Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces An Application Programming Interface is an interface implemented by a software program which enables it to interact with other software. It is similar to the way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. An API is implemented by applications, libraries, and operating systems to determine their vocabularies and (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio,, especially game programming Game programming, a subset of game development, is the programming of computer, console or arcade games. Though often engaged in by professional game programmers, many novices may program games as a hobby. Some software engineering students program games as exercises for learning a programming language or operating system.[citation needed] and video, on Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8 platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. Direct3D is only available for Microsoft's various Windows operating systems and in the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems. Direct3D is used to render three dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as, DirectDraw DirectDraw is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. DirectDraw is used to render graphics in applications where top performance is important. DirectDraw also allows applications to run fullscreen or embedded in a window such as most other MS Windows applications. DirectDraw uses hardware acceleration if it is available on the client's computer, DirectMusic DirectMusic is a deprecated component of the Microsoft DirectX API that allows music and sound effects to be composed and played and provides flexible interactive control over the way they are played. Architecturally, DirectMusic is a high-level set of objects, built on top of DirectSound, that allow you to play sound and music without needing to, DirectPlay, DirectSound DirectSound is a software component of the DirectX library, supplied by Microsoft, that resides on a computer with the Windows operating system. It provides a direct interface between applications and the sound card drivers on Windows XP and earlier operating systems, enabling applications to produce sounds and music. Besides providing the, and so forth. The name DirectX 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. When Microsoft later set out to develop a gaming console, the X was used as the basis of the name Xbox The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, to indicate that the console was based on DirectX technology.^[1] The X initial has been carried forward in the naming of APIs designed for the Xbox such as XInput DirectInput is a Microsoft API for collecting input from the user, via input devices such as the mouse, keyboard, joystick or other game controllers. It also provides a system for action mapping, which allows the user to assign specific actions within a game to the buttons and axes of the input devices. Additionally it handles force-feedback and the Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), while the DirectX pattern has been continued for Windows APIs such as Direct2D Direct2D is a 2D and vector graphics application programming interface designed by Microsoft and implemented in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, and also Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (with Platform Update installed) and DirectWrite DirectWrite is a text-layout and glyph-rendering API by Microsoft. It was designed to replace GDI/GDI+ and Uniscribe for screen-oriented rendering and was shipped with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, as well as Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development of video games A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device. However, with the popular use of the term "video game," it now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to for Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal, Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8 Xbox The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2,, and Microsoft Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft, and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. 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) A software development kit is typically a set of development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform consists of runtime libraries In computer programming, a runtime library is a special program library used by a compiler, to implement functions built into a programming language, during the runtime of a computer program. This often includes functions for input and output, or for memory management in redistributable binary form, along with accompanying documentation and headers A header file commonly contains forward declarations of classes, subroutines, variables, and other identifiers. Programmers who wish to declare standardized identifiers in more than one source file can place such identifiers in a single header file, which other code can then include whenever the header contents are required for use in coding. Originally, the runtimes were only installed by games or explicitly by the user. Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products. During development it was referred to as Windows 4.0 or by the internal codename Chicago did not launch with DirectX, but DirectX was included with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2.^[2] Windows 98 Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on May 15, 1998 and to retail on June 25, 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid 16-bit/32-bit monolithic product with an MS-DOS based and Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996 . It is a 32-bit Windows system available in both 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.

Direct3D 9Ex, Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 11 are only available for Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system expressed in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Windows Vista was known by its codename "Longhorn." Development was completed on November 8, and Windows 7 Windows 7 is a version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and reached general retail availability on October 22, 2009, less than 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 Desktop Window Manager is the desktop graphical user interface system in Windows Vista and Windows 7 that enables the Windows Aero graphical user interface and visual theme. The Desktop Window Manager requires video cards supporting DirectX 9.0 and Shader Model 2.0. DWM is not included with Windows Vista Starter edition. It is included with.

History

In late 1994 Microsoft was on the verge of releasing its next operating system An operating system is the software on a computer that manages the way different programs use its hardware, and regulates the ways that a user controls the computer. Operating systems are found on almost any device that contains a computer with multiple programs—from cellular phones and video game consoles to supercomputers and web servers. Some, Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products. During development it was referred to as Windows 4.0 or by the internal codename Chicago. The main factor that would determine the value consumers would place on their new operating system very much rested on what programs would be able to run on it. Three Microsoft employees – Craig Eisler, Alex St. John Alex St. John, along with Craig Eisler and Eric Engstrom, created the original Microsoft DirectX specification. Alex became a Windows game technology evangelist for DirectX through magazine articles and interviews on the newly created web, and Eric Engstrom – were concerned because programmers A game programmer is a software engineer and programmer who primarily develops codebase for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines each of which is regarded as "game programmers". A game programmer should not be confused with a game designer, who works on game tended to see Microsoft's previous operating system, MS-DOS MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI),, 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.

DOS allowed direct access to video cards, keyboards In computing, a keyboard is an input device, partially modeled after the typewriter keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. A keyboard typically has characters engraved or printed on the keys and each press of a key typically corresponds to a single written symbol. However, to, mice In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons. (Although traditionally a button is typically round or square, modern mice have spring-loaded regions of their top, sound devices A sound card is a computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. Typical uses of sound cards include providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition, editing video or audio, presentation, education, and entertainment (, 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 way that would let programmers get what they wanted, and they needed it quickly; 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 Win32 The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was formerly called the Win32 API; however, the name Windows API more accurately reflects its roots in 16-bit Windows and its support on 64-bit Windows. Almost all Windows programs interact with replacement for the DCI^[3] and WinG A wing is a surface used to produce lift for flight through the atmosphere - or occasionally through another gaseous or fluid substance. Another word for an artificial wing is an airfoil, and airfoils always have a distinctive cross-sectional shape APIs for Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1x is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. The series began with Windows 3.1, which was first sold during March 1992 as a successor to Windows 3.0. Further editions were released between 1992 and 1994 until the series was superseded by Windows 95. Simply put, 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.^[4]

DirectX 2.0 became a component of Windows itself with the releases of Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products. During development it was referred to as Windows 4.0 or by the internal codename Chicago OSR2 and Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996 . It is a 32-bit Windows system available in both in mid-1996. As 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. Alex St. John, working as an evangelist for DirectX, staged an elaborate event at the 1996 Computer Game Developers Conference which game developer Jay Barnson described as a Roman Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world theme, including real lions The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg (550 lb) in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia with a critically endangered remnant population in Gir Forest National Park in India,, togas, and something resembling an indoor carnival.^[5] It was at this event that Microsoft first introduced Direct3D Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. Direct3D is only available for Microsoft's various Windows operating systems and in the open source software Wine. It is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems. Direct3D is used to render three dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as and DirectPlay, and demonstrated multi-player MechWarrior 2 being played over the Internet.

The DirectX team faced the challenging task of testing each DirectX release against an array of hardware and software. 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 OpenGL OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL was developed by Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) in 1992 on their Windows NT Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was originally designed to be a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement consumer versions of platform. At the time, OpenGL OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL was developed by Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) in 1992 required "high-end" hardware and was focused on engineering Engineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific, and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or invention and CAD Computer-aided design is the use of computer technology for the design of objects, real or virtual. CAD often involves more than just shapes. As in the manual drafting of technical and engineering drawings, the output of CAD often must convey also symbolic information such as materials, processes, dimensions, and tolerances, according to uses.^{[citation needed]} Direct3D was intended to be a lightweight partner to OpenGL, focused on game use. As 3D gaming grew, OpenGL evolved 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 computer games A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device. However, with the popular use of the term "video game", it now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to 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 Xbox The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, and Xbox 360 console API. The API was developed jointly between Microsoft and Nvidia, who developed the custom graphics hardware used by the original Xbox. The Xbox API is 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.^[6]

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 the Microsoft Platform SDK instead. The DirectX SDK is, however, still required to build the DirectShow samples.^[7]

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