Microsoft DirectX 5 DirectX Foundation Ray Robinson
DirectX Foundation The Foundation layer is the heart and soul of Microsoft DirectX. It is made of a number of technologies that offer access to different hardware types and provides them with improved access to the advanced features of high-performance hardware such as 3-D graphics acceleration chips and sound cards. These APIs control what are called “low-level functions,” and are supported by the four components that make up the DirectX Foundation layer: Microsoft’s DirectDraw, DirectInput, DirectSound and Direct3D. What do they do?
DirectDraw - DirectDraw is essentially a memory manager for graphics and video surfaces that provides access to hardware-accelerated functions like blitting and overlays.
DirectInput - DirectInput™ provides high-performance access to input devices including the mouse, keyboard, joystick, and the new force-feedback (input/output) devices that are coming to market.
DirectSound - DirectSound enables hardware and software sound mixing, capture, and effects like 3D positioning and panning.
Direct3D - Simply put, Direct3D is a drawing interface for 3D hardware. It is designed to enable world-class game and interactive 3D graphics on a computer running Windows.
