So, talk about DirectX and, specifically, DirectX 11 features for gaming (such as tesselation) are common on these forums and I don't really know what it is. I assumed it must have been the mark of higher-end gaming PCs and I looked closely at the DXDiag (Does this "DX" in this stand for "DirectX") of this laptop that can't even run Oblivion... and found that its supported version of DirectX is DX11... so that throws my rough assumption out of the window.

So, what is DirectX?

How does it benefit non-gaming related PC functions (In other words, what use would this laptop have for DX11)?

Can anyone provide a rough history of DirectX (when the first version came into use, when DX11 was released) and how does DX11 differ from DX10 and DX9?

How does DirectX differ from OpenGL?

In addition, what is the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit... anything in relation to computers? Only the 64-bit version of internet explorer 9 seems to work with this computer and it seems weaker than the 32-bit version, even though I would think it would be better. For example, videos from sites outside of Youtube aren't watchable, for some reason. Why is that?

For one last question, is there any normal reason as to a why computer should be using 20-50% of its CPU and 50% of its physical memory while seemingly doing nothing but showing the task manager? That's been happening with this computer for as long as I can remember using it, now, and I'm just curious to know if it's normal.



Thanks to anyone who took the time to answer any of these questions.

Directx:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directx

vs Open GL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenGL_and_Direct3D

Essentially Directx is the software side of things, so Directx11 has more features, but that doesn't really matter when it comes to how much processing power your card actually has. Keep in mind that more than GPU power has to do with game performance also. I'm not sure what the 'dx' in 'dxdiag' means, I would assume diagnostic though.

32 bit vs 64 bit:
http://arstechnica.com/ask-ars/2011/04/ask-ars-finally-upgrading-to-windows-7should-i-go-64-bit.ars

(It's about Windows specifically, but it also discusses limitations and reasoning)

To see what your PC is doing:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645

More specifically geared towards RAM:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ff700229

All computers with Windows 7 have DX11, but the graphics card itself may not support it.

Fun fact of the day: The Xbox's name comes from DirectX. :thumbsup:

One of the disadvantages of PC gaming versus console is variability; the game has to be programmed to run on as many combinations as possible of the virtually infinite potential variations of video cards, hard disks, sound cards, processors, RAM, driver versions for all these things, and so on. It's why when you look at the hardware specs of a console, they tend to be much lower than what a PC would need to run the same games.

As I understand it (though I'm probably wrong), Direct X is like a mediator between these things, acting as a common ground for programmers to work with and letting applications communicate with each other more smoothly (like the keyboard/mouse lets a human interact with the computer). It mainly focuses on multimedia, and as such is a big part of game performance on Windows. It would also help for other multimedia tasks like making videos or music, but not much else (beyond DXdiag being useful as a diagnostic tool).

Direct X has been around since Windows 95, in 1995. Windows used a different memory model than DOS, which wasn't as good for running games, as it didn't allow direct access to multimedia components. Direct X was added later in development to allow that, and has been continued since. New versions of Direct X are about the same as you'd expect from newer versions; better functionality, more features, etc. A new version is generally just better for gaming.

Direct X was originally more for gaming while OpenGL was more for engineering. When it comes to use in 3D graphics these days, it's generally just a choice of which the developer chooses. You're going to get 3D graphics from either.

In very simple terms, 32/64-bit is like a door that's twice as wide, allowing more things to come and go. It's more powerful processing, basically, but because computers are obviously a lot more complicated than doors it's not that easy. For many years home computers have been 32-bit, and many things are not compatible with 64. While your IE may use 64-bit, other programs may have no idea how to use it, making it run worse overall.

As for performance, no, that's not normal. It could suggest a virus, a hardware problem, more background applications than you realize are running, or a low-grade computer running a more recent operating system. The reason Direct X 11 gets associated with higher-end PC's is because newer versions come out compatible with newer versions of Windows (11 only runs on Windows 7, I believe), so maybe Windows 7 is a bit much for your hardware to handle.

A multimedia API proprietary to Windows and Microsoft


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX_Video_Acceleration -- Also, Aero required DX. Many applications will make calls to DX since you are pretty much guaranteed to have it, so they don't have to worry about any dependency issues, so it can be a useful shortcut for your application if there is a relevant library in DX.


DirectX is a full multimedia API, whereas OpenGL is just a graphics API (as the name implies). In order to reach the functionality of DirectX, you must use other libraries. There is a whole Open*L family (though very few are actually really related to each other, but rather follow similar design models, but were designed by different people) and other projects that aim for this, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_DirectMedia_Layer. Direct3D is the equivocal DX library to OpenGL.


The processor architecture is different, granted, the difference between x86 and x86-64 isn't huge (x86-64 is an extension of x86 rather than a completely new architecture like IA64). A 64-bit processor is any processor with a 64-bit register and supports 64-bit floating numbers.

A 64-bit application is any application that is compiled against a 64-bit architecture.

The reason Internet Explorer 64-bit is much worse is that the 32-bit version has a highly optimized javascript engine, but it wasn't rewritten and compiled for the 64-bit version, so the 64-bit version shipped with a different javascript engine that is significantly slower. Also many browser plugins don't support 64-bit browsers yet, as such much web content doesn't work in them. Those other sites probably aren't compatible with the 64-bit version of flash, which isn't even at a stable release yet.


It definitely shouldn't be idling with that much CPU usage, sounds like you have some zombie process svcking up CPU cycles, I'd open task manager and see what process it is, research it, and kill it if it isn't something important.

Memory is a different matter. Modern OSes keep processes and recently used data in memory instead of flushing it out when you are done. This allows you to relaunch applications and reopen files significantly faster. There is nothing wrong with 50% memory usage, as if any one application needs more, it'll just empty memory currently allocated to applications you aren't using and give that memory to the ones you are.

Just because I haven't seen it added(I might have missed it, only skimmed through), another difference between 32 bit and 64 bit is the amount of RAM that can be utilized. 32 bit can only support 3gigs of RAM, whereas 64 bit, as far as I know, can support at least up to 12(or at least as far as I know). As stated before me though, until recently, many computers utilized solely 32-bit , so many older programs don't know how to handle 64-bit and suffer bad slow-downs. Thankfully, newer programs have been programmed with 32 and 64 bit in mind thus making it much more easier to utilize higher amounts of RAM(which is essential for Windows Vista which is a RAM hog in itself).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx (but full PAE support only exists on Windows Servers)

Theoretically 2⁶⁴ bytes of memory can be addressed by a 64-bit architecture, but current implementations of x86-64 (pretty much the only 64-bit architecture worth mentioning for consumers) can only address something like 2⁴⁴ bytes. There are actually potential problems with x86-64 and true 64-bit memory addressing, of course 2⁴⁴ = 16 Terabytes of memory, so it's not a huge deal

Edit: dope, 16, I don't know how I got 14.

I'm not exactly sure why, but this fact made me die a little on the inside.

I've got another question that's not specifically related to DirectX. What would happen if I, say, attempted to play the demo of a high-tech game that my computer just can't handle? If I tried, just for the heck of it, to play a Crysis demo on a crappy PC, would any damage befall the PC if it ends up being unable to handle it and would it be a better idea for me not to try, in the first place?

No damage will likely occur, unless your computer is an aluminum box with no proper vent holes (hint, hint, Apple).

The most likely thing that will happen is your computer will play the game like a slideshow.

I would be ecstatic if it could play it at all, so bring on the pretty powerpoint!

I'm not sure if "see probably-garbled image for 3 minutes, cut to game over screen" counts much as "playing at all". A game way beyond your system may also crash promptly, or even tell you it won't run and refuse to start up.

As long as the computer doesn't self-destruct or melt... meh, it's free and worth it.

It... it worked. :shocking: