DirectX 5 Application Programming Interfaces Los Angeles CA

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Originally published at Internet.com

DirectX 5 is the fourth version of the DirectX application programming interfaces (APIs) that allows developers of games and other interactive content to access specialized hardware features without having to write hardware specific code. Before DirectX, developers creating multimedia applications for Windows machines had to customize their products so that they would work well on the wide variety of hardware devices and configurations available on Windows machines.

While continuing to expand support for performance games, DirectX 5 lays the foundation for extending DirectX media services to multimedia, Internet, and other performance applications.

Microsoft objective with DirectX technology was to provide developers with a common set of instructions and components that would insure their products would work on any windows based pc regardless of the hardware and would make it easier for integrating a wide range of multimedia elements. Respectively, these technologies are called DirectX Foundation Layer and the DirectX Media Layer. Next: DirectX Foundation

DirectX Foundation The Foundation layer is the heart and soul of Microsoft DirectX. It is made of a number of technologies that offer access to different hardware types and provides them with improved access to the advanced features of high-performance hardware such as 3-D graphics acceleration chips and sound cards. These APIs control what are called ?low-level functions,? and are supported by the four components that make up the DirectX Foundation layer: Microsoft?s DirectDraw, DirectInput, DirectSound and Direct3D. What do they do? 1. DirectDraw - DirectDraw is essentially a memory manager for graphics and video surfaces that provides access to hardware-accelerated functions like blitting and overlays. 2. DirectInput - DirectInput? provides high-performance access to input devices including the mouse, keyboard, joystick, and the new force-feedback (input/output) devices that are coming to market. 3. DirectSound - DirectSound enables hardware and software sound mixing, capture, and effects like 3D positioning and panning. 4. Direct3D - Simply put, Direct3D is a drawing interface for 3D hardware. It is designed to enable world-class game and interactive 3D graphics on a computer running Windows. Next: DirectX Media

DirectX Foundation handles the low-level functions. The DirectX Media layer sits on top of DirectX Foundation and provides high-level services that support animation, media streaming (transmission and viewing of audio and video as it downloads over the Internet), and interactivity. Like DirectX Foundation, DirectX Media is made up of several integrated components. These components include Microsoft DirectShow, DirectAnimation, Direct3D Retained Mode, and Microsoft DirectPlay. Support for DirectShow and DirectAnimation is built into the latest versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Support for VRML is also provided in DirectX Media. What do they do? 1. DirectShow - Microsoft DirectShow (formerly called Microsoft ActiveMovie) is a media-streaming architecture for the Microsoft Windows platform that enables the high-quality capture and playback of multimedia streams. 2. DirectAnimation - DirectAnimation provides unified, comprehensive support for animation, streaming, and integration of diverse media types, such as 2-D vector graphics, 3-D graphics, sprites, audio, and video. 3. Direct3D Retained Mode - Direct3D Retained Mode is a high-level 3D scene graph manager that simplifies the building and animation of 3D worlds and data. 4. DirectPlay - DirectPlay makes it easy to connect games over the Internet, a modem link, or a network. Direct Play is a software interface that simplifies application access to communication services. Next: What's New?

Since the inception in 1995, DirectX continues to be an evolving technology. Primarily developed for Windows 95, NT 4.0 currently supports a subset of DirectX via NT Service Pack 3. Windows 98 also supports DirectX 5 and NT 5.0 will too. It is an integral part of both these operating systems including Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. DirectX 5 introduces several new features that hadn?t been included in earlier versions. New features in DirectX 5: 1. The Direct3D API offers better image quality, greater features and ease of use by supporting the following: 2. DrawPrimitive services for Direct3D, providing developers with the flexibility to pass polygon information directly to the hardware rather than using execute buffers 3. Progressive meshes and enhanced animations 4. Advanced features of the technology currently code-named ?TALISMAN? such as sort-independent anti-aliasing, range-based fog, anisotropic texture filtering and bufferless hidden surface elimination 5. DirectDraw API support for accelerated graphics port (AGP) new low-resolution modes and MMX optimizations 6. DirectInput API support for force-feedback devices and a new extensible game controller control panel 7. The DirectPlay API with Windows NT security, client/server support and lobby client API ? DirectSound3D Capture and Notify APIs, to simplify use of audio streams 8. DirectSound3D support for 3-D audio hardware acceleration 9. DirectX Setup; a database of known configurations that simplifies user setup on all leading hardware. If the user?s hardware is not recognized. DirectX Setup will inform the user of potential conflicts and allow the user to bypass driver installation or revert to the previous configuration after installation is complete. DirectX 5.0 foundation also includes many new features that will be supported in the next version of Windows NT 5.0, such as multimonitor support, advanced graphics port AGP support, video port extensions (VPE) support, Universal Serial Bus (BUS) audio support and support for USB joysticks. These features are presently supported with Windows 98. Next: Is DirectX on your Windows 95/98?

To check to see if DirectX is loaded on your Windows 95, do the following: 1. 1. Click on START 2. 2. Choose FIND 3. 3. Choose FILES & FOLDERS 4. 4. In the NAME field type DXSETUP 5. 5. Make sure the "Look In" has the C drive selected. 6. 6. Click OK Down at the bottom of the FIND window a DXSETUP.EXE should be found. If DXSETUP.EXE is found you should double-click on it. With Windows98 you can check for a proper DirectX setup by doing the following: 1. 1. Click on START 2. 2. Choose FIND 3. 3. Choose FILES & FOLDERS 4. 4. In the NAME field type DXINFO 5. 5. Make sure the "Look In" has the C drive selected. 6. 6. Click OK Down at the bottom of the FIND window a DXINFO.EXE should be found. You will need to double-click on it. Next: Summary

In summary DirectX 5.0 unified media services, supported entertainment, multimedia, and Internet development, enabled hardware innovation, and served developers, hardware makers, and end users. With DirectX 5.0, Microsoft delivered a more feature-rich, well-documented and robust set of services for developers. If you are running Windows 98, DirectX 5.0 is on your system and DirectX 5.0 for Windows NT is scheduled to be delivered with Windows NT 5.0 Stayed tuned, DirectX 6.0 is nearing imminence and DirectX 7.0 and 8.0 are under development.

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