Getting Started
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Glossary
#-G Terms

DirectX

3min
directx is a collection of application programming interfaces (apis) developed by microsoft for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video games directx is used in most modern video games and multimedia applications developed for microsoft windows here are some of the most commonly used directx apis direct3d direct3d is an api for 3d graphics programming it is used to render 2d and 3d objects, textures, and shaders directinput directinput is an api for handling input devices, such as keyboards, mice, and joysticks directsound directsound is an api for handling sound programming it is used to play sounds, record sounds, and mix sounds directplay directplay is an api for handling network gaming it is used to connect to other players over a network and play games together directx media objects (dmo) dmo is a set of apis for working with media objects they can be used for tasks such as decoding audio and video streams, filtering media streams, and converting media formats directshow directshow is a framework for building multimedia applications it provides apis for working with a variety of multimedia formats, including video, audio, and images directx graphics infrastructure (dxgi) dxgi is a low level api for handling graphics it is used by direct3d to manage the display devices and render targets directx compute shaders compute shaders are a new feature in directx 11 that allow developers to write programs that run on the gpu compute shaders can be used for a variety of tasks, such as physics simulations and image processing directx raytracing (dxr) dxr is a new feature in directx 12 that allows developers to write programs that render images using ray tracing ray tracing is a technique that simulates the path of light rays through a scene it can be used to create realistic images with reflections, refractions, and shadows directx is a powerful tool for developing games and multimedia applications it provides a wide range of apis that can be used to handle a variety of tasks here are some of the benefits of using directx performance directx is designed to provide high performance for games and multimedia applications it uses hardware acceleration to render graphics and play sounds, which can improve performance significantly portability directx is designed to be portable across a wide range of hardware platforms this makes it a good choice for developing games and multimedia applications that will be used on a variety of devices support directx is well supported by microsoft and the game development community there are a number of resources available to help developers learn about directx and use it to develop games and multimedia applications here are some of the drawbacks of using directx complexity directx is a complex api it can be difficult to learn and use, especially for beginners vendor lock in directx is a proprietary api developed by microsoft this means that games and multimedia applications developed using directx can only run on microsoft windows performance directx can be slow on some hardware platforms this is because directx uses hardware acceleration, which can be inefficient on older or less powerful hardware overall, directx is a powerful tool for developing games and multimedia applications it provides a wide range of apis that can be used to handle a variety of tasks however, directx can be complex to learn and use, and it can be slow on some hardware platforms feedback please be sure to submit issues or feature requests through the embedded feedback form in the event it is a major issue please contact us directly through discord