Is there some wonderful Direct X alternative?

[sdsumike619]

Since redoing my computer, I've been installing smaller, more efficient apps that are easy to remove and don't take over my system (for example, the tiny Foxit PDF reader instead of Adobe) It appears that I need Direct Show which is part of Direct X. Does anyone know if there's a smaller, efficient thing that will work instead of installing Microsoft's direct X?

[MOVIEGEEK]

I believe DX is installed when you do a clean install and there's not much you can do to uninstall it.DX is required if you will be working with video or gaming.That being said I have never heard of DX causing any problems,to find out what version you have type 'dxdiag' in run.

[sdsumike619]

Hmm yeah I am using Direct X 9.0c it seems.. Ok, is Direct Show part of Direct X then or is that something different? I'm trying to get this yahoo webcam thing to work with my Panasonic PV-GS320 camcorder.. If I go to My Computer, it shows the device and if I click on it, sure enough it shows the live video that the camera is seeing. But when I start the yahoo cam, it's black...

[MOVIEGEEK]

This might help:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/messenger/messenger9/webcam/index.html