Windows 10 is slated to be just as popular, and with it arrives the latest in the DirectX series, DirectX 12. Windows XP likely accelerated DirectX's growth, as that particular platform was highly stable and is still in use across the globe.

Thus, DirectX seemingly pushed OpenGL out of the way by the time version 9 (aka DX9) hit the PC gaming scene in 2002. Microsoft's graphics API suite gained momentum over time once developers figured out it wouldn't ever go away. Windows 95 didn't have this direct line of communication – until Microsoft developed its DirectX suite of APIs.Īt first, DirectX didn't take off, as developers mostly relied on OpenGL at the time and programmed efficiently in the DOS environment. Many veteran PC gamers should remember the old days of editing the Config.sys file and the Autoexec.bat file to set up the correct settings environment so that a specific game could work correctly (IRQs and DMAs were edited too, but that's another story). At the time, most PC games ran on the old DOS platform, which allowed developers to 'talk' directly to PC components such as the audio card, video card, mouse and more. And, while OpenGL is a cross-platform API, it doesn't have the advantage of being native to the Windows platform.ĭirectX first appeared in Windows 95. It rivals OpenGL, another graphics-oriented API suite introduced in 1992, that's open source and in continuous development by the Khronos Group technology consortium. Nvidia: 'DX12's focus is on enabling a dramatic increase in visual richness through a significant decrease in API-related CPU overhead.'

Specifically, it's a collection of application programming interfaces, or APIs, designed to handle tasks related to rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics, rendering video and playing audio on the Windows platform. DirectX, simply put, is software developed by Microsoft that talks to a PC's hardware components.

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