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How To: Create a Reference Device

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This topic shows how to create a reference device that implements a highly accurate, software implementation of the runtime. To create a reference device, simply specify that the device you are creating will use a reference driver. This example creates a device and a swap chain at the same time.

To create a reference device

  1. Define initial parameters for a swap chain.

        DXGI_SWAP_CHAIN_DESC sd;
    ZeroMemory( &sd, sizeof( sd ) );
    sd.BufferCount = 1;
    sd.BufferDesc.Width = 640;
    sd.BufferDesc.Height = 480;
    sd.BufferDesc.Format = DXGI_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM;
    sd.BufferDesc.RefreshRate.Numerator = 60;
    sd.BufferDesc.RefreshRate.Denominator = 1;
    sd.BufferUsage = DXGI_USAGE_RENDER_TARGET_OUTPUT;
    sd.OutputWindow = g_hWnd;
    sd.SampleDesc.Count = 1;
    sd.SampleDesc.Quality = 0;
    sd.Windowed = TRUE;

  2. Request a feature level that implements the features your application will need. A reference device can be successfully created for the Direct3D 11 runtime.

        D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL FeatureLevels = D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL_11_0;

    See more about feature levels in the D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL enumeration.

  3. Create the device by calling D3D11CreateDeviceAndSwapChain.

    HRESULT hr = S_OK;
    D3D_FEATURE_LEVEL FeatureLevel;

    if( FAILED (hr = D3D11CreateDeviceAndSwapChain( NULL, 
                    D3D_DRIVER_TYPE_REFERENCE,
                    NULL, 
                    0,
                    &FeatureLevels, 
                    1, 
                    D3D11_SDK_VERSION, 
                    &sd, 
                    &g_pSwapChain, 
                    &g_pd3dDevice, 
                    &FeatureLevel,
                    &g_pImmediateContext )))
    {
        return hr;
    }

You will need to supply the API call with the reference driver type from the D3D_DRIVER_TYPE enumeration. After the method succeeds, it will return a swap chain interface, a device interface, a pointer to the feature level that was granted by the driver, and an immediate context interface.

For information about limitations creating a reference device on certain feature levels, see Limitations Creating WARP and Reference Devices.How to Use Direct3D 11

Devices

How to Use Direct3D 11