DirectX, who was this "> The word API means Application Programming interface and they are predefined tools for developers so you don't have to reinvent the wheel from scratch with every video game. This thing, we users, we do not care.
The important thing is to know, if you use the PC for video games, which DirectX version you have to install on your computer .
Microsoft, when Windows Vista came out, decided, to make it attractive and mistakenly thinking of abandoning XP, to implement DirectX 10 only on the new operating system.
The problem is that DirectX 10 has no backward compatibility with previous versions, therefore a video game for Vista ended up not working on XP.
As a result, Xp has not been abandoned by most users and the video games developed only for Vista are few, with the consequence that the much vaunted Dx 10 have never been exploited properly.
With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft has changed its strategy and developed the DirectX 11 version for both Windows Vista and Windows 7 .
Directx 11 also remained in Windows 8 and 8.1, while DirectX version 12 is included in Windows 10.
The novelty therefore concerns the owners of Windows Vista who from a few days can download and install DirectX 11 .
The easiest way to get the update is from Windows Update . The platform update not only affects DirectX, but they add a series of other improvements to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 which remain a little obscure as meanings but that will surely be useful.
Just to mention them we have:
- Windows Graphics, Imaging, and XPS Library: allow developers to take advantage of advances in modern graphics technologies for games, multimedia applications, images and print applications.
- Windows Automation API
- Windows Portable Devices Platform to standardize data transfers between an application and a portable device, such as a mobile phone, digital camera or portable media player.
- Windows Ribbon and Manager Animation Collection.
To summarize the versions of DirectX for Windows we have:
- Windows Xp stopped at DirectX 9.0c version
- Windows Vista stopped at version 11.0
- Windows 7 to DirectX 11.1 version
- Windows 8.1 with version 11.2 .
- Windows 10 with version 12 .
Each DirectX update can be downloaded and installed starting from this page .
If not already installed, you can download DirectX for Windows from this page .
To check the correct functioning of DirectX on Windows PC and to check which version is installed, you can run the tool included DirectX Diagnostic Tool .
In Windows 7 you can launch this tool by clicking on the Start menu and running the command in the search box dxdiag.exe .
In Windows 8 and Windows 10, press the Windows-R keys together and then run the dxdiag.exe command.
You will then be able to obtain all the information on the installed software components related to DirectX, check the version, the video and audio drivers, mouse and keyboard.
If there is any problem it will be reported in this screen.
