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 SpaceWorld SpaceView SpaceScreen Space World MatrixView 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 – DirectX Developer Center – DirectX SDK Documentation: –

Questions Ask away… …or contact me at your leisure using: dandago at gmail dot com