The DirectX SDK includes several components that address the performance issues of programming Windows-based games and high-performance applications. This section lists these components and provides a link to the chapter for each component.
·DirectDraw® accelerates hardware and software animation techniques by providing direct access to bitmaps in off-screen display memory, as well as extremely fast access to the blitting and buffer-flipping capabilities of the hardware. For more information about this component, see About DirectDraw in the DirectDraw documentation.
·DirectSound® enables hardware and software sound mixing and playback. For more information about this component, see About DirectSound in the DirectSound documentation.
·DirectPlay® makes connecting games over a modem link or network easy. For more information about this component, see About DirectPlay in the DirectPlay documentation.
·Direct3D™ provides a high-level Retained-Mode interface that allows applications to easily implement a complete 3D graphical system, and a low-level Immediate-Mode interface that lets applications take complete control over the rendering pipeline. For more information about this component, see About Direct3D in the Direct3D documentation.
·DirectInput™ provides input capabilities to your game that are scalable to future Windows-based hardware-input APIs and drivers. Currently the joystick, mouse, and keyboard are supported. For more information about this component, see Introduction to Joysticks in the DirectInput documentation.
·DirectSetup provides a one-call installation procedure for DirectX. For more information about this component, see About DirectSetup in the DirectSetup documentation.
·AutoPlay is a Windows 95 feature that starts an installation program or game automatically from a compact disc when you insert the disc in the CD-ROM drive. For more information about this component, see About AutoPlay in the AutoPlay documentation.
The AutoPlay feature is part of the Microsoft Win32® API and is not unique to DirectX.
Among the most important parts of the documentation for the DirectX SDK is the sample code. Studying code from working samples is one of the best ways to understand DirectX. Sample applications are located in the Sdk\Samples folder of the SDK.