DX10 cards won't be ontop long...DX10.1 already in the works

[GuS]

Yeah. Can't say I'm looking forward to finding out either way. I'm not big on spending money, lol.

[Aynjell]

Originally Posted by Dil-tech

New revisions of DX require new videocards.... It's microsofts way of helping out the GPU makers.

Also, afrakes, remember the difference between dx8 and dx8.1? It was quite a difference in pixel shader quality.

Whereas OpenGL favors the customers, it doesn't require new GPU's (most times) to use the new libraries. Often enough, the cards are just too slow.

[GuS]

I've never actually followed the improvements in OGL . . . kinda forgot about it entirely to be honest. Nothing I play uses it anymore.

[Dil-tech]

OpenGL has always been by far my favorite, sad that very few companies pay attention to it these days.

All OpenGL 1.4 cards were able to do OpenGL 2.0 with a simple driver update.

[eatdirt40]

my 9800pro ran on vista beta2, and it said that was directx10. Maybe im missing something

[ether.real]

you are missing something. All you need is a DX9 card to run Vista Aero. AFAIK there is no DX10 on the beta.

[Dil-tech]

You can install a higher directX version on a card than it supports, but it won't use the features of that DX version.

[john_spit010]

Originally Posted by Dil-tech

New revisions of DX require new videocards.... It's microsofts way of helping out the GPU makers.

Also, afrakes, remember the difference between dx8 and dx8.1? It was quite a difference in pixel shader quality.

But that didn't stop people rushing out and buying the GF3 then later GF4. Which neither were DX8.1 compliant

[GuS]

Yeah but I mean - GF4 was just . . . how could you not go out and buy one? They were incredible at the time. Still work with new games today.

[WEAK]

If it comes down to getting a new card for the new DX10.1 etc version coming out later. Hopefully the new cards will perform faster.

[Dil-tech]

Originally Posted by john_spit010

But that didn't stop people rushing out and buying the GF3 then later GF4. Which neither were DX8.1 compliant

Dude...

http://www.nextgenelectronics.com/xfx4600.shtml

The Geforce4 was the card that brought DX8.1 to the table, DX8 was brought with the Geforce3.

This, and the overall amazing power of the card, were the key selling points of the geforce4.

[john_spit010]

It was the Radeon 8500 that brought DX8.1 to the table not the GF4. Both the GF3 and GF4 did not support PS1.4, they only supported up to P.S 1.3. Which is also why some games worked on the 8500 based cards but not the GF4. i.e Battlefield 2.

[Dil-tech]

In a word, wrong john_spit...

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,86947,00.asp

NVidia expects games that exploit such GeForce4 features as DX8.1 support to be available shortly (including Star Wars Online and Comanche 4). But past experience tells us most of these games are unlikely to appear before year's end, so some users may be best served by waiting a bit for prices on the top GeForce4 Ti cards to drop. But if you need more speed at the highest resolutions now, a Ti card may be for you. Meanwhile, GeForce4 MX boards offer a good value for casual users.

http://www.hothardware.com/viewartic...id=295&catid=2

nfiniteFX II Engine:
This feature is exclusive to the GeForce4 Titanium. It is NVIDIA's second generation Pixel and Vertex Shader Engine with full DirectX 8.1 compliance.

I'm telling you...The GeForce4Ti series was 100% DX8.1.

[john_spit010]

If you still don't believe me take a look Here and here

When ATi introduced Pixel Shader 1.4 back in 2003, nVidia argued against it and failed to add it to the GeForce 4 line.

[Dil-tech]

I mentioned DX8.1, which was clearly on the Geforce4... Not PS1.4.

PS1.4 wasn't required for DX8.1.

This is what microsoft are changing this time, to be DX10 compliant, you must have hardware capable of EVERY part of DX10. No leaving anything out this time around.

[john_spit010]

Actually you did, with your halo comment but you edited your post and decided to delete it. Btw Did you even read the links?

The major difference between DirectX 8.1 and 8.0 is Pixel Shader 1.4 support.

Version 1.3 (DirectX 8.0a)

* nVidia GeForce 4 Ti / Go 4200 series (not MX)

Version 1.4 (DirectX 8.1)

* ATI Radeon 8500 - 9250 series

[ether.real]

I am with john on this one.

[pheonix991]

Haha, ya, my mx440-8x never did dx8, just dx7. But, it did play halo at a decent speed!

[dellysmelly]

The bigger story at the moment with DirectX 10, however, is how it also forms the basis of Microsoft's changes to how Windows will treat and interface with GPUs. With current GPU designs and the associated treatment from the operating system, GPUs are treated as single-access devices; one application is effectively given sovereign access and control of the GPU's 3D capabilities at any given moment. To change which application is utilizing these resources, a very expensive context switch must take place that involves swapping out the resources of the first application for that of the second. This can be clearly seen today when Alt+Tabbing out of a resource intensive game, where it may take several seconds to go in and out of it, and is also part of the reason that some games simply don't allow you to Alt+Tab. Windowed rendering in turn solves some of this problem, but it incurs a very heavy performance hit in some situations, and is otherwise a less than ideal solution.



http://www.anandtech.com/systems/sho...spx?i=2780&p=6

[ether.real]

I think the saving grace of Vista is how little legacy code is being kept...this allows whole new ideas to be implemented that would otherwise be limited by legacy compatibility. DX10 is a perfect example of this.