DirectX
This article needs additional citations for verification. (April 2016) |
Developer(s) | Microsoft |
---|---|
Initial release | September 30, 1995 |
Stable release | 12 Ultimate API
/ October 5, 2021 |
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 to Windows Subsystem for Linux)[2] |
Type | API |
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of
Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development of video games for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox line of 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) consists of runtime libraries in redistributable binary form, along with accompanying documentation and headers 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 and Windows 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]
Development history
In late 1994, Microsoft was ready to release
St. John recognized the resistances for game development under Windows would be a limitation, and recruited two additional engineers, Craig Eisler and
Most of the work by the three was done among other assigned projects starting near the end of 1994.
The first version of DirectX was released in September 1995 as the Windows Game SDK. Its DirectDraw component was the Win32 replacement for the DCI[17] and WinG APIs for Windows 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 approached
DirectX 2.0 became a built-in component of Windows with the releases of
The DirectX team faced the challenging task of testing each DirectX release against an array of computer 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 added
In a console-specific version, DirectX was used as a basis for Microsoft's Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One console API. The API was developed jointly between Microsoft and Nvidia, 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,
DirectX has been confirmed to be present in Microsoft's Windows Phone 8.[27]
Real-time raytracing was announced as DXR in 2018. Support for compiling HLSL to SPIR-V was also added in the DirectX Shader Compiler the same year.[28]
Components
DirectX is composed of multiple APIs:
- Direct3D (D3D): Real-time 3D rendering API
- DXGI: Enumerates adapters and monitors and manages swap chains for Direct3D 10 and later.
- Direct2D: 2D graphics API
- DirectWrite: Text rendering API
- DirectCompute: API for general-purpose computing on graphics processing units
- DirectX Diagnostics (DxDiag): A tool for diagnosing and generating reports on components related to DirectX, such as audio, video, and input drivers
- XACT3: High-level audio API
- XAudio2: Low-level audio API
- DirectX Raytracing (DXR): Real-time raytracing API
- DirectStorage: GPU-oriented file I/O API
- DirectML: GPU-accelerated machine learning and artificial intelligence API
- DirectSR: GPU-accelerated resolution upscaling API
Microsoft has deprecated the following components:
- DirectX Media: Consists of:
- DirectAnimation for 2D/3D[29] web animation, DirectShow for multimedia playback and streaming media
- DirectX Media Objects: Support for streaming objects such as encoders, decoders, and effects (Deprecated in favor of Media Foundation Transforms; MFTs)[30]
- DirectX Transform for web interactivity, and Direct3D Retained Mode for higher level 3D graphics
- DirectX plugins for audio signal processing
- DirectX Video Acceleration for accelerated video playback (Deprecated in favor of Media Foundation)
- DirectDraw: 2D graphics API (Deprecated in favor of Direct2D)
- XInput for Xbox 360controllers or standard WM_INPUT window message processing for keyboard and mouse input)
- Xbox Live)
- DirectSound: Audio API (Deprecated since DirectX 8 in favor of XAudio2 and XACT3)
- DirectSound3D (DS3D): 3D soundsAPI (Deprecated since DirectX 8 in favor of XAudio2 and XACT3)
- DirectMusic: Components for playing soundtracks authored in DirectMusic Producer (Deprecated since DirectX 8 in favor of XAudio2 and XACT3)
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[31] and the XNA graphics library[32] on top of Direct3D 9.
Microsoft distributes debugging tool for DirectX called "PIX".[33]
Versions
DirectX 9
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2018) |
DirectX 9 was released in 2002 for Windows 98, Me, 2000 and XP, and currently[when?] is supported by all subsequent versions. Microsoft continues to make changes in DirectX 9.0c, causing support to be dropped for some of the aforementioned operating systems. As of January 2007, Windows 2000 or XP is required. This also introduced Shader Model 2.0 containing Pixel Shader 2.0 and Vertex Shader 2.0. 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 10
A major update to DirectX API, DirectX 10 ships with and is only available with Windows 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]
In order to achieve backwards compatibility, DirectX in Windows Vista contains several versions of Direct3D:[36]
- 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 is an incremental update of Direct3D 10.0 which shipped with, and required,
DirectX 11
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 of Windows 7, which launched with Direct3D 11 as a base standard.
Major scheduled features including
Four updates for DirectX 11 were released:
- DirectX 11.1 is included in
- DirectX 11.2 is included in Windows 8.1 (including the RT version) and Windows Server 2012 R2.[49] It added some new features to Direct2D like geometry realizations.[50] 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.[51]
- DirectX 11.X is a superset of DirectX 11.2 running on the Xbox One.[52] It actually includes some features, such as draw bundles, that were later announced as part of DirectX 12.[53]
- 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.[54] It is included with Windows 10.[49]
DirectX 12
DirectX 12 was announced by Microsoft at GDC on March 20, 2014, and was officially launched alongside Windows 10 on July 29, 2015.
The primary feature highlight for the new release of DirectX was the introduction of advanced
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 dedicated GPU with the integrated GPU 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 Fermi and later Nvidia GPUs, on AMD's GCN-based chips and on Intel's Haswell and later processors' graphics units.[60]
At
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 to Windows 7 but only as a plug-in for certain game titles.[66]
DirectX 12 Ultimate
Microsoft revealed DirectX 12 Ultimate in March 2020. DirectX 12 Ultimate will unify to a common library on both Windows 10 computers and the
Version history
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, replacing WinG for Windows 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 and Windows 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 | December 1996 | This was a very minor update to 3.0a that fixed a cosmetic problem with the Japanese version of Windows 95 | |
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 on Dreamcast 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] | |
4.07.00.0700 | February 17, 2000 | Windows 2000 exclusive | ||
7.0a | December 17, 1999 | Released only for Windows 95 to 98[76][77] | ||
4.07.00.0716 (RC0) | March 8, 2000 | |||
4.07.00.0716 (RC1) | 2000 | |||
7.1 | 4.07.01.3000 (RC1) | September 14, 2000[78] | Windows Me exclusive. Last version to have built-in RGB software rendering support | |
8 | 8.0 | 4.08.00.0400 (RC10) | November 10, 2000[79] | |
8.0a | 4.08.00.0400 (RC14) | January 24, 2001[80] | 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) | ||
8.1a | 4.08.01.0901 (RC?) | 2002 | This release includes an update to Direct3D (D3d8.dll) | |
8.1b | 4.08.01.0901 (RC7) | June 25, 2002 | This update 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[81] | 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[82] | |
4.09.00.0904 | August 6, 2004 / April 21, 2008* | Windows XP SP2 and SP3*, Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Windows Server 2003 R2 | ||
December 8, 2006 | Last version supporting Windows 98, 98 SE and Me[1] | |||
February 5, 2010 | Last version supporting Windows 2000, XP and XP SP1 | |||
June 7, 2010 | Final 9.0c version and last supporting Windows XP SP2 and SP3[83] | |||
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 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 the Platform Update for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008[84] | ||
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 the Platform Update for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2[85] | ||
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[86][87] | ||
10.00.17763.0000 | November 20, 2019 | Direct3D 12 only for Windows 7 SP1, via a dedicated source code package for app developers[88][89] | ||
12.1 | 10.00.17763.0001 | October 2, 2018 | Windows 10, DirectX Raytracing support added[90] | |
10.00.18362.0116 | May 19, 2019 | Windows 10, Variable Rate Shading (VRS) support added[91] | ||
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[92] and improved graphics capabilities to Windows Subsystem for Linux[93] |
The version number as reported by Microsoft's
Compatibility
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.[95]
APIs such as Direct3D and DirectSound need to interact with hardware, and they do this through a device 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-based Windows 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 be backward 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.[96] 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".
.NET Framework
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 the C# 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 the GDC 2006, Microsoft presented the XNA 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. The XNA 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 the Xbox 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:
- SlimDX, an open source library for DirectX programming on the .NET Framework
- SharpDX,[97][98] which is an open source project delivering the full DirectX API for .NET on all Windows platforms, allowing the development of high performance game, 2D and 3D graphics rendering as well as real-time sound applications
- DirectShow.NET for the DirectShow subset
- Windows API CodePack for .NET Framework Archived February 14, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, which is an open source library from Microsoft.
Alternatives
There are alternatives to the DirectX family of APIs, with OpenGL, its successor Vulkan, Metal and Mantle having the most features comparable to Direct3D. Examples of other APIs include SDL, 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 in Wine. Furthermore, the developers of ReactOS are trying to reimplement DirectX under the name "ReactX".
See also
- ActiveX
- Comparison of OpenGL and Direct3D
- Direct3D
- DirectX plugin
- DxDiag
- Graphics Device Interface (GDI)
- Graphics pipeline
- Simple DirectMedia Layer
- Timeout Detection and Recovery
- Vulkan
Gallery
-
DirectX 1.0–8.2 logo
-
DirectX 9.0 logo
-
DirectX 12 Ultimate logo
Notes
- 1.^ After installing this version, it's possible to install up to Nov 2007 on 98/98SE, and up to Feb 2010 on Me
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