Over the past few month we've been getting reports of problems with the DirectX SDK (June 2010) setup failing for customers displaying an installation error when it gets to point of installing the "redistributable packages". This particular problem has...

The next version of Visual Studio is currently available for download as a Developer Preview. This release includes a new C++ compiler and Standard Library with additional C++11 support, an integrated PIX for Windows replacement called Visual Studio Graphics...

The presentations for the Gamefest 2011 conference are now available on Microsoft downloads . Here are the main talks of interest to Windows developers. Note: As mentioned during the Gamefest conference keynote, content related to the next version...

Over the past few years at game conferences we've talked a lot about the Xbox LIVE service and the many great oppourtunities on Xbox 360, Windows , and Windows Phone using it. What we've talked less about in these venues are best practices for those writing...

This is the sample package for Matt Lee's Gamefest 2011 presentation Tiled Resources for Xbox 360 and Direct3D 11 ( US / UK ). See the documentation files in the package for more details. Note: This sample includes a copy of both DirectXTex and the...

As part of my Gamefest 2011 presentation Modern Texture Content Pipelines ( US / UK ), I demonstrated the "DirectXTex" library which is a shared source implementation of DDS file I/O (including the "DX10" header extension), texture content processing...

So you've downloaded the latest DirectX SDK and start digging through the various samples and documentation , and you are trying to get a handle on where to start learning Direct3D 11... The best place to start is to learn Direct3D 10. Direct3D 11...

The Beta for the Microsoft Research Kinect for Windows SDK is now available at the project website . Be sure to note that the license for this technology is for non-commercial use only. Update: Microsoft announced that there will be a Kinect for...

Direct3D 11 class hardware through the Direct3D 11 API supports two new texture compression formats: BC6H and BC7. These new Block Compressed formats provide excellent compression for High-Dynamic Range (HDR) images and higher-fidelity traditional content...

The Microsoft presentations from the Game Developer Conference 2011 are now available on the Microsoft Downloads site. There were a number of talks on Windows, Windows phone 7, and Kinect. The presentations of interest to Windows developers are: Windows...

For those of you who have not yet moved to Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 , be aware that the April 2011 Security Bulletin MS11-025 includes a security fix to Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) runtime for Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1, Visual...

As I noted in my post on a DXWSETUP back in November 2010, we have addressed a number of bugs in DirectSetup after the release of the DirectX SDK (June 2010). These bugs include some localization display issues with the EULA and various non-Codepage 1252...

Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 is now available on MS Downloads . You can see the full readme here , and read about it in detail on the VC Blog . The Service pack includes a number of fixes, particularly for some problems with the X64 optimizer...

In the DirectX SDK (June 2010) release, the HLSL compiler was updated from the August 2009 version. As part of this update, the HLSL complier now supports a new feature: symbolic derivatives . If you are interested in learning more about what this feature...

The February 2011 release of the Xbox 360 XDK includes a new version of XNA Math, version 2.04. This version will appear in a future release of the DirectX SDK, but we are making it available here for Windows developers. The update is subject to the same...

Windows 7 / Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 is now available on Windows Update, MSDN Subscriber Downloads, and TechNet. The announcement from the Windows team can be read on the Windows Team Blog , and one from the server team can be found here...

Some users of XNAMath have reported a range problem with the XMVectorFloor and XMVectorCeiling functions with the SSE implementation (i.e. whenever the values are greater than INT_MAX). These fixes will be included in a future release of XNAMath, but...

Doing some work on the texconvex tool (the Direct3D 10.x/11 version of the Texture Conversion Tool), I discovered that my use of the NULL render device resulted in garbage output from this tool in some scenarios. This is easily remedied using the WARP...

Over the past few years, I've done a lot of presentations on x64 technology as it pertains to game developers and DirectX technologies. Here is a collection of links for developers interested in learning more about the Windows x64 OS and x64 native programming...

With the DirectX SDK (June 2010) release and the addition of support for Visual Studio 2010, I’ve been seeing a lot of questions of the form: How do I create a DirectX .NET application in Visual Studio 2010? I can’t find Microsoft.DirectX...

We’ve republished the June 2010 DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer , which now shows a release date of “11/30/2010”. This deploys all the same binaries as the June 2010 version, but the setup itself has been updated to resolve a...

I recently found a minor problem with the existing D3D11InstallHelper sample that shipped in August 2009, February 2010, and June 2010 versions of the DirectX SDK. The supplied version of D3D11Install.exe is correct, but if you compile it using the Visual...

One of our areas of focus for the DirectX SDK (June 2010) release was to make sure our samples supported Direct3D 11 hardware from NVIDIA , as we had previously only had AMD/ATI Direct3D 11 hardware to work with. There were a few issues that arose right...

Today, October 22, 2010, the sale of Windows XP comes to an end . There will still be support available for Windows XP Service Pack 3 through April 2014, and it will be sticking around for a time in some business, government, and emerging market settings...

When the DirectX technology was created in the mid 1990s, it was designed to be deployed by games into the Windows 95 operating system as part of the game's install process. As the number of supported operating systems grew, so did the complexities of...