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March 30, 2007
What's DirectX?
What's DirectX? If you asked me yesterday I would have said it was a set of APIs, but I wouldn't have been able to explain why they weren't the default Windows APIs. One paragraph from Alex St. John changed my understanding: "Essentially it's called DirectX because it was designed to bypass the operating system, to push Windows aside, get it out of memory, get rid of all the garbage competing with games for resources, and just let the games run. A lot of the functionality [was based around] shutting down Win graphics system so games could talk to the video hardware, stopping Windows from paging memory to the hard drive so that games could run at a constant frame rate, bypassing Windows message queue so you could get real-time mouse input so you could actually control a first-person shooter like Doom." Makes tons more sense than all the press releases, exec speeches and documentation I've read. There's lots more in this interview, including the memorable Gates quote "Patty complained, but I heard it was a great party"... some of the clearest talk I've heard on these subjects, recommended.
Posted by JohnDowdell at March 30, 2007 08:42 AM
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Comments
That would explain the name DirectX and make much more sense on what it actually is and why use it. Cool you learn something new everyday.
Posted by: Faisal Abid at March 30, 2007 12:27 PM
Then again, OpenGL also runs games very well, and doesn't require this Direct-anything to shut down OS...
Posted by: Ante Vrli at March 31, 2007 03:33 AM
"Bypassing" the os is not the same of "shutting" it down. OpenGL bypasses the OS too as it talks directly to graphic card driver, otherwise you can forget any games with it.
Posted by: Endry Deloir at April 5, 2007 02:12 AM
So it's difficult to agree with the drama-terminology Alex St. John is using.
Posted by: Ante Vrli at April 10, 2007 03:22 AM