Find out the characteristics of your PC using DxDiag
DxDiag is a diagnostic utility for DirectX, a Microsoft Apis library for 3D processing such as Vulkan. DirectX is used in video games and other applications that use 3D acceleration, and since it is integrated into the latest versions of Windows, we can find the utility on our computers without having to install anything.
Initially, this utility was used not only for diagnostics, but also for testing devices related to DirectX, and even to fix errors that they had, but starting with Windows Vista, the utility only displays information about the computer and its devices.
Accessing this utility is extremely simple, just type "dxdiag" into the text field in the Start menu and click on the only option that appears. At this point the utility will start working and in some cases a small window will appear asking if we want Windows to check that the drivers are digitally signed, to which we will click "yes".
After a few seconds, a window with the DxDiag utility will open, in which there are several tabs, which we will describe in the next section of the guide, in which the various system, screen, sound and input devices available on our computer are grouped.
What information does DxDiag provide?
DxDiag will provide us with information about the devices in the computer related to 3D processing, the drivers that these devices use, and details of how they relate to Apis, which contains DirectX, so although we will find a lot information about the video card and its drivers, we won't have as many details about the RAM, processor or motherboard our system.
System:
This is the main tab of the utility, where the main summary of general information about our system is displayed. Most of the information displayed here is not particularly mysterious, starting with the date and time the utility was opened, the computer name, information about the version and distribution of the operating system, the language and locale of the system.
But then there is information about the motherboard: the system manufacturer, where the motherboard builder is usually indicated, the system model, where in some cases the motherboard model is indicated, and the BIOS, where the version will be indicated BIOS.
Next are the values for the processor, which will indicate its exact model, as well as the number of virtual cores or processing threads and the base speed of the processor. And after them - the amount of system RAM in MB, then the size of the swap files and their use, and finally the DirectX version.
Video
In this tab we will find options about our video card, having a tab for each screen that we have connected to the system.
In the device block, information about the graphics processor will appear, indicating the model and amount of memory of various types, and further down information about our screen, resolution and refresh rate. The drivers section will list the driver version and other information about them, such as supported Direct3D versions, the latest of which is DirectX 12 Ultimate or 12.2. Finally, we will have a DirectX features tab and another one called notes, which will tell us if DirectX has detected any problems with the device.
Sound
In this section we will get information about the sound devices of our system, just like in the case of screens, we will have a tab for each sound device, in the device section we will get detailed information about each output, and in the driver section we will have information about the software , which manages it, as well as a notes section to report problems.
Entering
Finally, we will have the Input tab, where we will see the devices connected to the computer that can be used as any type of input, be it microphones, keyboards, mice, video capture... and in the bottom tab of related input devices we will have a drop-down list with the USB structure.
DxDiag Utilities
The main utility of DxDiag allows us to check the characteristics of our computer quickly and without installing external tools, but it also allows us to do something that can be very useful in some circumstances: export the characteristics of our computer, which we can do by clicking the "Save information" button ", which appears at the bottom right of the window.
Exporting can be done in a text or XML file and is a great way to hand over a complete check of our computer's details to someone else, either to check that the computer meets certain requirements or to get help if we have any problems. problems launching games or 3D applications.
