interesting stuff I have been finding out about DirectX

[Jonathan Wilson]

after investigating the DirectX NT dlls as part of an investigation to see 
if they would work on ReactOS, I discovered something.
The core DX dlls (like ddraw.dll, dsound.dll, dinput.dll and others) dont 
seem to make kernel-mode or driver/hardware calls directly.
Most of it appears to be done via other places (such as winmm.dll, some 
special thunks in gdl32.dll and others)
If my theory is correct (remember though, its just a theory), it may be 
possible to not only use the directx userland dlls (like ddraw.dll & 
friends) with ReactOS but it may be possible (if one were to implement the 
lower-level stubs) in a meaningfull way) to use said dlls with WINE.
If it is possible to use native versions of some of the high-level bits, 
that could really help get more games going...
One of the main things that would be needed is a proper implementation of 
the GdiEntryxxx functions and the DdEntryxxx functions in gdi32.dll, they 
are the "thunks" that allow DirectDraw and Direct3D to talk to kernel mode.
DirectSound & DirectMusic appear to go through winmm.dll to talk to the 
sound hardware.