The DirectPlay DPLAY.DLL was also removed and was replaced with dplayx.dll games that rely on this DLL must duplicate it and rename it to dplay.dll. Many former parts of DirectX API were deprecated in the latest DirectX SDK and will be preserved for compatibility only: DirectInput was deprecated in favor of XInput, DirectSound was deprecated in favor of the Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool system (XACT) and lost support for hardware accelerated audio, since Vista audio stack renders sound in software on the CPU. DirectX includes security and performance updates, along with many new features across all technologies, which can be accessed by applications using the DirectX APIs.

Microsoft DirectX 10 is a group of technologies designed to make Windows-based computers an ideal platform for running and displaying applications rich in multimedia elements such as full-color graphics, video, 3D animation, and rich audio.