D3D

D3d is a common shorthand for Direct3D, the 3D graphics API from Microsoft that is part of the DirectX family. It provides hardware-accelerated access to GPUs for real-time rendering in Windows applications and games, and is also used on Xbox consoles. Direct3D exposes the graphics pipeline and a programmable shading system, with shaders written in HLSL. Depending on the version, it supports vertex and pixel shaders as a minimum, with additional shader stages and features added in later releases.

Direct3D has evolved through multiple major versions. Direct3D 9 established a widely adopted baseline for Windows-era hardware. Direct3D 10 and 11 expanded shading models and rendering features, while Direct3D 12 introduced a low-level, explicit API that gives developers more control over memory, synchronization, and multi-threading. The latest generations, under Direct3D 12 Ultimate, add features such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing via DXR and advanced shading techniques. D3D remains tightly coupled to Windows and the Xbox platform, and is supported by major game engines like Unreal Engine and Unity. Ongoing updates align with new GPU capabilities and Windows releases.