What is DirectX ?

What is DirectX ?

DirectX which was initially released in 1995,  is a set of APIs developed by Microsoft which allows software to write instructions directly to audio and video hardware, improving multimedia performance. Games which include DirectX, have the capability of utilizing multimedia and graphics accelerator features more effectively.

The original releases of Windows 95 did not ship with DirectX, however was released with Windows 95 OSR2 that included DirectX 2.0. If you don't know what version of Windows you are using make sure to see the information about determining Windows Versions page.

Windows NT shipped with DirectX 2.0. Upgrading to Service Pack 3 or higher will install DirectX 3.0. However, there are no higher versions of DirectX available for Windows NT. Installing Service Pack 4 or higher will install later versions of DirectPlay.

Presently, the latest version of DirectX can be found Microsoft website which is : http://www.microsoft.com/directx.

Know about DirectX  Different versions

DirectX has been included on different releases of programs, drivers, and games. Below is a listing of each of the DirectX versions and their associated versions.