It's the tenth anniversary of DirectX. In honor of this occasion we spoke with Chris Donahue, the group manager for Windows gaming and graphics. Chris discusses the evolution of DirectX, the impact of the next Windows (Longhorn) and 64-bit gaming, how XNA will help developers on Windows and Xbox, where Windows gaming is headed and much more.

GameDAILY BIZ: For our readers who may not be familiar with you, can you please explain what your job at Microsoft entails?

Chris Donahue: I head up the Developer Relations team for Windows Graphics and Gaming Technologies. I lead a team of people working with all the game development companies to help them make the best use of DirectX when building their games. We also work with the major hardware companies, to sync up new features they are working on, and making sure that game developers will be able to make the most of these new features. We work within Microsoft promoting games in the next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn. And I try to play games as much as possible. Lately I've been playing a lot of Battlefield 2 - it's an awesome game!

BIZ: DirectX is now ten years old. How has it evolved over the years and why did it become such an important part of Windows gaming?

CD: DirectX started off as an underground project, with a bunch of guys hijacking resources, both money and people, and building a set of tools to make it easier to make games for Windows because they knew that Windows was going to be a great platform for games. DirectX has transformed the industry with a common set of APIs (application programming interfaces) that support a wide range of hardware vendors making products with differing features, while making it easy for programmers to write their code for one common platform. DirectX has been adopted by the overwhelming majority of game developers making games for Windows, so this has been an incredibly successful endeavor.

BIZ: Video, sound, and 3D technologies progress at a phenomenal rate. How does DirectX keep up with the pace of innovation?

CD: Well, with a lot of work! Seriously, we have about 200 people helping to define these new technologies, and we send out an updated SDK on a bi-monthly basis, which anyone can download and use for free. This month, we released improvements to the PIX Performance Investigator. This August, we're planning on releasing a final version of the Microsoft Audio Creation Tool (Xact).

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