Microsoft DirectX is a collection of
application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to
multimedia, especially
game programming and video, on
Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as
Direct3D,
DirectDraw,
DirectMusic,
DirectPlay,
DirectSound, and so forth. The name Direct
X
was coined as shorthand term for all of these APIs (the X standing in
for the particular API names) and soon became the name of the
collection. Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development of
video games for
Microsoft Windows,
Microsoft Xbox, and Microsoft
Xbox 360.
Direct3D is also used by other software 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
software development kit (SDK) consists of
runtime libraries in redistributable binary form, along with accompanying documentation and
headers for use in coding.
The latest versions of Direct3D, namely, Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 9Ex, are only officially available for
Windows Vista and
Windows 7, because each of these new versions was built to depend upon the new
Windows Display Driver Model
that was introduced for Windows Vista. The new Vista/WDDM graphics
architecture includes a new video memory manager that supports
virtualizing graphics hardware to multiple applications and services
such as the
Desktop Window Manager...............sodeep
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