DirectX is an application developed by Microsoft, which helps the user enjoy multimedia aiming specifically at the gaming audience. The aspect that its interface capitalizes on is the quality of the video rendered by this application making it possible for the users to view sharp and detailed images. Graphics is one area in which the gaming industry thrives on and it shouldn’t come as a surprise because many of Microsoft’s games take full advantage of the DirectX application thereby giving the gamers an experience they’ll never forget.

DirectX is a successor of many products developed by Microsoft, namely, Direct3D, DirectMusic, DirectDraw, DirectSound, etc. Soon, Microsoft stuck with the name DirectX and on the similar platform went on to launch the ever popular gaming console, the Xbox. This simply points out that the “X” stuck on Microsoft’s brigade even as of now and that’s all because of the DirectX. Apart from providing the ultimate gaming experience to the gaming enthusiasts, DirectX is also used for graphic design by many professionals in the multimedia industry. The DirectX application uses two Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), i.e., DirectDraw which is used for 2D graphics. Although using this tool may seem to be “not so popular”, there are some games out there that still use this interface and are doing pretty well too. Then of course there is the Direct3D interface, which obviously is used for drawing 3D graphics.

Now how can we talk about DirectX without mentioning what Microsoft has finally pulled out of its hat? We’re talking about the latest update to the DirectX application, i.e., DirectX 10. However, the catch in this version is that it won’t work in the earlier versions of Windows. But at the same time, the update also comes with the feature of backward compatibility, which means that the DirectX for the Windows Vista comes with other editions of DirectX like Direct3D 9, Direct3D 9Ex, Direct3D 10 and of course the much awaited Direct3D 10.1 which specializes in higher quality images.