DirectX8, DirectX9, DirectX10 — What’s the Diff?? I got a query in email today from a local developer I am looking for information about changes/bug fixes/improvements between Direct X8 and Direct X9 Now, I am by no means a DirectX expert. In fact these days, I’m not an expert in much at all, but that’s another topic for another post. Anyways, what do I do when I am faced with this kind of question? I turn to search. Simple query, I searched on DirectX and followed the links DirectX Developer Center DirectX 9 FAQ DirectX Downloads DirectX Community (blogs, newsgroups, mailing lists etc) Contact the DirectX Team via e-mail at directx@microsoft.com Our very own Aussie DirectX MVP even popped up – Glenn Wilson None of these directly answered the question, but it’s a start. So Glenn, David, Tom, Jon, Rick , or any other “DirectX ironmen” who stumble upon this - can you please let me know the answer. [ Currently Playing : Better Be Home Soon - Crowded House - She Will Have Her Way: The Songs of Tim & Neil Finn [CD2] (03:08) ] Comments Anonymous July 25, 2006 The comment has been removed Anonymous July 26, 2006 G’day Frank and thanls for the fast response. I initially put this question to my MS embedded contact yesterday and already there is progress! To facilitate a better response to my problem, perhaps I can give a brief background to why I raised the question. We develop kiosk style apps and until recently were using XPe SP1 which limited us to DX8 only. We moved to SP2 which gave us DX9 so we quickly ported our existing DX8 based driver to DX9. In doing this I have noticed a large difference in the efficiency & performance of how the driver is working for what is essentially the same drawing operations. While this is great (naturally you expect things to improve between revisions of software, bugs aside), it causes headaches for us as we have a large quantity of devices in the field and upgrading them is not a minor consideration. As this is a simple app from a graphics view point we rely heavily on D3DXSprite, and as such most of this code ported straight across between the two. Now I know there are a number of large differences between DX8/DX9 due to the implementation of new functionality. But what I am really trying to track down is improvement in already existing functionality and in particular D3DXSprite and also Present calls. In the embedded space where you are monitoring I/O in “real time” the performance of your drivers can and is critical to the success of the application. Anyway i will not ramble on forever, but any help you can give me will be much appreciated. Stuart Anonymous July 26, 2006 Frank, I do not know what areas you are chasing this with but I will ask some of the MVPs, David and Eric to see if I can chase some more information. Anonymous July 26, 2006 On another note, Stuart you can always post your questions in the directX groups on MSDN, the guys there will help a lot. http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=20&SiteID=1 Anonymous July 27, 2006 Hi Glenn, Yep avid follower of newsgroups, although I have found that questions of this type often go unanswered. Good for help on actual development tho! Anonymous August 03, 2006 Had a quick look on BlogBeat to see my top 20 posts from last month. Really surprising to… Anonymous September 01, 2006 As I did last month, I looked back on BlogBeat for my top 20 posts for the month of August. Not surprisingly… Anonymous September 30, 2006 As I did in last month, I looked back on BlogBeat for my top 20 posts for the month of September.  Installing… Anonymous November 02, 2006 As I do each month , let’s look back on BlogBeat for my top 20 posts for the month of October . October Additional resources Last updated on 2006-07-25