A set of APIs developed by Microsoft. DirectX is made of several components, each of which can be used to access different hardware devices. The members of this family include: Direct Draw for enhanced 2-D graphics services. Direct3D for enhanced 3-D graphics services. Direct Sound for enhanced sound-mixing and playback services. Direct Play for enhanced multiplayer game connectivity over the Internet. Direct Input for enhanced joystick and other input device performance. DirectX is a low-level API designed specially for high-performance applications such as games. It is a thin layer providing direct access to hardware services (hence the name). The technology takes advantage of available hardware accelerators and emulates accelerator service when accelerators are present.