DirectX 10

humanji

Ok, this may seem a stupid question, but I haven't paid attention to DX10 since it only works vista, but is it actually relased? I've googled a little and most links just go on about the technical side of it and I quickly lose the will to live.

And if it is available, what do people think of it?

Stephen

It is available (comes with Vista) but pretty much the only game of any consequence to use it yet is Bioshock, and apparently there isn't much of a visible difference. To get DX10 in Vista you need a DX10 graphics card (such as nVidia 8xxx series), otherwise you get DX9.

I have Vista myself but I only have a DX9 card (nVidia 7800gtx, second hand ).

Zombrex

humanji wrote:

Ok, this may seem a stupid question, but I haven't paid attention to DX10 since it only works vista, but is it actually relased? I've googled a little and most links just go on about the technical side of it and I quickly lose the will to live.

And if it is available, what do people think of it?

DirectX 10 was released with Vista, ie its in the operating system.

There is a lot of debate over DX10, mostly because it isn't going to be released for Windows XP. People seem to be having a some issues with Vista as a gaming platform, so people are annoyed that they can't stick with WinXP and still use DX10.

You also need a new DX10 compatible card to use it, and the drivers for these cards were original quite bad on Vista, though this seems to have been improved a bit.

As very few people have the ability to run DX10, and because it involves such an upgrade (new card + new OS) developers aren't exactly rushing out to support the new features. id Software have stated that their new game, Rage, won't use DirectX 10. Half Life developer Valve Software have said that only 2% of Steam users have Vista and as such they are cautious about pushing the DX10 tech at the moment.

The upcoming DirectX 10.1 also confuses matters, because some of the new features are not compatible with current DX10 cards (it requires new hardware features). That doesn't mean you can't use it with your DX10 card, but to get all the new features you may need a new graphics card. Which is unusual for a point release. http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20070815123340.html

So basically Microsoft, in very MS fashion, are f**king all this up, so developers are being quite cautious.

So I wouldn't panic and think that you must rush out to get DirectX 10 or you are going to be missing out.

Azza

There is several games that use it.

Those games are Bioshock but word of mouth is it is very hard to distingish it from Direct x 9.

Company of Heroes and its expansion opposing fronts uses it for minor graphical improvements such as extra litter object and better lighting but the performance hit is way too high for all but but the most high end machines.

World in conflict uses Direct X 10 and has some distinguishable DX 10 features....I have yet to hear what the performance hit is like.
http://stage6.divx.com/user/YangXangai/video/1420094/World-in-Conflict---DX10-tecnologies

Call of Jurez again uses it but people have different opinions on weather some of the added effects are actually good. Performance hit is once again high.

There are others but I only saw anything on above titles.

Really the big dx10 show pieces will be Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis and next year probably Alan Wake. Hell Gate London may also be direct x10.

Rule of thumb at the moment if you are running games in direct x10 then apparently ATI's 2900 series offers the best overall performance but then looses to the nvidia 8800 series in nearly all direct x 9 games.

Performance on all current graphics card including the highest end cards from both Nvidia and ATI are not good enough to currently play current games in dx10 .

So the long story made short DX10 is currently not worth it. The performance hit for normally minimal visual quality improvement is not worth it. The current DX10 graphics card can't cut the mustard with current dx10 games so I would say they have little chance with future dx10 games.

Having said that nvidia's 9800 series is on the way probably in November with ATI releasing their new cards early next year. Hopefully these cards will be able to run dx10 well and hopefully support dx10.1.

Maximilian

The only game I've noticed that has distinctly improved DX10 gfx is World in conflict but then turning on all those bells and whistles affects performance, but this could be an ATI Driver problem. I'm hoping a new driver will surface soon.

layke

You guys do know that someone has cracked DX10 to work with XP?

KamiKazi

really? how?

Grim.

l33t hax

layke

I'm not sure of the legality of it so i'm going to have to refrain from linking you.

Google is your friend.

It's in Alpha version at the moment so don't expect it to run flawlessly but there is a working build out there.

humanji

Right, I thought I might as well post again in this thread, rather than start a new one. Where do you get Dx10? I just got a new machine, installed Vista (god I hate it already!), and when I installed Dx, it just installed Dx9c. And this is installing from their site, so it is the latest version from there (or so they say). Where am I going wrong?

Stephen

It is installed out of the box. Its built in to the OS.

humanji

Hmm, can't seem to get anything to realise that Even when I run the DX diagnostic tools, it says it's 9. Then again, nothing is what it should be with Vista.

Spear

humanji wrote: »

Hmm, can't seem to get anything to realise that Even when I run the DX diagnostic tools, it says it's 9. Then again, nothing is what it should be with Vista.

It should say DirectX 10 as the version on the last line on the system tab of a dxdiag. If it doesn't then get us a screenshot to see what's happening.

humanji

I'll do that once I get back home.


edit: Right, got home and was told by someone more knowledgeable than me, that Vista was f*cked. Things like Control Panel and Personal Settings weren't working, so we re-installed Vista and now seems to be working perfectly (touch wood) and DirectX is indeed V.10.

Thanks for your help guys.