX 10 ships with and is only available with and later; previous versions of Windows such as Windows XP are not able to run DirectX 10-exclusive applications. Rather, programs that are run on a Windows XP system with DirectX 10 hardware simply resort to the DirectX 9.0c code path, the latest available for Windows XP computers.

Were extensive. Many former parts of DirectX API were deprecated in the latest DirectX SDK and are preserved for compatibility only: was deprecated in favor of, was deprecated in favor of the system (XACT) and additionally lost support for hardware accelerated audio, since the renders sound in software on the CPU. The DirectPlay DPLAY.DLL was also removed and was replaced with dplayx.dll; games that rely on this DLL must duplicate it and rename it to dplay.dll. In order to achieve backwards compatibility, DirectX in Windows Vista contains several versions of Direct3D: • Direct3D 9: emulates Direct3D 9 behavior as it was on Windows XP. Details and advantages of Vista's are hidden from the application if WDDM drivers are installed.

This is the only API available if there are only XP graphic drivers (XDDM) installed, after an upgrade to Vista for example. • Direct3D 9Ex (known internally during Windows Vista development as 9.0L or 9.L): allows full access to the new capabilities of WDDM (if WDDM drivers are installed) while maintaining compatibility for existing Direct3D applications. The user interface relies on D3D 9Ex. • Direct3D 10: Designed around the new driver model in Windows Vista and featuring a number of improvements to rendering capabilities and flexibility, including. Direct3D 10.1 is an incremental update of Direct3D 10.0 which shipped with, and required,. This release mainly sets a few more image quality standards for graphics vendors, while giving developers more control over image quality.

It also adds support for cube map arrays, separate blend modes per-MRT, coverage mask export from a pixel shader, ability to run pixel shader per sample, access to multi-sampled depth buffers and requires that the video card supports Shader Model 4.1 or higher and 32-bit floating-point operations. Direct3D 10.1 still fully supports Direct3D 10 hardware, but in order to utilize all of the new features, updated hardware is required. DirectX 11 [ ]. Microsoft DirectX 11 logo wordmark Microsoft unveiled DirectX 11 at the Gamefest 08 event in Seattle, with the major scheduled features including support (), and Direct3D 11 with support and improved support to assist video game developers in developing games that better utilize processors. Direct3D 11 runs on Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Parts of the new API such as multi-threaded resource handling can be supported on Direct3D 9/10/10.1-class hardware. Hardware tessellation and Shader Model 5.0 require Direct3D 11 supporting hardware. Microsoft has since released the Direct3D 11 Technical Preview.

Direct3D 11 is a strict superset of Direct3D 10.1 — all hardware and API features of version 10.1 are retained, and new features are added only when necessary for exposing new functionality. This helps to keep backwards compatibility with previous versions of DirectX. Microsoft released the Final Platform Update for Windows Vista on October 27, 2009, which was 5 days after the initial release of Windows 7 (launched with Direct3D 11 as a base standard). DirectX 11.1 is included in. It supports for increased performance, features improved integration of (now at version 1.1),, and, and includes DirectXMath,, and libraries from the XNA framework.

It also features support for gaming and video. DirectX 11.1 was also partially to Windows 7, via the. DirectX 11.2 is included in (including the RT version) and. It added some new features to like geometry realizations.

It also added swap chain composition, which allows some elements of the scene to be rendered at lower resolutions and then composited via hardware overlay with other parts rendered at higher resolution. DirectX 11.X is a superset of DirectX 11.2 running on the. It actually includes some features, such as draw bundles, that were later announced as part of DirectX 12. DirectX 11.3 was announced along with DirectX 12 at GDC and released in 2015. It is meant to complement DirectX 12 as a higher-level alternative. It is included with Windows 10. DirectX 12 [ ].

See also: and DirectX 12 was announced by Microsoft at on March 20, 2014, and was officially launched alongside on July 29, 2015. DirectX 12 APIs are also expected to feature on the and. The version of DirectX that runs on the Xbox One, DirectX 11.X, already includes a subset of the features in DirectX 12. However, the DirectX 12 code is not intended to be directly portable between PC and Xbox One due to inherent differences between the two platforms. Microsoft has stated that the performance improvements of DirectX 12 on the Xbox One will not be as substantial as that on the PC.

The primary feature highlight for the new release of DirectX was the introduction of advanced APIs for which can reduce driver overhead. Developers are now able to implement their own command lists and buffers to the GPU, allowing for more efficient resource utilization through. Lead developer Max McMullen stated that the main goal of Direct3D 12 is to achieve 'console-level efficiency on phone, tablet and PC'. The release of Direct3D 12 comes alongside other initiatives for low-overhead graphics APIs including AMD's for AMD graphics cards, Apple's for iOS and macOS and 's cross-platform. Multiadapter support will feature in DirectX 12 allowing developers to utilize multiple GPUs on a system simultaneously, multi-GPU support was previously dependent on vendor implementations such as. Implicit Multiadapter support will work in a similar manner to previous versions of DirectX where frames are rendered alternately across linked GPUs of similar compute-power.

Explicit Multiadapter will provide two distinct API patterns to developers. Linked GPUs will allow DirectX to view graphics cards in SLI or CrossFireX as a single GPU and use the combined resources. Whereas Unlinked GPUs will allow GPUs from different vendors to be utilized by DirectX, such as supplementing the with the on the CPU, or combining AMD and NVIDIA cards. However, elaborate mixed multi-GPU setups requires significantly more attentive developer support. DirectX 12 is supported on all and later Nvidia GPUs, on AMD's -based chips and on Intel's and later processors' graphics units.

At 2014, Intel released a demo showing a computer generated, in which DirectX 12 was claimed to be 50%-70% more efficient than DirectX 11 in rendering speed and CPU power consumption. Was the first publicly available game to utilize DirectX 12. Formz 7 Mac Crack. Testing by in August 2015 revealed slight performance regressions in DirectX 12 over DirectX 11 mode for the, whereas the achieved consistent performance improvements of up to 70% under DirectX 12, in some scenarios the AMD outperformed the more powerful Nvidia under DirectX 12.

The performance discrepancies may be due to poor Nvidia driver optimizations for DirectX 12, or even hardware limitations of the card which was optimized for DirectX 11 serial execution, however the exact cause remains unclear. Release history [ ] Table of DirectX versions DirectX version Version number Release date Notes 1.0 4.02.0095 September 30, 1995 2.0 1996 Was shipped only with a few 3rd party applications 2.0a 4. June 5, 1996 OSR2 and 3.0 4. September 15, 1996 4. 1996 Later package of DirectX 3.0 included Direct3D 4. December 1996 Windows NT 4.0 SP3 (and above) Last supported version of DirectX for Windows NT 4.0 3.0b 4.

December 1996 This was a very minor update to 3.0a that fixed a cosmetic problem with the Japanese version of Windows 95 4.0 Never launched DirectX 4 was never released. Raymond Chen of Microsoft explained in his book, The Old New Thing, that after DirectX 3 was released, Microsoft began developing versions 4 and 5 at the same time. Version 4 was to be a shorter-term release with small features, whereas version 5 would be a more substantial release. The lack of interest from game developers in the features stated for DirectX 4 resulted in it being shelved, and the corpus of documents that already distinguished the two new versions resulted in Microsoft choosing to not re-use version 4 to describe features intended for version 5.

(RC55) August 4, 1997 Available as a beta for Windows 2000 that would install on Windows NT 4.0 5.2 4. (RC00) May 5, 1998 DirectX 5.2 release for 4. Lost 5x02 Ita Download Free there. (RC0) June 25, 1998 exclusive 6.0 4.

(RC3) August 7, 1998 as implemented on 6.1 4. (RC0) February 3, 1999 6.1a 4. (RC0) May 5, 1999 exclusive 7.0 4. (RC1) September 22, 1999 4.

February 17, 2000 7.0a 4. (RC0) March 8, 2000 4. (RC1) 2000 7.1 4. (RC1) September 14, 2000 exclusive. Last version to have built-in RGB software rendering support 8.0 4.

(RC10) November 12, 2000 8.0a 4. (RC14) February 5, 2001 Last supported version for Windows 95 and last version to have software rendering support in dxdiag.exe 8.1 4. October 25, 2001, Windows XP SP1, and exclusive 4. (RC7) November 8, 2001 This version is for the down level operating systems (Windows 98, Windows ME and Windows 2000) 8.1a 4.

(RC?) 2002 This release includes an update to Direct3D (D3d8.dll) 8.1b 4. (RC7) June 25, 2002 This update includes a fix to DirectShow on Windows 2000 (Quartz.dll) 8.2 4. (RC0) 2002 Same as the DirectX 8.1b but includes DirectPlay 8.2 9.0 4. (RC4) December 19, 2002 Periodic updates were released for DirectX 9, starting from 4. (RC0 for DX 9.0c) in October 2004, released bimonthly until August 2007, and quarterly thereafter. The last periodic update was released in June 2010 The February 9, 2005 release is the first 64-bit capable build. The last build for Windows 98SE/Me is the redistributable from December 13, 2006.

The last build for Windows 2000 is the redistributable from February 5, 2010. April 2006 is the first official support to Windows Vista and August 2009 is the first official support to Windows 7 and DX11 update 9.0a 4.

(RC6) March 26, 2003 9.0b 4. (RC2) August 13, 2003 9.0c 4. Windows XP SP2 exclusive 4. (RC0) August 4, 2004 4. The Economist. • Tynan, Dan (26 May 2006)...

Retrieved 20 September 2015. • on craig.theeislers.com • Jay Barnson (July 13, 2006)..

Archived from on July 17, 2006. 31 October 2006. Archived from on 29 November 2012. Retrieved 16 September 2010. Allard, 2007-10-11 at the., April 2004 •.

June 20, 2012. Retrieved June 23, 2012. March 28, 2007. Retrieved 31 August 2011. • ^ David Craddock (March 2007)..

From the original on 2008-06-01. • Chuck Walbourn (August 2009).. Retrieved 2009-10-03.

• Albanesius, Chloe (2007-08-29).. Retrieved 2007-08-29. Retrieved 2007-08-27. Archived from (PDF) on 2012-04-10. Retrieved 2012-12-30. Windows Vista: The Complete Guide. Archived from on 2007-10-29.

Retrieved 2008-03-05. Elite Bastards.

September 1, 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-04. September 17, 2008. • 2011-10-07 at the. Retrieved 2014-08-09. • Pooya Eimandar (2013).

DirectX 11.1 Game Programming. Packt Publishing Ltd. Microsoft Support. Retrieved 27 October 2017. • Bennett Sorbo (June 26, 2013).. Channel9 - 2013.

Around 20:00. • Chris Tector's segment of (starting approx. 18 minute in.) • Smith, Ryan (September 18, 2014)...

Retrieved November 6, 2014. • Wardell, Brad (April 4, 2015).. Retrieved August 22, 2015. • ^ McMullen, Max (2 April 2014)....

Retrieved 2017-03-01. Retrieved 30 September 2014. • Moore, Bo (May 5, 2015).. Retrieved August 22, 2015. • Michaud, Scott (May 4, 2015).. PC Perspective.

PC Perspective. Retrieved August 22, 2015. • Langley, Bryan (July 29, 2015).. MSDN DirectX Developer Blog. Retrieved August 22, 2015.

• Yeung, Andrew (April 30, 2015).. MSDN DirectX Developer Blog. Retrieved August 22, 2015. • Ryan Smith.. • Yeung, Andrew (13 August 2014).. DirectX Developer Blog.. • Lauritzen, Andrew (11 August 2014)..

Developer Zone.. • Walton, Mark (August 19, 2015).. Ars Technica UK.

Retrieved August 19, 2015. • Chen, Raymond (2006). 'Etymology and History'. The Old New Thing (1st ed.). Pearson Education. Retrieved 2012-12-30. Download Center..

13 December 2006. Retrieved 7 February 2015. Download Center..

13 February 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2015. Download Center..

6 April 2006. Retrieved 7 February 2015. Retrieved 2 August 2012.

Retrieved 30 September 2014. Retrieved 30 September 2014. External links [ ] • • at Curlie (based on ) • •.