This section describes Direct3D's Immediate Mode, Microsoft's low-level 3D API. Direct3D's Immediate Mode is ideal for developers who need to port games and other high-performance multimedia applications to the Microsoft Windows operating system. Immediate Mode is a device-independent way for applications to communicate with accelerator hardware at a low level. Direct3D's Retained Mode is built on top of Immediate Mode.
Developers who use Immediate Mode instead of Retained Mode are typically experienced in high-performance programming issues, and may also be experienced in 3D graphics. Even if this is the case for you, you should read A Technical Foundation for 3D Programming. This section discusses implementation details of Direct3D that you need to know to work effectively with the system. The overall Direct3D architecture is described in Direct3D Architecture; this is essential reading for Immediate-Mode developers. If you want an overview of Immediate Mode, you should read Introduction to Direct3D Immediate-Mode Objects. Your best source of information about Immediate Mode, however, is probably the sample code included with this SDK; it illustrates how to put Direct3D's Immediate Mode to work in real-world applications.
This section is not an introduction to programming with Direct3D's Immediate Mode; for this information, see Direct3D Immediate-Mode Tutorial.