Microsoft DirectX
by Gazza on Jun.08, 2010, under Entertainment, Free Downloads, Graphic & Drivers, Top Downloads
Microsoft DirectX is a group of technologies designed to make Windows-based computers an ideal platform for running and displaying applications rich in multimedia elements such as full-color graphics, video, 3D animation, and rich audio.
DirectX includes security and performance updates, along with many new features across all technologies, which can be accessed by applications using the DirectX APIs.
This download provides the DirectX end-user multi-languaged redistributable that developers can include with their product.
The redistributable license agreement covers the terms under which developers may use the Redistributable.
This package is localized into Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Swedish, and English.
The DirectX runtime cannot be uninstalled.
We recommend Windows XP users turn on a “System Restore” point before installing.
Additional Information
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 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 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 XInput and the Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT), while the DirectX pattern has been continued for Windows APIs such as Direct2D and DirectWrite.
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.
Direct3D 9Ex, Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 11 are only 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.
The components of DirectX
DirectDraw
Drawing 2D Graphics (raster graphics). Now deprecated (in favor of Direct2D), though still in use by a number of games and as a video renderer in media applications.
Direct3D (D3D)
Drawing 3D graphics.
DXGI
Enumerating adapters and monitors and managing swap chains for Direct3D 10 and up.
Direct2D
2D Graphics
DirectWrite
Fonts
DirectCompute
GPU Computing
DirectInput
Interfacing with input devices including keyboards, mice, joysticks, or other game controllers. Deprecated after version 8 in favor of XInput for Xbox 360 controllers or standard WM INPUT window message processing for keyboard and mouse input.
DirectPlay
Communication over a local-area or wide-area network. Deprecated after version 8.
DirectSound
Playback and recording of waveform sounds.
DirectSound3D (DS3D)
Playback of 3D sounds.
DirectMusic
Playback of soundtracks authored in DirectMusic Producer.
DirectX Media
Comprising DirectAnimation for 2D/3D web animation, DirectShow for multimedia playback and streaming media, DirectX transform for web interactivity, and Direct3D Retained Mode for higher level 3D graphics.
DirectShow contains DirectX plugins for audio signal processing and DirectX Video Acceleration for accelerated video playback.
DirectX Diagnostics (DxDiag)
Tool for diagnosing and generating reports on components related to DirectX, such as audio, video, and input drivers.
DirectX Media Objects
Streaming objects such as encoders, decoders, and effects.
DirectSetup
Installation of DirectX components, and the detection of the current DirectX version.
DirectX functionality is provided in the form of COM-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 and the XNA graphics library on top of Direct3D 9.
DirectX 10
A major update to DirectX API, DirectX 10 ships with and is only available with Windows Vista and later; previous versions of Windows such as Windows XP are not able to officially run DirectX 10-exclusive applications.
There are unofficial ports of DirectX 10 to XP.
Changes for DirectX 10 were extensive.
Many former parts of DirectX API were deprecated in the latest DirectX SDK and will be preserved for compatibility only: DirectInput was deprecated in favor of XInput, DirectSound was deprecated in favor of the Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool system (XACT) and lost support for hardware accelerated audio, since Vista 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:
Direct3D 9
Emulates Direct3D 9 behavior as it was on Windows XP. Details and advantages of Vista’s Windows Display Driver Model 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 Windows Aero 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 Shader Model 4.
Direct3D 10.1
Incremental update of Direct3D 10.0 which is shipped with, and requires, Windows Vista Service Pack 1.
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 parallel cube mapping 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 unveiled Direct3D 11 at the Gamefest 08 event in Seattle, with the major scheduled features including GPGPU support (DirectCompute), tessellation support, and improved multi-threading support to assist video game developers in developing games that better utilize multi-core processors.
Direct3D 11 runs on Windows Vista and Windows 7.
It will run on future Windows operating systems as well.
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.
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).
Alternatives to DirectX
There are alternatives to the DirectX family of APIs, with OpenGL having the most features.
Examples of other APIs include SDL, Allegro, OpenMAX, OpenML, OpenAL, OpenCL, FMOD, etc.
Many of these libraries are cross-platform or have open codebases.
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