Versions 10, 10.1 and 9.0c

Mar 10, 2008 12:27 GMT  ·  By

With Windows Vista Service Pack 1 having been released to manufacturing on February 4, 2008, Microsoft has also made available, at the end of the past week, new DirectX downloads to accompany the evolution of both its server and client platforms. The fresh DirectX releases are focused on Windows Vista Gold, Vista SP1 RTM, Windows Server 2008 SP1/RTM, Windows XP SP1 through Service Pack 3 and Windows Server 2008. DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, DirectX End-User Runtimes (March 2008) and the DirectX Software Development Kit are all up for grabs from Microsoft.

Via the DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, Microsoft delivers the necessary updates to DirectX version 9.0c, as well as the previous releases of DirectX, and is the sole out of the three new downloads that goes as far back as Windows 2000 in terms of support. Just as the Runtime Web Installer, the DirectX End-User Runtimes (March 2008) also brings to the table the new DirectX runtime, namely the D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX components. However, while the Runtime Web Installer is aimed at end users, the redistributable is delivered for content developers and meant for integration with third-party products.

And along with the DirectX End-User Runtimes and DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer, Microsoft is also serving the March 2008 DirectX Software Development Kit which has been updated in order to reflect the evolution from Vista RTM to Vista SP1 in terms of graphics technology. If Vista delivered DirectX 10 when it was initially launched, SP1 moved DirectX up to version 10.1.

"Direct3D 10.1 is an incremental, side-by-side update to Direct3D 10 that provides a series of new rendering features that will be available in an upcoming generation of graphics hardware. TextureCube Arrays which are dynamically indexable in shader code. An updated shader model (shader model 4.1). The ability to select the MSAA sample pattern for a resource from a palette of patterns, and retrieve the corresponding sample positions. The ability to render to block-compressed textures. More flexibility with respect to copying of resources. Support for blending on all unorm and unorm formats," Microsoft revealed.

The March 2008 variant of the DirectX SDK is designed to integrate exclusively with XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Vista, and also only with Visual Studio .NET 2005 or 2008. Microsoft has emphasized that there are additional changes beyond the introduction of Direct3D 10.1 RTM, including XAudio2 and XACT3 RTM, xWMA Decoding in XAudio2 and XACT3, PIX stability enhancements, as well as the introduction of new and updated samples.

"The DirectX SDK now contains the proper headers, libraries, debug binaries, and an updated version of the Direct3D 10 reference rasterizer to support development of Direct3D 10.1 applications. Direct3D 10.1 requires Windows Vista SP1, which is available to MSDN subscribers currently and publicly available on Windows Update in mid-March," Microsoft added.

DirectX Redistributable 9.0c March 2008 can be downloaded here. And DirectX Software Development Kit March 2008 is available here.