In another round of the format war, Paramount has dropped most of its support for Blu-ray and moved over to HD DVD. Only Spielberg films will continue to be released on both formats, Paramount has moved its DreamWorks Animation SKG, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films over to HD DVD exclusively.

DreamWorks Animation CEO said:

We believe the combination of this year's low-priced HD DVD players and the commitment to release a significant number of hit titles in the fall makes HD DVD the best way to view movies at home.

This is a good result for HD DVD which should help advance it further over Blu-ray over the coming months, perhaps finally consumers won't be screwed over and we can have a quick end to the format war. This comes on the back of the Blu-ray promotion group in Europe admitting "(HD DVD) does have sales advantage for several reasons", we need a quick resolution.

I checked my feeds this morning to see that Steven Novella posted the sad news about the loss of Perry DeAngelis.

Perry's popularity was easy to understand – Perry had presence. The power of his personality went into everything he did, and every relationship he had. He made his opinions known and actually delighted in not sugar-coating them. Truth and reason were very important to him, so much so that he felt the truth had to be brutal. He would not diminish it with mere social nicety. This also means that when he expressed friendship, you knew he meant it.

The SGU will not be the same without you.

And remember, chi spelled backward is crap.

- Perry DeAngelis, a human being of some note.

So long Perry. You lived in such a time where science and technology had advanced far enough that your opinions and thoughts can be recorded, stored and distributed not only throughout the world, but down through time as well, you pushed our science and understanding forward in your own way to help make this possible. As a result people shall be reading what you have written, and listening to what you have said, throughout the history to come. In this sense it is science and technology that has unlocked the ability for people to hear you, no matter where you were or when you were. It is science that allows you to speak from beyond the grave.

Science 1 – Mystics 0.

So this error message has been doing the rounds lately.

This application has failed to start because d3dx9_32.dll was not found.

Or other error messages around d3dx9.dll, dxdx9d.dll, d3dx10.dll, xinput.dll, xact.dll, d3dx10_33.dll and other variations being missing, not being found or installed.

These are all optional components to DirectX that may not be installed with the version of DirectX you already have on your system.

Typically these will be installed when the game installs DirectX, however for historical reasons a lot of gamers, knowing they had the latest version of DirectX didn't bother (I never do either). Microsoft a couple of years back provided these optional components in the SDK, and as such may not be installed with the version of DirectX present on your system.

Games I've come across with this happening range from

Age of Empires III (3).
Battlefield 2.
Battlefield 2142.
BioShock (unconfirmed)?
Caesar IV (4).
Civilization IV (4).
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2.
Hitman Blood Money.
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth 2.
Lost Planet.
Need For Speed Most Wanted.
Virtual Skipper.

I'm sure there's probably a couple of dozen more games, feel free to list any additions in the comments below.

The solution is to either install the version of DirectX on the game's disc, or download the latest webupdate from Microsoft (at the moment this is being redirected to the Games for Windows website).