Project templates and tools for games

This topic discusses what you need to start programming DirectX games for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).

Visual Studio

Download and install Microsoft Visual Studio.

For info about setting up Visual Studio for C++/WinRT development, see Visual Studio support for C++/WinRT.

Topics in this section

Topic	Description
DirectX game project templates	Learn about the templates for creating a UWP and DirectX game.
Visual Studio tools for game programming	An overview of DirectX specific tools available in Visual Studio.
Graphics diagnostics tools	Learn how to get and use the graphics diagnostics features including Graphics Debugging, Graphics Frame Analysis, and GPU Usage in Visual Studio.

Next steps

If you're porting an existing game, see these topics.

• Port from OpenGL ES 2.0 to DirectX 11
• Port from DirectX 9 to UWP

If you're creating a new DirectX game, see these topics.

• Create a simple UWP game with DirectX
• Developing Marble Maze, a Universal Windows Platform game in C++ and DirectX