DirectX

For Windows-powered PCs to properly run and display multimedia rich applications (such as games), they need Microsoft’s DirectX group of technologies or collection of APIs (application programming interfaces). DirectX is provided free of charge by Microsoft and it can be easily installed on your PC.

To install DirectX on your machine, you need to download and run a 285KB executable. You can install DirectX on one of these Windows editions: Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Service Pack 3. To install DirectX, you need only click through the instructions presented by the setup wizard that shows up when you run the aforementioned 285KB executable.

Windows comes with a DirectX version built into the operating system. To check and see what DirectX version you’re on, you need to access the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. Here’s what you have to do: click the Start button, type in “dxdiag”, hit Enter. The DirectX version you’re on will be displayed in the Diagnostic Tool window that shows up.

Direct3D, the 3D graphics API included with DirectX, is widely used for developing video games. To run games developed with this API, you will need to have DirectX installed on your machine. If it’s needed, DirectX will be included with the game; if it is not included, you will be prompted to get DirectX. And, as mentioned above, getting and installing DirectX on your Windows PC will not take much time and will not require much effort.

DirectX is one of those components that you simply need to have on your Windows PC.