DirectX: A Brief Overview

DirectX:A Brief Overview

Daniel D’Agostino

Example: Far Cry 2

Example: Crysis

Example: Assassin’s Creed

What is DirectX?

Direct3D and D3DX DirectInput and XInput Direct2D DirectSetup XACT, XAudio2,

X3DAudio, XAPO, XAPOFX

Deprecated APIs– DirectSound– DirectPlay– DirectMusic– DirectShow– DirectDraw

What can be done with DirectX?

Games Simulation software Terrain editors Media players … and so on

Why DirectX?

Direct3D: performance– Win32 GDI is slow– Rendering requirements– Abusing the Windows message loop

DirectInput– Background application input retrieval– Support for any device, as well as force feedback– Action mapping

Direct3D

Object Space World Space View Space Screen Space

World Matrix View Matrix Projection Matrix

DirectX Alternatives: OpenGL

OpenGL– Graphics only– Platform-independent– C-based– Not as popular as

Direct3D

Direct3D– Part of DirectX– Microsoft only– COM (C++) –based– More popular in game

industry

DirectX Alternatives: XNA

DirectX– Professionals– Low-level– C++ or managed .NET

language

XNA– Hobbyists, students– High-level– C# - slower

Summary

DirectX is a set of low-level APIs for high-performance multimedia

Mostly used in game development Needed mainly for performance reasons Direct3D allows manipulation of 3D geometry Comparable to OpenGL and XNA

Resources

Toymaker by Keith Ditchburn – game industry veteran and lecturer on games programming at Teesside University

– http://www.toymaker.info/ DirectX Developer Center

– http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/directx/default.aspx DirectX SDK Documentation:

– http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa139818.aspx

Questions

Ask away… …or contact me at your leisure using:

dandago at gmail dot com