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.

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

On December 17, 1997, Microsoft and SGI initiated the Fahrenheit project, which was a joint effort with the goal of unifying the OpenGL and Direct3D interfaces ( and adding a scene-graph API too ).

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

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

Microsoft strives to continually update Direct3D to support the latest technology available on 3D graphics cards.

Only two games that sold a significant volume, Lego Island and Lego Rock Raiders, were based on the Direct3D retained mode, so Microsoft did not update the retained mode after DirectX 3. 0.

The first version of Direct3D immediate mode was based on an " execute buffer " programming model that Microsoft hoped hardware vendors would support directly.

Rather than adopt OpenGL as a gaming API, Microsoft chose to continue improving Direct3D, not only to be competitive with OpenGL, but to compete more effectively with proprietary APIs such as 3dfx's Glide.

Direct3D 6. 0 also included support for features that had been licensed by Microsoft from specific hardware vendors for inclusion in the API, in exchange for the time-to-market advantage to the licensing vendor.

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

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 ).

Microsoft has also hinted at other features such as order independent transparency, which was never exposed by the Direct3D API but supported almost transparently by early Direct3D hardware such as Videologic's PowerVR line of chips.

Direct3D is a Microsoft DirectX API subsystem component.

3d Microsoft Direct3D

It is one of the early games to adopt the use of 3D graphics hardware acceleration using Microsoft Direct3D.

The RenderMorphics team Servan Keondjian, Kate Seekings and Doug Rabson subsequently joined the Microsoft project which turned Reality Lab into Direct3D before Keondjian and Rabson left to start another middleware company Qube Software.

After renaming it as Direct3D 3. 0, Microsoft released it as the primary 3D API for Windows 95 and game programming.

Later Microsoft also released Windows 3. 11, a touch-up to Windows 3. 1 which included all of the patches and updates that followed the release of Windows 3. 1 in 1992.

After Windows 3. 11, Microsoft began to develop a new consumer oriented version of the operating system codenamed Chicago.

On March 11, 1997, id Software released WinQuake, a version of the non-OpenGL engine designed to run under Microsoft Windows ; the original Quake had been written for DOS, allowing for launch from Windows 95, but could not run under Windows NT-based operating systems because it required direct access to hardware.

** Microsoft releases Windows 3. 11 for Workgroups to manufacturing.

Out of the current Microsoft Windows games, there are eight that are unsolvable: the games numbered 11, 982 ; 146, 692 ; 186, 216 ; 455, 889 ; 495, 505 ; 512, 118 ; 517, 776 and 781, 948.

Nonetheless, on January 11, 1995, Microsoft announced that it had licensed the Mosaic technology from Spyglass, which it would use to create Internet Explorer.

A version of Safari for the Microsoft Windows operating system was first released on June 11, 2007, and supported Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

* February 11: The Anna Kournikova virus hits e-mail servers hard by sending e-mail to contacts in the Microsoft Outlook addressbook.

* 2003 — Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 ( version 11 ): Not included in any of the Office 2003 editions, sold separately.

Win32s is a 32-bit application runtime environment for the Microsoft Windows 3. 1 and 3. 11 operating systems.

Starting with version 11. 5, released in 1996, Sybase moved to differentiate its product from Microsoft SQL Server by renaming it to Adaptive Server Enterprise.

Microsoft had grown from a two-man operation to a company with 11, 000 employees in 1992 and 48, 030 ( about half of them in the Seattle area ) in 2001.

* Operating system: Microsoft Windows CE 2. 11 Palm-size PC edition

* Operating system: Microsoft Windows CE 2. 11 Palm-size PC edition

* Operating system: Microsoft Windows CE 2. 11 Palm-size PC edition

*. wpl, is an XML format used in Microsoft Windows Media Player versions 9 – 11.

Later Microsoft also released Windows 3. 11, a touch-up to Windows 3. 1 which included all of the patches and updates that followed the release of Windows 3. 1 in 1992.

After Windows 3. 11, Microsoft began to develop a new consumer oriented version of the operating system code-named Chicago.

Microsoft continued to support the use of the Windows 9x series until July 11, 2006, when extended support ended for the software.

It also sold IXI Panorama ( a window manager ), IXI Premier Motif, IXI Wintif ( a version of Motif with Microsoft Windows 3. 11, and later Windows 95, look-and-feel ) and Motif training courses.

Microsoft released the final version on December 11, 2006.

In Australia, the New South Wales Department of Education and Training, in partnership with Lenovo, are providing Year 9 ( high school ) students in government high schools with free Lenovo S10e netbooks in 2009, Lenovo Mini 10 netbooks in 2010, Lenovo Edge 11 netbooks in 2011 and a modified Lenovo X130e netbook in 2012, each preloaded with software including Microsoft Office and Adobe Systems ' Creative Suite 4.

BitComet ( originally named SimpleBT client from versions 0. 11 to 0. 37 ) is a cross-protocol BitTorrent, HTTP and FTP client written in C ++ for Microsoft Windows and available in 52 different languages.