DirectX 10

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Ok, so DX10 is scheduled to come out with Vista...but that's about as much as I know about it.

I'm lining up the parts for my new computer, and while looking at video cards, the DX10 question popped up. IS DX10 compatibility hardware related, or do the drivers determine the compatibility?

You see, I am considering the AIT X1950 (would be a CrossFire setup probably 6 months after once I got enough money for two cards). If I buy the card(s), will a simple driver update make the card(s) compatible with DX10?

 

Nope. You will need one of the nVidia 8XXX series cards, or whatever ATI releases to counter it. At the moment that leaves you with 8800GTX and the 8800GTS. DirectX 10 has a whole lot of pretty silly hardware requirements too - I understand that it cannot even be installed on a comp with a non-certified card. M$ have been quite specific in the specs and has even been accused of consolifying the pc through this. The idea is that there will be less variation between cards as we have been seeing (ie shadows in Oblivion look better on ATI cards). It should result in games being less prone to graphical glitches as comps will end up being more similar to each other.

The other question is whether or not many games will require dx10 to be played. I think Halo3 or something will need it but at the moment many developers are happier sticking with dx9, as it is going to offer them a larger market size (ie, all the people who put off buying vista until service pack 2 or don't want to shell out for a new graphics card).

I'm not too sure what to recommend - the 8800's seem to be pretty fast, but also quite expensive - perhaps a cheaper card on a compatible motherboard and save up for dx10 compatable card when it is required (ie when a decent dx10 game comes out)

 

I have a doubt about DirectX 10 and this seems an appropriate place...

Does DX10 ONLY work on Vista?? Or can I use DX10 based games on XP SP2 as well??

 

I understood that it would only run on vista, and would be one of the main selling points for the new OS. Chances are someone will make it available for xp though.

 

Ok, I read a rather long article on DX10 after I made my post.

DX10 requires hardware compatibility and Vista. At this point DX10 is Vista's "big" selling point besides the 3D desktop. It's going to be highly integrated into the OS...and it's going to have a version of DX9 (version 'L') IIRC, to be backwards compatible with older hardware. I don't know of any improvements that might come with the "new" version of DX9 however.

The article claimed that the full potential of DX9c has not been reached yet, but due to CPU bottlenecks it's apparently holding developers back. DX10 is supposed to free up a lot of CPU cycles and move them to the GPU.

So this leaves me torn. I want an ATI card, but they don't have a DX10 card ATM...and once they do, it'll be their flagship card that costs $600+. So If I decide to get a X1950 card, I wonder how long a DX9 based card will be of use. I can go without the first few DX10 games...but what about when Vista goes mainstream?

I wonder if ATI's solution to DX10 will be a new "X2000" card, or just a revision of the X1950 card. At this point I have no choice but to wait.

 

In my above post I said that Halo 3 would require dx10. I meant the pc version of Halo 2 (which comes out early this year). Anyway I was wrong here, It does not require dx10 and can run with only dx9....But it still requires vista for some very important functionability stuff that can only possibly run on vista (such as playing online, chatting to friends and downloading updates). Sounds like M$ just wants people to buy a new OS just so they can play a game that has been out on the xbox for ages.
Crysis (from the makers of Farcry) will however only be able to run on vista because it uses dx10.

Vista has some pretty high system specs - minimum 512mb of ram, 1gb to run the premium edition (comes packaged with dx10) and 2gb to run it in 64-bit mode.

Apparently it is also advisable to have a 512mb gpu if you want to run just the desktop with settings all up.

Another thing, the cheaper upgrade option of getting vista is only available with non-OEM copies of windows (so, chances are if you got xp preinstalled on your system you wont quallify).

Microsoft's Upgrade Advisor
This tests your system to see if it will be able to run vista and provides a whole lot of windows propaganda. It's around 6.5mb to d/l.

Vista Visual styles and transformation packs
I thought this was pretty cool and I've been running it for a couple of weeks now. It changes xp to make it look like vista, so you get a new media player skin, black start button and taskbar, highlingts things in blue, a vista wallpaper and screensaver, new clock etc. I didn't really like the whole transparency thing, so I disabled glass2k.exe, but apart from that it looks pretty good.

[ January 10, 2007, 21:06: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Well...Vista is still missing that "Killer" app that helps an OS take hold in the market. M$ is probably trying anything thay can. Right now, DX10 is pretty much it for "Killer" apps.