Direct3D 11 was released as part of Windows 7.

The Direct3D 11 runtime is able to run on Direct3D 9 and 10. x-class hardware and drivers, expanding the functionality first introduced in Direct3D 10. 1 runtime.

Feature levels allow developers to unify the rendering pipeline under Direct3D 11 API and make use of API improvements such as better resource management and multithreading even on entry-level cards, though advanced features such as new shader models and rendering stages will only be exposed on up-level hardware.

GPUs such as Radeon R600 feature a tessellation engine that can be used with Direct3D 9 / 10 / 10. 1 and OpenGL, but it's not compatible with Direct3D 11 ( according to Microsoft ).

The Direct3D 11 Technical Preview has been included in November 2008 release of DirectX SDK.

First seen in the Release Candidate version, Windows 7 integrates the first released Direct3D 11 support.

Windows Vista Platform Update includes full-featured Direct3D 11 runtime and DXGI 1. 1 update, as well as other related components from Windows 7 like WARP, Direct2D, DirectWrite, and WIC.

The new API features shader tracing, support for video playback, shader processing of video resources, and on-the-fly swapping between Direct3D 10 and 11 contexts and feature levels.

Direct3D 11. 1 also features minor updates to the shader language, such as larger constant buffers and optional double-precision instructions, as well as improved blending modes and mandatory support for 16-bit color formats to improve the performance of entry-level GPUs such as Intel HD Graphics.

The Microsoft Direct3D 11 API defines a process to convert a group of vertices, textures, buffers, and state into an image on the screen.

The different stages of the Direct3D 11 pipeline are:

Some features present in previous versions of D3DX were removed in Direct3D 11, such as:

This article describes them as can be found in OpenGL 4. 2 and Direct3D 11.

The NVidia Island demo uses Direct3D 11 to create lifelike water and land, with varying levels of detail.

Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth.

Direct3D ( the 3D graphics API within DirectX ) is widely used in the development of video games for Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360 and some Sega Dreamcast games.

Direct3D is also used by other software applications for visualization and graphics tasks such as CAD / CAM engineering.

As Direct3D is the most widely publicized component of DirectX, it is common to see the names " DirectX " and " Direct3D " used interchangeably.

Microsoft released Direct3D in 1995, which eventually became the main competitor of OpenGL.

Its main competitor ( Direct3D from Microsoft ) runs only on Microsoft Windows-based machines including the Dreamcast and Xbox consoles.

Further examples include some of the early versions of the pixel shader languages embedded in Direct3D and OpenGL extensions, or a series of mathematical formulae in a spreadsheet with no cycles.

It was, in fact, disabled in the Direct3D renderer by default ( but could be re-enabled in the Unreal. ini file ) due to performance and quality issues caused by the driver and present even on hardware many times more powerful than the original 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics.

When Unreal was finally released, Microsoft's Direct3D API was growing almost exponentially in popularity and Epic was fairly quick to develop a renderer for their game engine.

However, the Direct3D renderer, released initially to support the new Matrox G200, was less capable and slower than the Glide support, especially in the beginning when it was unstable, slow, and had many graphics quality issues.

Microsoft's Direct3D 9. 0 now chooses at runtime processor-specific implementations of its own math operations, including the use of SIMD-capable instructions.

GPLs lack of inbuilt support for 3D accelerator cards other than those produced by 3dfx and Rendition contributed to a decrease in sales when those cards became obsolete, since at the time there was no Direct3D support.

An out-of-the-box copy of GPL lacks several features that one might expect from a modern driving simulation, and so most people add as a matter of course several patches: the official version 1. 2 patch that adds force feedback ; a second patch to add Direct3D and / or OpenGL support ; and a third patch that gets around a problem that prevents the original game from working on computers with CPUs faster than 1. 4 GHz.

* Direct3D for access to 3D hardware accelerated graphics.

A programmer could use DirectDraw to draw 3D graphics, but the rendering would be slow compared to an API such as Direct3D which does support 3D hardware acceleration.

As of DirectX version 8. 0, DirectDraw was merged into a new package called DirectX Graphics, which is really just Direct3D with a few DirectDraw API additions.

Developers have been instructed to use textured quads in Direct3D for 2D graphics.

Direct3D is available for Microsoft Windows operating systems ( Windows 95 and above ), and for other platforms through the open source software Wine.

Direct3D is used to render three dimensional graphics in applications where performance is important, such as games.

A new real-time software rasterizer, WARP, designed to emulate complete feature set of Direct3D 10. 1, is included with Windows 7 ; its performance is said to be on par with lower-end 3D cards on multi-core CPUs.

Direct3D was not considered to be user friendly, but as of DirectX version 8. 1, many usability problems were resolved.

Direct3D 9. 0Ex was previously known as version 1. 0 of Windows Graphics Foundation ( WGF ).

Direct3D 10. 1 was announced by Microsoft shortly after the release of Direct3D 10 as a minor update.

Direct3D 10. 1 sets a few more image quality standards for graphics vendors, and gives developers more control over image quality.

Direct3D 10. 1 level hardware must support the following features:

Unlike Direct3D 10 which strictly required Direct3D 10-class hardware and driver interfaces, Direct3D 10. 1 runtime can run on Direct3D 10. 0 hardware using a concept of " feature levels ", but new features will be supported exclusively by new hardware.

The only available Direct3D 10. 1 hardware as of June 2008 were the Radeon HD 3000 series and Radeon HD 4000 series from ATI ; in 2009, they were joined by Chrome 430 / 440GT GPUs from S3 Graphics and select lower-end models in GeForce 200 series from Nvidia.

In 2011, Intel chipsets started supporting Direct3D 10. 1 with the introduction of HD graphics 2000 ( GMA HD ).

Feature levels 9_1, 9_2 and 9_3 encapsulate various features of popular Direct3D 9 cards, and feature levels 10_0 and 10_1 refer to Direct3D 10 and 10. 1 respectively ; each upper level is a strict superset of a lower level.