During a Thursday keynote address at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Orlando, Microsoft's Jay Torborg, the director of graphics and multimedia for the company, announced that DirectX 6.0 would ship this July. Torborg said that a beta release could be expected in May, while Windows NT 5.0 Beta 2--due in June--would also include a beta release of the multimedia programming interface. DirectX 6.0 will ship as an upgrade for Windows 95/8 and as an integrated part of Windows NT 5.0 when that operating system becomes available in late 1998 or early 1999.
Torborg confirmed that some planned features will be dropped from this release so that it can stay on schedule. One new feature, "DirectMusic", will not definitely make the cut. Direct3D in DirectX 6.0 has been optimized for Intel Pentium II systems, Torborg said
