DirectX - Tools

This chapter will focus on various tools which are being used for graphics. Basically, it comprises tools and utilities which are needed for DirectX.

A list of primary tools which are used in DirectX is mentioned below −

Debugging DirectX apps
Effect-Compiler Tool
DxDiag ("DirectX Diagnostic Tool")

Debugging DirectX apps

We need editor to use debugging app. The user can use Visual Studio and the Windows 8 SDK to debug DirectX apps remotely. The Windows 8 SDK includes a set of components that support DirectX development and provide error checking with parameter. These components are .dll files like D3D11_1SDKLayers.dll, D2D1Debug1.dll, and Dxgidebug.dll.

Effect-Compiler Tool

FXC (fxc.exe) is an executable offline tool for compiling HLSL shaders for all the respective versions of Direct3D. The tool is located in the below link −

(SDK root)\Utilities\Bin\x86\

DxDiag ("DirectX Diagnostic Tool ")

DirectX includes a secret tool that is designed to troubleshoot problems basically for users who want to debug and analyze each and every step. The tool is called “DirectX” which helps us in identifying problems that are related to audio, display, video and any other multimedia applications with required features running on our computer.

This tool includes a special feature to find problems that occur with audio and video players of Windows 10 Operating system.

You can access this tool using “Run” prompt of Windows operating system as mentioned below −

In this chapter, we will be focusing on the usage of DirectX Diagnostic tool with respect to multimedia and graphics.

A simple search about the DirectX Diagnostic tool in Google search engine in case your personal computer is connected to the Internet will define the result as mentioned below −

“Microsoft DirectX is a collection of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video on Microsoft platforms”.

Once we look for this tool in our system, we get information divided into following sections −