14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has made available fresh downloads of its updated DirectX offerings for Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. In this sense, the company is delivering the latest versions of DirectX Software Development Kit and DirectX End-User Runtimes (August 2007). The August 2007 DirectX SDK is designed to bring to the table the DirectX Runtime and all DirectX software necessary for developers to build C/C++ and C# DirectX compliant applications. This month's End-User Runtimes deliver the end-user redistributable created for inclusion in third party products.
August also comes with a few changes associated with the DirectX Software Development Kit. Microsoft informed that it has altered the release schedule for the tools, utilities, samples, documentation, and runtime debug files of the DirectX SDK for x64 and x86 Windows platforms. Future launches will be served at the pace of just four per year.
So from August 2007, Microsoft will provide a DirectX SDK in November 2007, another update in March 2008, then in June 2008 and then again in August 2008. The August 2007 DirectX SDK contains the Direct3D 10.1 Tech Preview meant for Windows Vista Service Pack 1, XAudio2 Beta: New Cross-Platform Audio API, namely the XP and Vista "low-level audio signal processing library" based on the Xbox 360 XAudio API, XACT Session Windows and GDFTrace Tool.
Microsoft also provides information about the caveats of the August 2007 DirectX Software Development Kit. According to the company, XAudio2: queries about volume, pitch, frequency ratio, and filter parameters may not return currently set values; Some Windows Vista audio drivers are not compatible with XAudio2; Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) presents a few issues, DirectX extensions for Autodesk 3ds Max and Alias Maya have been removed as was the Direct3D 9 only version of DXUT. In order to deploy the SDK users will need Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista and Visual Studio .NET 2003 or 2005.
DirectX Software Development Kit can be accessed here.