What's New in the DirectX 3 SDK?

The DirectX 3 SDK provides more services—and more avenues for innovation—than did the DirectX 2 SDK. Although this SDK contains additional functions and services, all the applications you wrote with the DirectX 2 SDK, or the original DirectX 1 SDK, will compile and run successfully without changes.

The purpose of this section is to help those of you who are familiar with the DirectX 2 SDK quickly identify several important areas of this SDK that are significantly different. These differences are listed by component.

DirectDraw

No changes to the API. The documentation has been updated to include a series of tutorials that provide step-by-step instructions for implementing a simple DirectDraw application. To read these tutorials, see DirectDraw Tutorials in the DirectDraw documentation.

DirectSound

DirectX 3 contains DirectSound3D functionality, which enables an application to change the apparent position of a sound source. Applications can specify sound cones for directional sound sources, Doppler-shift effects for moving sounds, and distances at which different effects occur. For more information about this new feature of DirectSound, see Three-Dimensional Sound in the DirectSound section of the documentation.

DirectPlay

DirectPlay has become a technology family that provides not only a way for applications to communicate with each other that is independent of the underlying transport, protocol, or online service, but also the independence for matchmaking servers. The IDirectPlay2, IDirectPlay2A, and IDirectPlayLobby interfaces were added to implement this new technology. For more information about what's new in DirectPlay, see What's New in DirectPlay Version 3?.

Direct3D

No changes to the API. The Retained-Mode tutorial has been updated and simplified. To read this tutorial, see Direct3D Retained-Mode Tutorial in the Direct3D documentation.

DirectInput

DirectInput now includes support for mouse and keyboard input devices, as well as joysticks.

DirectSetup

DirectSetup has a new function that helps applications make the proper entries in the registry during installation.

AutoPlay

The AutoPlay documentation now includes Windows NT® information.