User-Mode Display Drivers

Article
12/15/2021

Graphics hardware vendors must write user-mode display drivers for their display adapters. The user-mode display driver is a dynamic-link library (DLL) that is loaded by the Microsoft Direct3D runtime. A user-mode display driver must at least support the Direct3D version 9 DDI. User-mode display drivers can also support the Direct3D version 10 DDI. The user-mode display driver can consist of one DLL that supports both Direct3D version 9 DDI and Direct3D version 10 DDI or it can consist of two separate DLLs, one for version 9 and the other for version 10 of Direct3D DDI. The following topics discuss various aspects of the user-mode display driver:

Returning Error Codes Received from Runtime Functions

Handling the E_INVALIDARG Return Value

Processing Shader Codes

Converting the Direct3D Fixed-Function State

Copying Depth-Stencil Values

Validating Index Values

Supporting Multiple Processors

Handling Multiple Locks

DirectX Video Acceleration 2.0

Supporting Direct3D Version 10

Supporting Direct3D Version 10.1

Supporting Direct3D Version 11