I know this is a stupid question, but hey what are is the begginer forum for I was reading on the DirectX webpage that DX9 has been released to Beta testers. I am curious, what exactly do they mean when they say it is a new release. I mean is it a different way of doing things in DX or do they just add more functionality to the already existing DX SDK? Thanks

Yeah, pretty stupid questions! ;-)

Only microsoft and the Dx-betatesters know what''s the difference.
Later you will know it too, when they released it.

You are new?

Okay. When they released DX8, they kicked DirectDraw/Direct3D and putted it all together (DirectGraphics). Before that only some interfaces have been improved. Example: IDirectDraw-Interface, after (i think) DX5 there was IDirectDraw2. But the old ones are still there, thanks to COM. So you still can do apps for DX3 or DX5, although it''s not wise.

I heard there will be some improvement for pixel shaders. I think I read, that there are some problems with shader-backward-compatibility. (This should be clear...because updating DX doesn''t update your GPUs capabilities :-) )

No need to panic!

Greetings...