| Platform SDK: DirectX |
Some new 3-D hardware is capable of performing hardware-acceleration for transformation and lighting operations, freeing the CPU of most of its workload. Where available, your application can use devices like these for optimal performance. Direct3D TnLHAL devices implement all of the transformation, lighting, and rasterizing modules in hardware.
Applications do not access 3-D cards directly. They call Direct3D functions and methods. Direct3D access the hardware through the hardware abstraction layer (HAL). If the computer that your application is running on supports the TnLHAL, it will gain the best performance by using a TnLHAL device.
Hardware devices capable of hardware-accelerated transformation and lighting expose the D3DDEVCAPS_HWTRANSFORMANDLIGHT device capability. To create a TnLHAL device from C++, call the IDirect3D7::CreateDevice method, and pass the IID_IDirect3DTnLHalDevice value as the first parameter. For details, see Creating a Direct3D Device.
Hardware devices capable of hardware-accelerated transformation and lighting expose the D3DDEVCAPS_HWTRANSFORMANDLIGHT device capability. To create a TnLHAL device from Visual Basic, call the Direct3D7.CreateDevice method, and pass the "IID_IDirect3DTnLHALDevice" string constant as the first parameter. For details, see Creating a Direct3D Device.