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BUILD 2012 Conference
The BUILD 2012 conference includes a number of game developer related presentations which are available on Channel 9. Windows Store appsDesigning games for Windows 8Core technologies for Windows 8...
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DirectX 11.1 and Windows 7
Windows 8 includes an updated “DirectX 11.1 Runtime” that supports Direct3D 11.1, updates Direct2D and DirectWrite, DXGI 1.2, and a revision of the Windows Imaging Component (WIC).Portions of the...
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Windows Imaging Component and Windows 8
There are a number of new features and some bugs fixed in the Windows Imaging Component for Windows 8. With the installation of KB 2670838 this new version of WIC is also available on Windows 7 Service...
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Visual Studio 2012 Update 1
An update to Visual Studio 2012 is now available for download. For full details, see the following blog posts: Visual Studio team blog, Somasegar's blog, and Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation Server...
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Direct3D SDK Debug Layer Tricks
When programming graphics applications, one of the more frustrating aspects of development is that you can end up writing thousands of lines of code and when you run it, all you get is a blank screen....
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Game Rating Systems and Windows 7
Windows 8 includes a number of changes to the parental control ratings systems supported by Windows Family Safety (aka Windows Parental Controls) for Win32 desktop games. These changes are now...
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DirectXTK Update
The DirectX Toolkit (aka DirectXTK) for Direct3D 11 introduced last year and made an official CodePlex project has continued to improve. The DirectXTK project provides 'runtime' utility shared-source...
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DirectX 11.1 and Windows 7 Update
As of today, IE 10 for Windows 7 has been officially released. IE10 for Windows 7 includes portions of the DirectX 11.1 runtime for Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1...
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Known Issues: DirectXMath 3.03
The Windows 8.0 SDK includes DirectXMath version 3.03 for use with Windows Style apps and Win32 desktop applications on Windows 8, Windows RT, Windows 7, and Windows Vista. DirectXMath 3.03 is also...
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Visual Studio 2012 Update 2
The second update to Visual Studio 2012 is now available for download. For full details, see the following blog posts: Visual Studio team blog, Somasegar's blog, and Visual Studio ALM + Team Foundation...
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Game Developer Conference 2013
The Microsoft presentations at GDC 2013 are freely available from the GDC Vault.WindowsConquering the Galaxy with Phones and Tablets: Galactic Reign PostmortemSecrets of Success for Publishing Games in...
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DirectX SDKs of a certain age
Recently many older releases of the DirectX SDK and REDIST packages expired and were removed from the Microsoft Downloads Center site. The DirectX SDK and REDIST packages for all 2008, 2009, and 2010...
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DirectXMath: SSE, SSE2, and ARM-NEON
The DirectXMath library provides high-performance linear algebra math support for the typical kinds of operations found in a 3D graphics application. The library achieves this by making use of...
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DirectXMath: SSE3 and SSSE3
The SSE3 instruction set adds about a dozen instructions (intrinsics are in the pimmintrin.h header). The main operation these instructions provide is the ability to do “horizontal” adds and subtracts...
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DirectXMath: SSE4.1 and SSE4.2
The SSE4 instruction set consists of two parts, referred as SSE4.1 and 4.2. The intrinsics are located in the smmintrin.h header. The SSE4.1 instruction set is the most interesting for DirectXMath,...
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DirectXMath: AVX
The Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) instruction set goes beyond just adding more instructions like we’ve seen in previous installments. AVX also introduces an extended register file and a new x86...
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DirectXMath: F16C and FMA
In our last installment in this series, we cover a few additional instructions that extend the AVX instruction set. These instructions make use of the VEX prefix and require the OS implement “OXSAVE”....
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Dual-use Coding Techniques for Games, part 1
Writing shared code for Windows Store and Win32 desktop appsIntroductionApps written for the Windows Store make use of the Windows Runtime (WinRT) and a restricted subset of Win32 APIs located in the...
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Dual-use Coding Techniques for Games, part 2
Writing shared code for Windows Store and Win32 desktop apps(continued from part 1)Win32 APIsThe majority of the “core” API family are new Windows Runtime (WinRT) style APIs which are not available for...
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Dual-use Coding Techniques for Games, part 3
Writing shared code for Windows Store and Win32 desktop apps(continued from part 1 and part 2)Windows Runtime (WinRT) APIsThere are a number of areas of the system where you must use WinRT APIs to...
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