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The primary device type is the hal device, which supports hardware accelerated rasterization and both hardware and software vertex processing. If the computer on which your application is running is equipped with a display adapter that supports Direct3D, your application should use it for Direct3D operations. Direct3D hal devices implement all or part of the transformation, lighting, and rasterizing modules in hardware.
Applications do not access graphics adapters directly. They call Direct3D functions and methods. Direct3D accesses the hardware through the hal. If the computer that your application is running on supports the hal, it will gain the best performance by using a hal device.
To create a hal device, call IDirect3D9::CreateDevice using D3DDEVTYPE_HAL as the device type.
Direct3D supports an additional device type called a reference device or reference rasterizer. Unlike a software device, the reference rasterizer supports every Direct3D feature. Because these features are implemented for accuracy rather than speed and are implemented in software, the results are not very fast. The reference rasterizer does make use of special CPU instructions whenever it can, but it is not intended for retail applications. Use the reference rasterizer only for feature testing or demonstration purposes. To create a reference device, call IDirect3D9::CreateDevice method using D3DDEVTYPE_REF as the device type.