-
Text
Direct what? or WhatX?
About a week ago I did huge modifications to my home PC and a few, but important, upgrades. I’ve stumbled upon many blue screens, caused by an encryption key module error, that are technically called BSODs that stand for Blue Screen of Death which doesn’t sound technical at all! But let’s not talk about that because only a few people might be interested in hearing that story.
The other problem I faced is a more general one that I would like to write about. It happened when I was trying to launch a video game. Sometimes when you’re launching a video game or a software that needs high-end graphical use, a d3dxxxx.dll file missing alert would appear on your screen. My highly recommended advice for you is that you never download and install the missing dll file to your operating system’s sys32 folder for it can probably cause severe damages to your hardware.
Fortunately, this was not my first acquaintance with such a problem and I had read about it before. The solution is very simple! You just need to update and get the latest version of Microsoft DirectX.
First of all, you need to take into account that Microsoft DirectX is a bundle of APIs and DLLs, platform independently, to help graphical software developers and graphic card creators to reach uniformity. In other words, the world has reached a point where there are thousands of graphic cards, and no team of programmers can write exclusive codes for each one of them. Moreover, the same accord applies to sound cards and DirectX disposes groundbreaking audio experience. Whenever your video or audio card lacks the adequate hardware solution for new technologies, several pre-programmed functions would allow a software simulation for user’s blessing.
Now what I’m approvingly recommending is to keep your DirectX always up to date. Firstly, although not necessarily, you can get to know and have more information about the current version of DirectX, video card resources and associated memory on your system by running DirectX Diagnostic Tool. To do so, click the start button and select Run in older versions of windows, or click Run from Start>All Programs>Accesories in Windows Vista and 7, or simply hold the windows key on your keyboard and hit ‘R.’ Type ‘dxdiag.exe’ and the DirectX Diagnostic Tool will be executed.
Here you check the current DirectX version running on your computer in the main ‘System’ tab. As of today, end of January 2010, the latest version is 11.
How to update your DirectX to the latest version:
Open the following page: DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer. Download the web installer and run it on your computer. Be aware the application will be granted to download up to 90MB of updates if your current version is too old, so please be advised to run it only when you’re sure the connection you’re using is fast enough.
After the installation has finished you may need to restart your computer. You can make sure of the update by running it again, and you will receive the following note if you’re running the latest version:
“DirectX setup has determined that a newer or equivalent version of DirectX has been installed already. No installation is necessary”.
Congratulations. You’re about to experience the latest technology now.
