DirectX 10 - Explanation

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mokkapoop

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 6, 2005
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Ok. I just bought an eVGA 8600GT at best buy for $149 + a $30 MIR. It is a directx 10 card. Currently I am running Windows XP Professional. I have a copy of Windows Vista Home Basic that came on my computer, but I reverted back to XP due to some threads I saw on the forums here.

My questions are this:

1. Is DX10 only for Vista or can it run on Windows XP Professional?

2. If so, does Vista home basic work well with DX10?

3. What is the current list of DX10 games out there right now?

My current specs are as follows:

Dell Dimension 521
AMD X2 3800+
2.0GB DDR2 PC2-5400
eVGA 8600GT 256mb PCI-E
Dell 20" Widescreen
160gb SATA II drive

Currently all I play is DOD Source, but I want to go with something cool and new. Please provide any information, suggestions, or comments (rude or not) on this matter. Thanks!
 
So they realeased these cards but didn't have any games for it yet? Makes perfect sense..
 
rumors are that dx10 will be made available for windows xp despite earlier statements that this would not happne.
 
mokkapoop said:
So they realeased these cards but didn't have any games for it yet? Makes perfect sense..
Click to expand...
The cards are pretty nice at DX9 as well.
And the hardware manufacturers dont control game developement. :shrug:
/me hugs his G80
 
+1 GLSauron.

They're wicked at DX9, it's a good feeling not having to worry about turning down the settings and such to improve performance. :D

/me hugs GLSauron's g80 too.
 
mokkapoop said:
So they realeased these cards but didn't have any games for it yet? Makes perfect sense..
Click to expand...

Chicken and the egg.....

You need widespread hardware adoption before developers put in the time and effort to put in support and cater to people who have the capability, plus they had to wait for Vista.

Hardware support has always come before software support. What good is developing the software support if there is no hardware that can run it? These video cards are built with the future in mind, it would have been suicide to not include DX10 support in their next gen product.
 
you2 said:
rumors are that dx10 will be made available for windows xp despite earlier statements that this would not happne.
Click to expand...

I think that rumor is for someone making an unoffical version for XP. So dont expect a problem free XP version.
;)
 
mokkapoop said:
The how can hardware developers create cards if they don't really know what DX10 is all about? This makes no sense to me.
Click to expand...

They work with and help MS develop the specs for the API, so they are in the loop through the whole process.
 
If your running at 1280x1024 or lower then buying any of the high end DX10 cards is completely useless. They are powerfull at running DX9, but so are the high end DX9 cards. For high resolutions like 1080p, yes a DX10 card will do you good. As for games, I think I've run every current game on max apart from Oblivion and Stalker. I can't wait till the DX10 games come out. Then I'll upgrade.
 
Brent_Justice said:
The NVIDIA Cascades demo is a tech demo that runs in Vista under DX10, as such, it cannot "update your PC with DX10", that makes no sense.
Click to expand...

Those demos are awesome though. I enjoyed cascades and the Adrianne demo. You can make
Adrianne look like she is "very special".;)
 
There is no definitive answer on how much real difference DX10 will bring to the table. There probably won't be a DX10 ONLY game for 5 years (maybe MS will try to force one but who cares) and games that support both DX10 and DX9 will end up looking nearly identical. If I was a developer I would look at DX10 as a complete waste of resources currently, since you NEED to make the DX9 version(most of the market DX9 for a long time to come), recoding it for DX10 will be a large waste of time.

I have read some rumors that Supreme Commander is no longer slated to get a DX10 patch. It finally dawned on them that it would be a huge pile of work for nothing. DX10 is not some kind of magic bullet.

Worry about DX10 in 5 years when they write games in DX10 first and then patch it for DX9. Not today where DX10 is just about meaningless.
 
Brent_Justice said:
The NVIDIA Cascades demo is a tech demo that runs in Vista under DX10, as such, it cannot "update your PC with DX10", that makes no sense.
Click to expand...

It comes with the DX10 runtime installer that updates DX to DX10. Makes sense to me. Download it and check it out before you run your gob next time.

And Microsoft, in several articles (some that can be found on IGN) has stated that they are working on making DX10 work on Windows XP for people that don't wish to upgrade, it's been cited on interviews regarding Conan : AoH. Why not look for the proof instead of running down the posters here who have seen it and are posting a tidbit for hte others?

"DirectX 10" was developed for Windows Vista and Microsoft,after announcing that you'd have to upgrade to Vista to get it, has been backpedaling about the issue since. It will be interesting to see how M$ does this because it would be a huge update and a change to how drivers work in Windows XP. Last time I heard, the next update to DX9 will be DirectX 9.0L and is essentially DX10 for XP.

Info is here :
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb173477.aspx

and a bit more here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX
 
Snooble said:
It comes with the DX10 runtime installer that updates DX to DX10. Makes sense to me. Download it and check it out before you run your gob next time.
Click to expand...

It is rather obvious he meant it won't update an XP machine to DX10...
 
Snowdog said:
There is no definitive answer on how much real difference DX10 will bring to the table. There probably won't be a DX10 ONLY game for 5 years (maybe MS will try to force one but who cares) and games that support both DX10 and DX9 will end up looking nearly identical. If I was a developer I would look at DX10 as a complete waste of resources currently, since you NEED to make the DX9 version(most of the market DX9 for a long time to come), recoding it for DX10 will be a large waste of time.

I have read some rumors that Supreme Commander is no longer slated to get a DX10 patch. It finally dawned on them that it would be a huge pile of work for nothing. DX10 is not some kind of magic bullet.

Worry about DX10 in 5 years when they write games in DX10 first and then patch it for DX9. Not today where DX10 is just about meaningless.
Click to expand...

You are correct that we have yet to see the benefits that DX10 can/will bring. The problem isn't that DX10 isn't wonderful (cause it is), the question is how much of DX10's potential will game developers tap in games that are patched to DX10 (like CoH and FSX and Call of Juarez and UT3) compared to games that are built from the ground up with two distinct code paths one DX9 and one DX10, ala Crysis, Bioshock etc..

DX10 is a great API, it is faster, has less overhead, and allows greater things, it just all depends how much it is utilized. It may be a while before the potential there is tapped.

Snooble said:
It comes with the DX10 runtime installer that updates DX to DX10. Makes sense to me. Download it and check it out before you run your gob next time.

And Microsoft, in several articles (some that can be found on IGN) has stated that they are working on making DX10 work on Windows XP for people that don't wish to upgrade, it's been cited on interviews regarding Conan : AoH. Why not look for the proof instead of running down the posters here who have seen it and are posting a tidbit for hte others?

"DirectX 10" was developed for Windows Vista and Microsoft,after announcing that you'd have to upgrade to Vista to get it, has been backpedaling about the issue since. It will be interesting to see how M$ does this because it would be a huge update and a change to how drivers work in Windows XP. Last time I heard, the next update to DX9 will be DirectX 9.0L and is essentially DX10 for XP.

Info is here :
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb173477.aspx

and a bit more here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX
Click to expand...

This is completely false, and an old rumor. DX9.0L is the fallback for DX9 in Vista, it is what Aero runs on, and what video cards use when running in DX9 games under Vista.

I see nothing in the MSDN article (which was posted in August '06) that indicates DX10 is coming to XP.

Wiki is hardly a source for factual information.

Show me a quote from a Microsoft DirectX developer that DX10 is coming to XP, otherwise it is rumor and hearsay.

Quite frankly I do not see DX10 coming to XP, the API is fundamentally different and woven into Vista very tightly.
 
Snooble said:
It comes with the DX10 runtime installer that updates DX to DX10. Makes sense to me. Download it and check it out before you run your gob next time.

And Microsoft, in several articles (some that can be found on IGN) has stated that they are working on making DX10 work on Windows XP for people that don't wish to upgrade, it's been cited on interviews regarding Conan : AoH. Why not look for the proof instead of running down the posters here who have seen it and are posting a tidbit for hte others?

"DirectX 10" was developed for Windows Vista and Microsoft,after announcing that you'd have to upgrade to Vista to get it, has been backpedaling about the issue since. It will be interesting to see how M$ does this because it would be a huge update and a change to how drivers work in Windows XP. Last time I heard, the next update to DX9 will be DirectX 9.0L and is essentially DX10 for XP.

Info is here :
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb173477.aspx

and a bit more here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX
Click to expand...

Wow.

You didn't even read your own MSDN link:

Because the Direct3D 9Ex API will never appear on older versions of Windows due to a lack of support for the WDDM, the standard Direct3D 9 interfaces cover a much broader set of systems.
Click to expand...

Direct3D 9Ex is what DX9L uses. DX9L is DX9 made to support all the added features of the WDDM driver model. According to Microsoft, no WDDM driver model support no DX9L or DX10. I do not see anyone modding XP so it can use WDDM drivers and let it suddenly install its audio driver without a reboot, like I can in Vista. WDDM is not a trivial update, based on that experience of mine - all by itself.

The only real hope for DX10 or DX9L on XP is if MS is lying about needing WDDM driver support to run DX10 apps. The thing is, if everything relating to DX10 (the API, the games, the drivers) are assuming the WDDM driver model is being used, how do you get it to run without that?
 
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