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What is DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (API) for handling tasks to do with multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Direct3D is also used by other software applications for visualization and graphics tasks such as CAD/CAM engineering. You don’t need it to install a game. You need it to run a game, but not every game may require it to be played.
DirectX is a set of standard commands and functions that software developers can use when creating their programs. While any Windows-based software program can include DirectX commands, they are usually used in video games.
DirectX is a Microsoft Technology (collection of APIs like Direct3D, DirectDraw etc) that helps provide better gaming experience on our computers. Many times when you install games on your PC, the game installer asks you to install DirectX version which came bundled with that game.
Depending upon how old or new the game is, it can install any version ranging from DirectX 7 to DirectX 11.
If you already have a new version of DirectX, it doesn’t make sense to replace it with an older version. In such cases it’s advisable to quickly check the DirectX version installed on our computers. Let’s see how we can do that quickly.
Check DirectX Version Installed in Just 1 Step:
The version of DirectX can be checked via the DirectX Diagnostics tool. We can pull up this information in one simple step.
Press Winkey + R on the keyboard or click on Start Button, click Run to open the Run Dialog Box and type in the command “dxdiag” in the box as shown in the image below and click the OK button.
After clicking OK, you would see a new Window called DirectX Diagnostic Tool.
This Window displays information about your Computer’s Processor, Installed Memory, BIOS version, Operating System Build Version etc. At the very bottom the DirectX version installed on your PC is shown.
How do I install the latest version of DirectX on Windows 10?
It’s easy to install the latest version of DirectX on Windows 10, however there is no stand-alone package for DirectX in Windows 10. The updates are available through Windows Update.
So whenever you want to install or update DirectX on Windows 10, just install the available Windows Update. Below are brief simple steps on how to install the latest version of directx
Type Windows Update in the search box from Start. Then click Check for updates from the result.
Click Check for updates.
Click Install now, and you should then have the latest version of DirectX on your Windows 10.
Wait for a second. Then you can see your DirectX version.