7 releases

0.0.0-unsound.5 Jan 21, 2022
0.0.0-unsound.4 Jan 9, 2022
0.0.0-reserved Dec 2, 2020
0.0.0-2022-09-30 Sep 30, 2022

#55 in Windows APIs

Apache-2.0 OR MIT

1.5MB
10K SLoC

thindx - Thin DirectX wrappers

GitHub Build Status dependency status

crates.io docs.rs License

Thin DirectX wrappers for Rust.

Why not winapi directly?

  • This crate aims to make fns safe/sound/slightly rusty when possible
  • Attempts to verify API soundness through mass unit tests, even if they mostly test DirectX's behavior.
  • Doc comments for one-stop intellisense, safety documentation, etc.

Why not <other graphics crate>?

  • Most other graphics crates focus on hiding the underlying graphics API as much as possible, improving application portability.
  • This crate surfaces the underlying graphics API as much as possible, improving the potential for interoperability with other graphics code / use in middleware applications.

❌ This crate is probably unsound! ❌

I'm exposing a huge legacy C++ API to Rust. Mistakes will happen.

That said, soundness is a very high priority goal. thindx will add things like extra bounds checks, parameter validation, extra init, etc. if need be in order to ensure soundness in safe fns whenever possible. When it's not possible to validate unsoundness away, the fns in question should be marked unsafe. This crate strives to be sounder than whatever manual FFI you'd write yourself would be, and that's a high bar.

But there are some practical limits to this. If a background driver thread invokes UB if it fails to allocate memory, without any direct correlation to specific API misuse like a large integer overflowing, that's a bug I can't sanely mitigate via safe fns. I mean, theoretically I could write a pure-software clone of the entire DirectX runtime... but no.

Additionally, while I'm seeking to validate my APIs via testing, older implementations of the APIs in question may have more bugs / unchecked parameters / ??? that I'll fail to mitigate due to being unable to trigger them myself. While I'm happy to investigate, accept pull requests, expand test coverage, etc. it's worth assuming this crate is unsound on older versions unless you've tested yourself.

⚠️ API major version churn ⚠️

Individual fns are likely to gain/lose unsafe, traits, etc. in a neverending attempt to make DirectX access sound. As such, thindx itself will likely always suffer from major version churn. This isn't too much of a problem until two crates wish to share / pass thindx types between themselves. It might be possible to somewhat stabilize some types by exiling them into subcrates, but this has not yet been done. Additionally, individual extension traits / functions / methods will likely never get the same treatment (no need?)

Project Status

examplesheader coveragedocs.rslib.rscrates.io

DirectX API Tests Sound Stable Notes
d3dcompiler.dll ✔️ ⚠️ ⚠️ first goal to stabilize
dxcompiler.dll
d3d9 ⚠️ ⚠️
d3d11
d3d12
dxgi
dinput
xinput ✔️ ✔️ ✔️* ⚠️ * Could use more testing on older Windows
xaudio2
Low Priority
d2d I prefer d3d wrappers?
dcompute
dsound prefer xaudio2? (might be needed for gamepad headset audio?)
dwrite consider uniscribe?
dxr
xact3
Not Planned Feel free to change my mind though! Maybe with $?
d3d10 d3d11 is the same but saner, and just as portable?
d3dx10 deprecated, saner to use less d3d specific stuff
d3dx11 deprecated, saner to use less d3d specific stuff
d3dx9 deprecated, saner to use less d3d specific stuff
ddraw prefer d2d, gdi, or other less ancient api?
dplay prefer steamworks, raw sockets, etc.?
xaudio1 does this even exist? prefer xaudio2
Legend Description
API API coverage seems mostly complete
Tests API has basic tests
Sound API has enough tests to convince me of it's soundness
Stable API seems stable enough to start giving semver treatment

License

Licensed under either of

at your option.

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

Dependencies