directx 9 over directx 12?

danlightbulb · 13 Sep 2016 at 12:52

I bought an old game (settlers 2 10th anniversary edition) and on install i needed to install directx 9. Now I already have DX12 as part of windows 10. So I declined the dx9 install and the game wouldn't run. Did the process again and installed dx9 and it worked.

Why?

Will this have screwed up my DX12 components in favour of older dx9 components?

Armageus · 13 Sep 2016 at 12:56

not as far as I know - I seem to think DirectX has different filenames for the dll files e.g. d3d9.dll

Rroff · 13 Sep 2016 at 13:04

Each major revision of the DX API is self contained - a newer DX version doesn't overwrite an older one.

danlightbulb · 13 Sep 2016 at 13:05

Ok thanks. I expected these to be backwards compatible so if I have DX12 I shouldn't need any previous versions.

Bantu · 14 Sep 2016 at 13:41

I suspect a major reason is performance. don't gunk up DX12 with bits from DX9. This way they can keep them all self-contained.