Windows Vista: DirectX10 D3D Intro

[Kougar]

Here is another solid intro into the differences between DX9 and DX10, and why Vista running on DX10 hardware should be on any gamer's future list of hardware upgrades. ;) If the game is built right to take advantage of DX10, it should show some major improvements over the same game running on DX9, not even getting into the differences in eye candy!

I'll warn ahead of time for those not interested that this one is a bit technical and only a intro, however Hexus is already planning plenty more future DX10 and DX9 vs DX10 articles. :)

Found this one via Bjorn's news section: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6161&page=1 (http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=6161&page=1)

[werty316]

Bring on the eye candy action since thats all that matters ;)

[Gray]

I "Just" got a 6800 Ultra and the eye candy is amazing on the old games I have been playing, I think a reformat and an install of Doom and Far cry is in order to try it out. Then I can get up to date with the latest gaming. I suppose I have been living in the past. : (

[werty316]

Heck when DX10 is out you'll be in the stone ages.

[Kougar]

Gray, I'm not trying to be mean or downplay your upgrade, as it is a powerful card. But when I played with a 6800 Ultra it just didn't have enough power to handle HL2 Episode One at 1280by1024 with all eye candy settings on, with 2xAA/4xAF (Best I recall) without the game stuttering. Dropping the resolution fixed that, but I wasn't happy with the results. (I'd better mention it was likely because of the CPU at the time though, Pentium M's are not known for great gaming power even when at high speeds and Half Life is a highly CPU dependent game in retrospect.)

I have a friend that was very interested in Episode One and Quake 4, but neither one is playable at any setting on his Dell x300, and so far he just hasn't been interested enough in forking out anything for an upgrade card. Drives me nuts to no end, even my old 9600XT runs about 3 or 4 circles around a x300 to it's 1.

I can't wait to get X3 Reunion myself, but I have to wait until I get a GPU capable of running it. First generation or not, I'd much rather invest what I would've spent in a new DX9 card into a DX10 part instead... It might be mocked as impossible, but I do believe there is the ability to buy hardware for the future... it's just not as fun after the first year of using it. ;)

[romo91]

just to make sure dx10 cards will be using pci express 16x and an external power supply right !!!! :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw: :paw:

[eko]

Why do these jerks only make the DirectX versions more and more expensive, and harder and harder to upgrade?!
It's true that the games are looking somehow better, but come on!
I spent almost 300 bucks for a new video card, and, a year after, I can throw it away :(
Where are the good days when I could have used a video card years and years?!

Where is Starcraft 2 ? I wait for it, I'm sure Blizzard will come out with something which combines the beautiful graphic with an awesome gameplay and well balanced races....

[eko]

With every version of Windows, Microsoft is getting more and more greedy!
Bastards!
Why should I upgrade?! Instead of cutting prices of Vista, they are selling it at a huge price.
Who needs the new RAM smasher then?!
For a mere improvement in aspect and a huge resource consumption, you have to pay twice the price of XP Professional...
Jerks.

[DragonMaster]

I spent almost 300 bucks for a new video card, and, a year after, I can throw it away
All this because it supports too much things and the GPU can't handle all this. That's when an older card helps, it needs much less power to run at the same FPS since quality isn't as good.

I like the Doom3 for Voodoo2 SLI patch for a reason : It's showing that picture quality has a big performance impact. It can run at a good FPS at 800x600 with this setup, but it looks like an old game. :mrgreen: