Description of DirectX 2.0 (155002)

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DirectX was developed to provide Windows-based programs with high- performance, real-time access to available hardware on current computer systems. DirectX provides a consistent interface between hardware manufacturers and the program developer.

One of the primary reasons for creating DirectX was to promote games development on the Windows platform. The majority of games developed for the personal computer today are MS-DOS-based. However, when developing MS- DOS-based games, developers must conform to a number of hardware implementations for a variety of cards, which complicates installation. In addition, development of MS-DOS-based games can be much more complex on a personal computer than on a console system, due to the generalized processor, greater RAM size, and persistent storage of the personal computer.

A high-performance Windows-based game will:

• Be installed easily.
• Take advantage of hardware accelerator cards designed specifically for improving performance.
• Take advantage of Windows hardware and software standards such as Plug and Play.
• Take advantage of the communications services built into Windows.

The following features of DirectX 2.0 combine to achieve these goals:

• The Microsoft DirectDraw program programming interface
  
  This accelerates hardware and software animation techniques by provid- ing direct access to bitmaps in off-screen display memory as well as extremely fast access to the blitting and buffer-flipping capabilities of the hardware.
• The Microsoft DirectSound program programming interface
  
  This enables hardware and software sound mixing and playback.
• The Microsoft DirectPlay program programming interface
  
  This allows easy connectivity of games over a modem link or network.
• The Microsoft Direct3D program programming interface
  
  Direct3D is a complete set of real-time 3D graphics services that delivers fast software-based rendering of the full 3D rendering pipe- line (transformations, lighting, and rasterization) and transparent access to hardware acceleration. Direct3D is fully scalable, enabling all or part of the 3D rendering pipeline to be accelerated by hardware. Direct3D exposes advanced graphics capabilities of 3D hardware accelerators, including z-buffering, anti-aliasing, alpha blending, mipmapping, atmospheric effects, and perspective-correct texture mapping. Integration with other DirectX technologies enables Direct3D to deliver such features as video mapping, hardware 3D rendering in 2D overlay planes, and even sprites, providing use of 2D and 3D graphics in interactive media titles.
• The Microsoft DirectInput program programming interface
  
  This provides joystick input capabilities to your game that are scaleable to future Windows hardware input APIs and drivers.
• The Microsoft AutoPlay feature of the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system
  
  This lets your CD-ROM run an installation program or the game itself immediately upon insertion of the CD-ROM