DirectX: List of New Features Included in Microsoft DirectX 6.0

• Microsoft Windows 95
• Microsoft Windows 98

SUMMARY

This article describes the new features that are included in Microsoft DirectX 6.0.

MORE INFORMATION

DirectX 6.0 is composed of the following five components:

• Direct3D is used for 3-dimensional rendering.
• DirectPlay is used for multi-player gaming.
• DirectDraw is used for onscreen graphics.
• DirectSound is used for audio playback.
• DirectInput is used for input device support.

Direct3D

• Significantly faster performance due to overall improvements in the run-time components of Direct3D.



• A completely rewritten geometry engine, which is responsible for transforming and lighting operations and includes processor-specific performance optimizations that take advantage of features in the latest generation of processors.



• All-new software rasterizers, which enable developers to compare the visual quality of output on 3-D hardware accelerators to a reference standard.



• Support for many new hardware features, including single-pass multitexturing, bump mapping, texture compression, stencil buffers, w-buffers and much more.

DirectPlay

• New lobbying services.



• Support for firewalls.

DirectDraw

• Performance optimizations.

DirectSound

• Performance optimizations for MMX technology in Microsoft Windows 95.
  
  NOTE: These performance optimizations are already included in Microsoft Windows 98.

DirectInput

REFERENCES

For additional information about how to download and install DirectX, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q179113 How to Download and Install DirectX

http://support.microsoft.com/support/directx/directx_7.0/tshooter/default.asp

Additional query words: direct-x dx6

Keywords : kbref kbimu
Version : WINDOWS:95
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo