Contents  Introduction  DirectX  DirectDraw  Direct3D  Rendering Engine  File Format  DirectX and COM  Summary and  Appendix  Printable version

DirectX

DirectX is a set of APIs, available as COM (Component Object Model) objects. These APIs provide objects and functions for developing real-time, high-performance applications on the Windows platform.

The primary motivation for developing these libraries is that the performance of existing Windows applications catering to graphics intensive application like games and multimedia is very poor in comparison to the same applications developed on DOS. The DirectX set has been developed keeping this need for high performance in mind, and it provides a standard, robust platform for developing such applications.

DirectX provides a standard, robust platform to application developers, by guaranteeing hardware independence. This is done by providing a consistent interface to the hardware. Due to this, the complexity of software development is reduced and the incompatibilities between the hardware platforms is neutralized as far as possible. The present applications, written in DOS, have to take care of the different hardware configurations, making them quite configuration specific and harder to port to different configurations. By providing a consistent interface across all hardware platforms, taking care of incompatibilities is shifted away from the application developer, resulting in less code and hence faster development.

Hardware independence is guaranteed by DirectX, by providing requirement guidelines to all hardware vendors. Due to these guidelines, it is ensured that at least minimal support is guaranteed to the applications.

DirectX is not a single entity, but a collection of closely interacting and interdependent applications. The components of DirectX are:

DirectDraw

- for 2D interactions, like fast 2D blitting (bit block transfers), overlays, etc

DirectSound

- for incorporating soung into applications

DirectPlay

- for incorporating multiple users into the applications, using the network for communicating between the users

Direct3D

- for incorporating 3D capabilities into applications

DirectInput

- for incorporating support for other peripherals, like joysticks, into the applications

Of these components, let us briefly cover the DirectDraw component, before covering the overview of Direct3D.

Next : DirectDraw