What Is DirectX

A set of APIs developed by Microsoft that enables programmers to write programs that access hardware features of a computer without knowing exactly what hardware will be installed on the machine where the program eventually runs. DirectX achieves this by creating an intermediate layer that translates generic hardware commands into specific commands for particular pieces of hardware. In particular, DirectX lets multimedia applications take advantage of hardware acceleration features supported by graphics accelerators.

DirectX consists of five components:

• DirectDraw, an interface that lets you define two-dimensional images, specify textures, and manage double buffers (a technique for changing images)
• Direct3D, an interface for creating three-dimensional images
• DirectSound, an interface for integrating and coordinating sound with the images
• DirectPlay, a plug-in for end users, is also used by developers to test their application
• DirectInput, an interface for input from I/O device