well, 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.
source site: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/ D/DirectX.html

Answered by Nidhi Singh , an ibibo Master, at 11:44 AM on September 04, 2008

As much as I can describe about this,The DirectX Software Development Kit (SDK) includes tools that let a developer create or integrate graphic images, overlays, sprites, and other game elements, including sound.

There is also a Driver Development Kit (DDK) that lets developers create drivers for display, audio, and other I/O devices.

DirectX is part of Microsoft's larger vision of an object-oriented development environment. For example, a sprite is created as an instance of a sprite class.

Developers can also take advantage of Microsoft's set of prepackaged routines or small programs that are part of the Microsoft Foundation Class Library.

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 devices

Answered by Madhurima , an ibibo Master, at 6:38 PM on September 03, 2008

The DirectX Software Development Kit (SDK) includes tools that let a developer create or integrate graphic images, overlays, sprites, and other game elements, including sound.

There is also a Driver Development Kit (DDK) that lets developers create drivers for display, audio, and other I/O devices.

DirectX is part of Microsoft's larger vision of an object-oriented development environment. For example, a sprite is created as an instance of a sprite class.

Developers can also take advantage of Microsoft's set of prepackaged routines or small programs that are part of the Microsoft Foundation Class Library.

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 devices

Answered by Shobhit , an ibibo Master, at 4:26 PM on September 03, 2008

DirectX is a set of multimedia Application Programming Interfaces (API's) written by Microsoft. It is a collection of Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) that contain functions useful to a wide range of multimedia programmers, but are all almost entirely platform independent. This allows programmers access to fast graphics, sound, and input functions while not needing their apps to test for the capabilities of the computer on which their program is running. DirectX will evaluate these capabilities and if they are not present, DirectX may attempt (in many cases) to emulate the functions in software instead of hardware.

Back in the height of DOS, people like game developers had direct access to the hardware for which they were developing. With complete access to interrupts, sound cards, input devices, and the VGA controller, the developers could usually make the hardware do anything they could dream up. The release of Windows 3.1 did not tempt developers because of the massive overhead that came along with it for game development. However, DOS had its own problems.

For more visit :

http://www.d-silence.com/ feature.php?id=254

Answered by Om Prakash , an ibibo Master, at 2:44 PM on September 03, 2008

As Far As I am concern,The DirectX Software Development Kit (SDK) includes tools that let a developer create or integrate graphic images, overlays, sprites, and other game elements, including sound.

There is also a Driver Development Kit (DDK) that lets developers create drivers for display, audio, and other I/O devices.

DirectX is part of Microsoft's larger vision of an object-oriented development environment. For example, a sprite is created as an instance of a sprite class.

Developers can also take advantage of Microsoft's set of prepackaged routines or small programs that are part of the Microsoft Foundation Class Library.

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 devices

Answered by Sharad Singh , an ibibo Master, at 2:09 PM on September 03, 2008

DirectX is an application program interface (API) for creating and managing graphic images and multimedia effects in applications such as games or active Web pages that will run in Microsoft's Windows operating systems. (Such an application program might be written in C++, or Visual C/C++, or Java.) The capability to "play" DirectX applications comes as an integrated part of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. (A 3-D player is optionally downloadable.)
The DirectX Software Development Kit (SDK) includes tools that let a developer create or integrate graphic images, overlays, sprites, and other game elements, including sound. There is also a Driver Development Kit (DDK) that lets developers create drivers for display, audio, and other I/O devices.

DirectX is part of Microsoft's larger vision of an object-oriented development environment. For example, a sprite is created as an instance of a sprite class. Developers can also take advantage of Microsoft's set of prepackaged routines or small programs that are part of the Microsoft Foundation Class Library.

DirectX is designed so that some functions can be performed on a graphics accelerator card, freeing the microprocessor for other work. The accelerator manufacturer provides a driver especially for DirectX.

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 devices

Answered by Nishu's , an ibibo Master, at 2:05 PM on September 03, 2008

DirectX is a set of multimedia Application Programming Interfaces (API's) written by Microsoft. It is a collection of Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) that contain functions useful to a wide range of multimedia programmers, but are all almost entirely platform independent. This allows programmers access to fast graphics, sound, and input functions while not needing their apps to test for the capabilities of the computer on which their program is running. DirectX will evaluate these capabilities and if they are not present, DirectX may attempt (in many cases) to emulate the functions in software instead of hardware.

Back in the height of DOS, people like game developers had direct access to the hardware for which they were developing. With complete access to interrupts, sound cards, input devices, and the VGA controller, the developers could usually make the hardware do anything they could dream up. The release of Windows 3.1 did not tempt developers because of the massive overhead that came along with it for game development. However, DOS had its own problems.

For more visit :

http://www.d-silence.com/ feature.php?id=254

Answered by Ashish Yadav , an ibibo Wizard, at 11:54 AM on September 03, 2008

well,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 2, released in 1996, supports the Direct3D architecture. DirectX 5, released in 1998, adds new layers to the DirectX API, In addition to the low-level layer that communicates directly with multimedia hardware, DirectX 5 also includes a Media layer that enables programmers to manipulate multimedia objects and streams. DirectX 5 also supports USB and IEEE 1394 buses, AGP, and MMX.
source;www.webopedia.com/TER M/D/DirectX.html

Answered by Debashis , an ibibo Master, at 10:58 AM on September 03, 2008

hi priya!
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. DirectX, then, was the generic term for all of these APIs and became the name of the collection. After the introduction of the Xbox, Microsoft has also released multiplatform game development APIs such as XInput, which are designed to supplement or replace individual DirectX components.

Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development of computer games for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Xbox, and Microsoft Xbox 360. Direct3D is also used by other software applications for visualization and graphics tasks. In CAD/CAM engineering, for instance, it rivals the OpenGL by its ability to quickly render 3D graphics on DirectX-compatible graphics hardware. As Direct3D is the most widely publicized component of DirectX, it is common to see the names "DirectX" and "Direct3D" used interchangeably.

The DirectX software development kit (SDK) consists of runtime libraries in redistributable binary form, along with accompanying documentation and headers for use in coding. Originally, the runtimes were only installed by games or explicitly by the user. Windows 95 did not launch with DirectX, but DirectX was included with Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2.[1] Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 both shipped with DirectX, as has every version of Windows released since. The SDK is available as a free download. While the runtimes are proprietary, closed-source software, source code is provided for most of the SDK samples.

The latest versions of Direct3D, namely, Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 9Ex, are exclusive to Windows Vista, because each of these new versions depends upon the Windows Display Driver Model that was introduced for Windows Vista. The new Vista/WDDM graphics architecture includes a new video memory manager that supports virtualizing graphics hardware to multiple applications and services such as the Desktop Window Manager, in contrast to the exclusive access afforded to DirectX applications on Windows XP.

for more inf check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D irectX

Answered by raj u , an ibibo Master, at 8:57 AM on September 03, 2008

DirectX is an application program interface (API) for creating and managing graphic images and multimedia effects in applications such as games or active Web pages that will run in Microsoft's Windows operating systems.

(Such an application program might be written in C++, or Visual C/C++, or Java.) The capability to "play" DirectX applications comes as an integrated part of Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser. (A 3-D player is optionally downloadable.)

The DirectX Software Development Kit (SDK) includes tools that let a developer create or integrate graphic images, overlays, sprites, and other game elements, including sound.

There is also a Driver Development Kit (DDK) that lets developers create drivers for display, audio, and other I/O devices.

DirectX is part of Microsoft's larger vision of an object-oriented development environment. For example, a sprite is created as an instance of a sprite class.

Developers can also take advantage of Microsoft's set of prepackaged routines or small programs that are part of the Microsoft Foundation Class Library.

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 devices

Answered by Nagendra , an ibibo Master, at 7:21 AM on September 03, 2008