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| Developer(s) | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Initial release | September 30, 1995; 29 years ago (1995-09-30) |
| Stable release | 12 Ultimate API / October 5, 2021; 3 years ago (2021-10-05) |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows,Windows Phone 8,Dreamcast,[1]Xbox,Xbox 360,Xbox One,Xbox Series X and Series S,Linux (Gallium Nine) (DirectX 12 only, Exclusive toWindows Subsystem for Linux)[2] |
| Type | API |
Microsoft DirectX is a collection ofapplication programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related tomultimedia, especiallygame programming and video, onMicrosoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", such asDirect3D,DirectDraw,DirectMusic,DirectPlay,DirectSound, and so forth. The nameDirectX was coined as a shorthand term for all of these APIs (theX standing in for the particular API names) and soon became the name of the collection. When Microsoft later set out to develop agaming console, theX was used as the basis of the nameXbox to indicate that the console was based on DirectX technology.[3] TheX initial has been carried forward in the naming of APIs designed for the Xbox such asXInput and theCross-platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), while the DirectX pattern has been continued for Windows APIs such asDirect2D andDirectWrite.
Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development ofvideo games forMicrosoft Windows and theXbox line of consoles. Direct3D is also used by othersoftware 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 DirectXsoftware development kit (SDK) consists ofruntime libraries in redistributable binary form, along with accompanying documentation andheaders for use in coding. Originally, the runtimes were only installed by games or explicitly by the user.Windows 95 did not launch with DirectX, but DirectX was included with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2.[4]Windows 98 andWindows NT 4.0 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.[5]
In late 1994, Microsoft was ready to releaseWindows 95, its nextoperating system. An important factor in its value to consumers was the programs that would be able to run on it. Microsoft employeeAlex St. John had been in discussions with various game developers asking how likely they would be to bring theirMS-DOS games to Windows 95, and found the responses mostly negative, sinceprogrammers had found that the Windows environment did not provide the necessary features which were available under MS-DOS usingBIOS routines or direct hardware access.[6] There were also strong fears of compatibility; a notable case of this was fromDisney's Animated Storybook: The Lion King which was based on theWinG programming interface.[7] Due to numerous incompatible graphics drivers from newCompaq computers that were not tested with the WinG interface which came bundled with the game, it crashed so frequently on many desktop systems that parents had floodedDisney's call-in help lines.[8][9]
St. John recognized the resistances for game development under Windows would be a limitation, and recruited two additional engineers, Craig Eisler andEric Engstrom, to develop a better solution to get more programmers to develop games for Windows. The project was codenamed the Manhattan Project, like theWorld War II project of the same name, and the idea was to displace the Japanese-developed video game consoles with personal computers running Microsoft's operating system.[8] It had initially used theradiation symbol as its logo but Microsoft asked the team to change the logo.[8] Management did not agree to the project as they were already writing off Windows as a gaming platform, but the three committed towards this project's development.[9] Their rebellious nature ledBrad Silverberg, the senior vice president of Microsoft's office products, to name the trio the "Beastie Boys".[10]
Most of the work by the three was done among other assigned projects starting near the end of 1994.[9] Within four months and with input from several hardware manufacturers, the team had developed the first set ofapplication programming interfaces (APIs) which they presented at the 1995Game Developers Conference.[9] The SDK included libraries implementing DirectDraw for bit-mapped graphics,[11] DirectSound for audio,[12] and DirectPlay for communication between players over a network.[13] Furthermore, an extended joystick API already present in Windows 95 was documented for the first time as DirectInput,[14] while a description of how to implement the immediate start of the installation procedure of a software title after inserting its CD-ROM, a feature called AutoPlay, was also part of the SDK.[15] The "Direct" part of the library was so named as these routines bypassed existing core Windows 95 routines and accessed the computer hardware only via ahardware abstraction layer (HAL).[16] Though the team had named it the "Game SDK" (software development kit), the name "DirectX" came from one journalist that had mocked the naming scheme of the various libraries. The team opted to continue to use that naming scheme and call the project DirectX.[8]
The first version of DirectX was released in September 1995 as the Windows Game SDK. Its DirectDraw component was theWin32 replacement for the DCI[17] and WinG APIs forWindows 3.1.[18] 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.[19]
To get more developers on board DirectX, Microsoft approachedid Software'sJohn Carmack and offered to portDoom andDoom 2 from MS-DOS to DirectX, free of charge, with id retaining all publishing rights to the game. Carmack agreed, and Microsoft'sGabe Newell led the porting project. The first game was released asDoom 95 in August 1996, the first published DirectX game. Microsoft promoted the game heavily withBill Gates appearing in ads for the title.[8]
DirectX 2.0 became a built-in component of Windows with the releases ofWindows 95 OSR2 andWindows NT 4.0 in mid-1996. Since Windows 95 itself was 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. Alex St. John, the evangelist for DirectX, staged an elaborate event at the 1996Computer Game Developers Conference which game developer Jay Barnson described as aRoman theme, including reallions, togas, and something resembling an indoor carnival.[20] It was at this event that Microsoft first introducedDirect3D, and demonstrated multiplayerMechWarrior 2 being played over the Internet.
The DirectX team faced the challenging task of testing each DirectX release against an array ofcomputer hardware andsoftware. 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 addedOpenGL to theirWindows NT platform.[21] OpenGL had been designed as a cross-platform,window system independent software interface to graphics hardware bySilicon Graphics, Inc. to bring 3D graphics programming into the mainstream of application programming. Besides it could also be used for 2D graphics and imaging and was controlled by the Architectural Review Board (ARB) which included Microsoft.[22][23] Direct3D was intended to be a Microsoft controlled alternative to OpenGL, focused initially on game use. As 3D gaming grew game developers were discovering that OpenGL could be used effectively for game development.[24] At that point a "battle" began between supporters of the cross-platform OpenGL and the Windows-only Direct3D.[25] Incidentally, OpenGL was supported at Microsoft by the DirectX team. If a developer chose to use the OpenGL 3D graphics API incomputer games, the other APIs of DirectX besides Direct3D were often combined with OpenGL 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'sXbox,Xbox 360 andXbox Oneconsole API. The API was developed jointly between Microsoft andNvidia, 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.[26]
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,DirectShow was removed from DirectX and moved to theMicrosoft Platform SDK instead.
DirectX has been confirmed to be present in Microsoft'sWindows Phone 8.[27]
Real-timeraytracing was announced asDXR in 2018. Support for compilingHLSL toSPIR-V was also added in the DirectX Shader Compiler the same year.[28]
DirectX is composed of multiple APIs:
Microsoft has deprecated the following components:
DirectX functionality is provided in the form ofCOM-style objects and interfaces. Additionally, while not DirectX components themselves,managed objects have been built on top of some parts of DirectX, such as Managed Direct3D[31] and the XNA graphics library[32] on top of Direct3D 9.
Microsoft distributes debugging tool for DirectX called "PIX".[33]
Introduced by Microsoft in 2002, DirectX 9 was a significant release in the DirectX family. It brought many important features and enhancements to the graphics capabilities of Windows. At the time of its release, it supportedWindows 98,Windows Me,Windows 2000, andWindows XP. As of August 2024 it remains supported by all subsequent versions of Windows for backward compatibility.
One of the key features introduced in DirectX 9 was Shader Model 2.0, which included Pixel Shader 2.0 and Vertex Shader 2.0. These allowed for more complex and realistic graphics rendering. It also brought much needed performance improvements through betterhardware acceleration capabilities, and better utilization of GPU resources. It also introducedHLSL, which provided a more accessible way for developers to produce shaders.
DirectX 9.0c was an update to the original, and has been continuously changed over the years affecting its compatibility with older operating systems. As of January 2007, Windows 2000 and Windows XP became the minimum required operating systems. This means support was officially dropped for Windows 98 and Windows Me. As of August 2024, DirectX 9.0c is still regularly updated.
Windows XP SP2 and newer include DirectX 9.0c,[34] but may require a newer DirectX runtime redistributable installation for DirectX 9.0c applications compiled with the February 2005 DirectX 9.0 SDK or newer.
DirectX 9 had a significant impact on game development. Many games from the mid-2000s to early 2010s were developed using DirectX 9 and it became a standard target for developers. Even today, some games still use DirectX 9 as an option for older or less powerful hardware.
A major update to DirectX API, DirectX 10 ships with and is only available withWindows Vista (launched in late 2006) 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.[35]
Changes for DirectX 10 were extensive. Many former parts of DirectX API were deprecated in the latest DirectX SDK and are preserved for compatibility only:DirectInput was deprecated in favor ofXInput,DirectSound was deprecated in favor of theCross-platform Audio Creation Tool system (XACT) and additionally lost support for hardware accelerated audio, since theVista audio stack 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:[36]
Direct3D 10.1 is an incremental update of Direct3D 10.0 which shipped with, and required,Windows Vista Service Pack 1, which was released in February 2008.[37] This release mainly sets a few more image quality standards for graphics vendors, while giving developers more control over image quality.[38] 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[39] 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.[40]
Microsoft unveiled DirectX 11 at the Gamefest 08 event in Seattle. The Final Platform Update launched for Windows Vista on October 27, 2009, which was a week after the initial release ofWindows 7, which launched with Direct3D 11 as a base standard.
Major scheduled features includingGPGPU support (DirectCompute), and Direct3D 11 withtessellation support[41][42] and improvedmulti-threading support to assist video game developers in developing games that better utilizemulti-core processors.[43] 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.[44] Microsoft has since released the Direct3D 11 Technical Preview.[45] 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.
Four updates for DirectX 11 were released:
DirectX 12 was announced by Microsoft atGDC on March 20, 2014, and was officially launched alongsideWindows 10 on July 29, 2015.
The primary feature highlight for the new release of DirectX was the introduction of advancedlow-level programming APIs forDirect3D 12 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 throughparallel computation. Lead developer Max McMullen stated that the main goal of Direct3D 12 is to achieve "console-level efficiency on phone, tablet and PC".[55] The release of Direct3D 12 comes alongside other initiatives for low-overhead graphics APIs including AMD'sMantle for AMD graphics cards, Apple'sMetal for iOS and macOS andKhronos Group's cross-platformVulkan.
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 asAMD CrossFireX orNVIDIA SLI.[56][57][58][59]
DirectX 12 is supported on allFermi and later Nvidia GPUs, on AMD'sGCN-based chips and on Intel'sHaswell and later processors' graphics units.[60]
AtSIGGRAPH 2014, Intel released a demo showing a computer generatedasteroid field, in which DirectX 12 was claimed to be 50–70% more efficient than DirectX 11 in rendering speed and CPU power consumption.[61][62]
Ashes of the Singularity was the first publicly available game to utilize DirectX 12. Testing byArs Technica in August 2015 revealed slight performance regressions in DirectX 12 over DirectX 11 mode for theNvidia GeForce 980 Ti, whereas theAMD Radeon R9 290x achieved consistent performance improvements of up to 70% under DirectX 12, and 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.[63]
The performance improvements of DirectX 12 on the Xbox are not as substantial as on the PC.[64]
In March 2018, DirectX Raytracing (DXR) was announced, capable of real-time ray-tracing on supported hardware,[65] and the DXR API was added in the Windows 10 October 2018 update.
In 2019 Microsoft announced the arrival of DirectX 12 toWindows 7 but only as a plug-in for certain game titles.[66]
Microsoft revealed DirectX 12 Ultimate in March 2020. DirectX 12 Ultimate will unify to a common library on both Windows 10 computers and theXbox Series X and other ninth-generation Xbox consoles. Among the new features in Ultimate includesDirectX Raytracing 1.1, Variable Rate Shading, which gives programmers control over the level of detail of shading depending on design choices,Mesh Shaders, and Sampler Feedback.[67][68]
| 1995 | DirectX 1 |
|---|---|
| 1996 | DirectX 2 |
| DirectX 3 | |
| 1997 | DirectX 5 |
| 1998 | DirectX 6 |
| 1999 | DirectX 7 |
| 2000 | DirectX 8 |
| 2001 | |
| 2002 | DirectX 9 |
| 2003 | |
| 2004 | |
| 2005 | |
| 2006 | DirectX 10 |
| 2007 | |
| 2008 | |
| 2009 | DirectX 11 |
| 2010 | |
| 2011 | |
| 2012 | |
| 2013 | |
| 2014 | |
| 2015 | DirectX 12 |
| Version | Release date | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Major | Minor | Number | ||
| 1 | 1.0 | 4.02.0095 | September 30, 1995 | Initially released as Windows Game SDK, replacingWinG forWindows 95 onward |
| 2 | 2.0 | 1996 | Was shipped only with a few 3rd party applications | |
| 2.0a | 4.03.00.1096 | June 5, 1996 | Windows 95 OSR2 andWindows NT 4.0 exclusive | |
| 3 | 3.0 | 4.04.00.0068 | September 15, 1996 | |
| 4.04.00.0069 | 1996 | Later package of DirectX 3.0 included Direct3D 4.04.00.0069 | ||
| 3.0a | 4.04.00.0070 | December 1996 | Windows NT 4.0 SP3 (and above) Last version supporting Windows NT 4.0 | |
| 3.0b | 4.04.00.0070 | January 1997 | This was a very minor update to 3.0a that fixed a cosmetic problem with the Japanese version of Windows 95 (DSETUPJ.DLL) | |
| 4 | 4.0 | Never released | 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 large amount 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.[69][70] | |
| 5 | 5.0 | 4.05.00.0155 (RC55) | August 4, 1997 | Available as a beta for Windows 2000 that would install on Windows NT 4.0 |
| 4.05.00.0155 (RC66) | Installer included on the Windows 95 OSR 2.5 installation media | |||
| 5.2 | 4.05.01.1600 (RC00) | May 5, 1998 | DirectX 5.2 release for Windows 95 | |
| 4.05.01.1998 (RC0) | June 25, 1998 | Windows 98 exclusive | ||
| 6 | 6.0 | 4.06.00.0318 (RC3) | August 7, 1998[71] | Windows CE as implemented onDreamcast and other devices |
| 6.1 | 4.06.02.0436 (RC0) | February 3, 1999[72] | ||
| 6.1a | 4.06.03.0518 (RC0) | May 5, 1999[73] | Windows 98 Second Edition exclusive. This is last version that runs on 486 or older CPU. | |
| 7 | 7.0 | 4.07.00.0700 (RC1) | September 22, 1999[74][75][76] | |
| 4.07.00.0700 | February 17, 2000 | Windows 2000 exclusive | ||
| 7.0a | 4.07.00.0716 (RC0) | November 1999 | ||
| 4.07.00.0716 (RC1) | December 17, 1999 | Released only for Windows 95 to 98[77][78] | ||
| 7.1 | 4.07.01.3000 (RC1) | September 14, 2000[79] | Windows Me exclusive. Last version to have built-in RGB software rendering support | |
| 8 | 8.0 | 4.08.00.0400 (RC10) | November 10, 2000[80] | |
| 8.0a | 4.08.00.0400 (RC14) | January 24, 2001[81][82] | Last version supporting Windows 95 and last version to have software rendering support in dxdiag.exe | |
| 8.1 | 4.08.01.0810 | October 25, 2001 | Windows XP, Windows XP SP1,Windows Server 2003 | |
| 4.08.01.0881 (RC7) | November 8, 2001 | This version is for the down level operating systems (Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows 2000) | ||
| 8.1b | 4.08.01.0901 (RC7) | June 25, 2002 | This release includes an update to Direct3D (D3d8.dll). Includes a fix to DirectShow on Windows 2000 (Quartz.dll) | |
| 8.2 | 4.08.02.0134 (RC0) | 2002 | Same as the DirectX 8.1b but includes DirectPlay 8.2 | |
| 9 | 9.0 | 4.09.00.0900 (RC4) | December 19, 2002 | |
| 9.0a | 4.09.00.0901 (RC6) | March 26, 2003 | ||
| 9.0b | 4.09.00.0902 (RC2) | August 13, 2003 | ||
| 9.0c[83] | 4.09.00.0904 (RC0) | July 22, 2004 | First 9.0c version Periodic hybrid 32-bit/64-bit updates, starting from October 2004, were released bimonthly until August 2007, and quarterly thereafter. The last update was released in June 2010[84] | |
| 4.09.00.0904 | August 6, 2004 / April 21, 2008* | Windows XP SP2 and SP3*, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Server 2003 R2 | ||
| October 10, 2006[85] | Last version supporting Windows 98, 98 SE and Me[86][87] | |||
| February 5, 2010[88] | Last version supporting Windows 2000,[87] XP and XP SP1 | |||
| June 7, 2010[87] | Final 9.0c version Last version supporting Windows XP SP2 and SP3[89] | |||
| 10 | 10 | 6.00.6000.16386 | November 30, 2006 | Windows Vista exclusive |
| 10.1 | 6.00.6001.18000 | February 4, 2008 | Windows Vista SP1,Windows Server 2008 Includes Direct3D 10.1 | |
| 6.00.6002.18005 | April 28, 2009 | Windows Vista SP2,Windows Server 2008 SP2 Includes Direct3D 10.1 | ||
| 11 | 11 | 6.01.7600.16385 | October 22, 2009 | Windows 7,Windows Server 2008 R2 |
| 6.00.6002.18107 | October 27, 2009 | Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2, through thePlatform Update for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008[90] | ||
| 6.01.7601.17514 | February 16, 2011 | Windows 7 SP1,Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 | ||
| 11.1 | 6.02.9200.16384 | August 1, 2012 | Windows 8,Windows RT,Windows Server 2012 | |
| 6.02.9200.16492 | February 11, 2013 | Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, through thePlatform Update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2[91] | ||
| 11.2 | 6.03.9600.16384 | October 18, 2013 | Windows 8.1,Windows RT,Windows Server 2012 R2 | |
| 12 | 12 | 10.00.10240.16384 | July 29, 2015 | Windows 10 |
| 10.00.15063.0000 | March 20, 2017 | Windows 10, Depth Bounds Testing and Programmable MSAA added[92][93] | ||
| 10.00.17763.0000 | November 20, 2019 | Direct3D 12 only for Windows 7 SP1, via a dedicated source code package for app developers[94][95] | ||
| 12.1 | 10.00.17763.0001 | October 2, 2018 | Windows 10, DirectX Raytracing support added[96] | |
| 10.00.18362.0116 | May 19, 2019 | Windows 10, Variable Rate Shading (VRS) support added[97] | ||
| 12.2 | 10.00.19041.0928 | November 10, 2020 | Windows 10, Ultimate | |
| 10.00.22000.1000 | October 5, 2021 | Windows 11, Added native refresh rate switching[98] and improved graphics capabilities toWindows Subsystem for Linux[99] | ||
The version number as reported by Microsoft'sDxDiag tool (version 4.09.0000.0900 and higher) use the x.xx.xxxx.xxxx format for version numbers. However, the DirectX and Windows XPMSDN page claims that the registry always has been in the x.xx.xx.xxxx format. Therefore, when the above table lists a version as '4.09.00.0904' Microsoft'sDxDiag tool may have it as '4.09.0000.0904'.[100]
Various releases of Windows have included and supported various versions of DirectX, allowing newer versions of the operating system to continue running applications designed for earlier versions of DirectX until those versions can be gradually phased out in favor of newer APIs, drivers, and hardware.[101]
APIs such as Direct3D and DirectSound need to interact with hardware, and they do this through adevice driver. Hardware manufacturers have to write these drivers for a particular DirectX version's device driver interface (or DDI), and test each individual piece of hardware to make them DirectX compatible. Some hardware devices have only DirectX compatible drivers (in other words, one must install DirectX in order to use that hardware). Early versions of DirectX included an up-to-date library of all of the DirectX compatible drivers currently available. This practice was stopped however, in favor of the web-basedWindows Update driver-update system, which allowed users to download only the drivers relevant to their hardware, rather than the entire library.
Prior to DirectX 10, DirectX runtime was designed to bebackward compatible with older drivers, meaning that newer versions of the APIs were designed to interoperate with older drivers written against a previous version's DDI. The application programmer had to query the available hardware capabilities using a complex system of "cap bits" each tied to a particular hardware feature. Direct3D 7 and earlier would work on any version of the DDI, Direct3D 8 requires a minimum DDI level of 6 and Direct3D 9 requires a minimum DDI level of 7.[102]However, the Direct3D 10 runtime in Windows Vista cannot run on older hardware drivers due to the significantly updated DDI, which requires a unified feature set and abandons the use of "cap bits".
Direct3D 10.1 introduces "feature levels" 10_0 and 10_1, which allow use of only the hardware features defined in the specified version of Direct3D API.Direct3D 11 adds level 11_0 and "10 Level 9" - a subset of the Direct3D 10 API designed to run on Direct3D 9 hardware, which has three feature levels (9_1, 9_2 and 9_3) grouped by common capabilities of "low", "med" and "high-end" video cards; the runtime directly uses Direct3D 9 DDI provided in all WDDM drivers. Feature level 11_1 has been introduced withDirect3D 11.1.
In 2002, Microsoft released a version of DirectX compatible with the Microsoft.NET Framework, thus allowing programmers to take advantage of DirectX functionality from within .NET applications using compatible languages such as managed C++ or the use of theC# programming language. This API was known as "Managed DirectX" (or MDX for short), and claimed to operate at 98% of performance of the underlying native DirectX APIs. In December 2005, February 2006, April 2006, and August 2006, Microsoft released successive updates to this library, culminating in a beta version called Managed DirectX 2.0. While Managed DirectX 2.0 consolidated functionality that had previously been scattered over multiple assemblies into a single assembly, thus simplifying dependencies on it for software developers, development on this version has subsequently been discontinued, and it is no longer supported. The Managed DirectX 2.0 library expired on October 5, 2006.
During theGDC 2006, Microsoft presented theXNA Framework, a new managed version of DirectX (similar but not identical to Managed DirectX) that is intended to assist development of games by making it easier to integrate DirectX, HLSL and other tools in one package. It also supports the execution of managed code on the Xbox 360. TheXNA Game Studio Express RTM was made available on December 11, 2006, as a free download for Windows XP. Unlike the DirectX runtime,Managed DirectX,XNA Framework or theXbox 360 APIs (XInput, XACT etc.) have not shipped as part of Windows. Developers are expected to redistribute the runtime components along with their games or applications.
No Microsoft product including the latest XNA releases provides DirectX 10 support for the .NET Framework.
The other approach for DirectX in managed languages is to use third-party libraries like:
There are alternatives to the DirectX family ofAPIs, withOpenGL, its successorVulkan,Metal andMantle having the most features comparable toDirect3D. Examples of other APIs includeSDL,Allegro,OpenMAX, OpenML,OpenAL,OpenCL,FMOD,SFML etc. Many of these libraries are cross-platform or have open codebases. There are also alternative implementations that aim to provide the same API, such as the one inWine. Furthermore, the developers ofReactOS are trying to reimplement DirectX under the name "ReactX".
Windows needs to support; ... – Page flipping – Vertical blank synchronization – Tight sound mixing – Tight synchronization of sound and video events – Raw blting performance – Ability to set graphic mode ...
Lion King software, for example, is a WinToon app. ... Like WinToon, this example uses WinG for drawing on the DIB.
DMOs have been superseded by Media Foundation Transforms (MFTs).
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