DirectX Diagnostic Tool (DxDiag) is a diagnostics tool used to test DirectX functionality and troubleshoot video- or sound-related hardware problems. DirectX Diagnostic can save text files with the scan results. These files are often posted in tech forums or attached to support emails in order to give support personnel a better idea of the PC the requester is using in case the error is due to a hardware failure or incompatibility. DirectX Diagnostic Tool is located in . Starting from

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

, DirectX Diagnostic Tool only shows information; it is no longer possible to test the hardware and the various DirectX components.XNA Framework Goals

Functions

The System tab displays the current DirectX version, the computer's

hostname In computer networking, a hostname (archaically nodename) is a label that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network and that is used to identify the device in various forms of electronic communication, such as the World Wide Web. Hos ...

, the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

's version, information on the system BIOS, and other data. The DirectX Files tab displays information about the versions of specific DirectX system files, which are portable executables or

dynamic-link libraries Dynamic-link library (DLL) is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems. These libraries usually have the file extension DLL, OCX (for libraries containing ActiveX controls), o ...

(DLLs). DirectX Diagnostic Tool displays information about the current display settings and the video hardware on the Display tab. If the computer has more than one monitor, then DirectX Diagnostic Tool will display a separate tab for each monitor. This tab can disable

DirectDraw DirectDraw (ddraw.dll) is an API that used to be a part of Microsoft's DirectX API. DirectDraw is used to accelerate rendering of 2D graphics in applications. DirectDraw also allows applications to run fullscreen or embedded in a window such as m ...

, Direct3D, and/or AGP Texture Acceleration for troubleshooting purposes. If the installed

display driver In electronics/computer hardware, a display driver is usually a semiconductor integrated circuit (but may alternatively comprise a state machine made of discrete logic and other components) which provides an interface function between a micropr ...

has passed Windows Hardware Quality Labs testing, DirectX Diagnostic Tool will display this result on the right side of the window. The Music tab displays information about the computer's

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

settings, and lists different music-related

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

and hardware on your computer. The Input tab, displays information about input devices installed in the computer such as keyboards and mice. It will also attempt to detect problems with these devices. DirectX Diagnostic Tool also displays information about the installed

DirectPlay DirectPlay is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. It is a network communication library intended for computer game development, although it can be used for other purposes. DirectPlay is a high-level software interface between applications and commu ...

Service Provider. It is possible to create chat rooms with DirectX Diagnostic Tool that can be accessed by other computers, as long as anyone attempting to join knows the IP address of the host computer. In

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, released on April 25, 2005, is an edition of Windows XP for x86-64 personal computers. It is designed to use the expanded 64-bit memory address space provided by the x86-64 architecture. The prima ...

, Windows Vista x64 edition, Windows 7 x64 edition, Windows 8 x64 edition and Windows 10 x64 edition, two versions of DirectX Diagnostic Tool are included, a native 64-bit version and a 32-bit version. In Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Vista x64 edition and Windows 7 x64 edition, the 32-bit version of DirectX Diagnostic Tool is run by default.

References

{{Microsoft Windows components Utilities for Windows Windows-only software DirectX