DirectX®, RDX, RSX, and MMX™ Technology: A Jumpstart Guide to High Performance APIs [Paperback]

Rohan Coelho (Author), Maher Hawash (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201309440 | ISBN-13: 978-0201309447 | Publication Date: January 9, 1998

Until now multimedia developers had to program directly to hardware in order to maximize application performance. DirectX, RDX, RSX, and MMX technology are new advancements that enable programmers to write applications that take advantage of hardware acceleration without direct hardware programming. Written by Intel experts who are developing and applying these new technologies, DirectXAE, RDX, RSX, and MMXoTechnologyo: A Jumpstart Guide to High Performance APIs takes a hands-on approach to illustrate the latest technologies from Microsoft, Intel, and Progressive Networks.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Why Read This Book? There's Lots of New Stuff to Learn

In the past few years, the pace of technology growth has been exhilarating. Microsoft launched Windows 95. Intel debuted the Pentium, Pentium Pro, and MMX technology processors. Netscape burst the Internet pipe with a new class of applications and architectures. These companies and others paraded out a slew of new multimedia architectures. And you've never before felt so lost in space.

Maybe, you're familiar with programming for Windows 95 and now want to deliver Windows 95 multimedia applications, and you're wondering where to start. Or maybe, you've programmed multimedia for DOS/Windows 3.1, and now you're scrambling to learn Windows 95, learn the new computing environment, and then learn to deliver high-performance multimedia in this environment.

Well, several new architectures have been introduced to help you deliver high-performance multimedia under Windows 9x, such as DirectDraw*, DirectSound*, Direct3D*, DirectShow*, RealMedia*, Realistic Sound Experience (3D RSX), Realistic Display Mixer (RDX), and so forth. But now you've got to learn these new architectures, and you've got this steep learning curve on your hands.

On the hardware frontier, the power of personal computers has increased at a dramatic paceNboth in processor and peripheral power. The Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, and MMX Technology processors, the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) bus, and the various graphics hardware accelerators are recent hardware advancements that affect multimedia performance. Surely your applications would sizzle if you mastered these advancements. But mastering these advancements only increases the learning curve.

And, of course, the Internet adds yet another dimension to the puzzle. The new programming space includes Internet browsers and their plug-ins; programming languages such as Java, HTML, and VRML; Internet architectures such as ActiveX, RealMedia, and a huge list of applications such as Internet Phones and Chat Worlds. More to learn, more to wade through, more time to spend. Lightening the Learning Burden

As multimedia developers, we constantly investigate, evaluate, or learn these new technologies. Our typical sources are technical reference manuals and sample applications. With so many recent products, we've got a huge quantity of material to wade through. When time is precious, as it invariably is, just getting started can be an overwhelming problem. Spending time getting started eats away from time allocated for finishing touches and product testing. And overall quality suffers when we've spent too much time just getting up to speed.

Wouldn't it be nice, if there were a simple way to just get started? To grasp the bare essentials and leave the esoteric stuff for on-the-job training (those need-to-know moments)? To steer clear of performance pitfalls? Well, do we have a deal for you. We, the authors, have been involved in various aspects of multimedia development on the PC for five long years. Through our employment at Intel and through our relationships with Microsoft and other key players, we've had the privilege to influence the architectures of processors, peripherals, platforms, and software components toward the betterment of multimedia on the PC. During that time, we've done our fair share of defining, reviewing, and implementing numerous multimedia architectures, both software and hardware.

With this book, we hope to use our internal vantage point to give you a jump start to high-performance multimedia development for Windows 9x. We'd like to help you cut to the chase; focus on the bare necessities; stick to the essentials; and jump-start a variety of offerings. What's more, we're hoping to take you a step beyond getting startedNto extracting performance.

We hope to provide you with a quick start to a wide spectrum of multimedia advancements for Windows 9x. We hope to answer questions like Where do I start? What do I really need? How little can I get away with? How do I get it to run faster?

A dose of caution: there's more than one way to get jump-started and more than one way to extract performance. We'll share our experiences with you, show you "a" way. We hope you'll come away with some tricks, of course, but more important, we hope you'll come away with a thought processNan approach.

We've tried to maintain a light flavor. We hope you'll have some fun along the way. 0201309440P04062001

From the Back Cover

Post-publication chapters available! Chapter 24 and Chapter 25 (in PDF format)

Until now multimedia developers had to program directly to hardware in order to maximize application performance. DirectX, RDX, RSX, and MMX technology are new advancements that enable programmers to write applications that take advantage of hardware acceleration without direct hardware programming.

Written by Intel experts who are developing and applying these new technologies, DirectXAE, RDX, RSX, and MMXoTechnologyo: A Jumpstart Guide to High Performance APIs takes a hands-on approach to illustrate the latest technologies from Microsoft, Intel, and Progressive Networks. This book:

• Shows programmers how to get up to speed on each API and provides key hints, tips, and advice throughout the text
• Covers DirectX (DirectDraw*, Direct3D*, DirectSound*) and DirectShow (formerly ActiveMovie) APIs from Microsoft; RDX and RSX from Intel; and
• RealMedia from Progressive Networks
• Illustrates optimization techniques for Pentium, Pentium with MMX
• Technology, and the Pentium II processors
• Demonstrates how to use Intel's VTune and PMonitor for processor and memory optimization

0201309440B04062001

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (January 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201309440
• ISBN-13: 978-0201309447
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,806,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely well-written and useful, November 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: DirectX®, RDX, RSX, and MMX™ Technology: A Jumpstart Guide to High Performance APIs (Paperback)

This book is extremely well-written and useful, barring a few unimportant typos. Not only are the title acronyms explained thoroughly, but the book goes into Pentium optimization and other topics. It is an interesting hodgepodge of new and exciting ideas and technologies.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST for low-level multimedia and Direct3D IM developers, March 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: DirectX®, RDX, RSX, and MMX™ Technology: A Jumpstart Guide to High Performance APIs (Paperback)

This book is an excellent way to get into the nitty-gritty of low-level API programming. I was very impressed with RSX/RDX, which I hadn't seen yet, and it had one of the best tutorials on Direct3D Immediate Mode I've seen. There examples are well written, and they don't water-down the APIs with un-needed wrapper classes. They also go into detail on how to profile your application to improve performance in critical areas. All-in-all, this is the best book on DirectX I've seen, and an excellent introduction to other multimedia APIs!

NOTE: This is for more experienced developers, but if you have a handle on basic 2D/3D graphic concepts, C/C++, and some assembly language, you can handle anything they throw at you.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great deal with DirectShow stuff, September 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: DirectX®, RDX, RSX, and MMX™ Technology: A Jumpstart Guide to High Performance APIs (Paperback)

This books extolls a lot of the things that are hidden in the official DirectShow documentation from Microsoft. It explains the A-Z procedure in order to build effective source/transform/renderer DirectShow filters. It's suitable for both the beginner and the intermediate. The experts would download the lately added articles and keep thinking this book is a masterpiece.