CODEWITHSUNDEEP
memorydirectx
user2864293
user2864293

Reputation: 392

Proper way to free GPU memory when using directX?

I've been working through a handful of directX tutorials. They all mention D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx

for loading an image from a file into video memory. However, nobody (that I've seen), talks about how to free up that memory. Can I just call free() on the pointer that is returned?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 576

Answers (1)

Roger Rowland
Roger Rowland

Reputation: 26259

Like almost all of the DirectX API, when you create a new object, it's returned as a pointer to a COM interface. In your case you get a pointer to an IDirect3DTexture9 interface.

When you want to release these resources, you use the normal COM method for disposing of reference-counted interfaces, by calling Release() on the pointer:

IDirect3DDevice9 *pTexture = NULL;
D3DXCreateTextureFromFileEx( /* ... */, &pTexture);

// ... use the texture .....

// release interface
pTexture->Release();
pexture = NULL;

Upvotes: 2

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