DX10 cards wont play DX9 games?

I heard that if I get a DX10 gfx card in my laptop it won't be able to play any older games (or at least not well/without glitches). Is that true? And does anyone know when DX10 cards are coming out?

 

That sounds completely bogus. There's no reason DirectX 10 capable GPU's couldn't handle DirectX 9 games; any more than a DirectX 9 capable GPU couldn't handle a DirectX 8 game.

I don't think there's been any official word on DirectX 10 capable cards for laptops. On the desktop the GeForce 8800GTS and 8800GTX are already out. ATI is supposedly close to releasing the R600, which is their competitor to the GeForce 8 series. Nvidia also apparently has the GeForce 8600 coming out soon,which will be a more affordable DirectX 10 capable GPU.

-Zadillo

 

Wrong. Very Wrong. DX10 card play DX9 games well, very well infact. A single 8800GTX puts out 300 FPS in FEAR easy, on DX9 drivers. DX10 drivers may lead to even better performance after the bugs are worked out.

 

obviously not as the 8800GTX (a DX10 desktop GPU) plays DX9 games fine, in fact it plays them better than just about any DX9 GPU.

 

DX10 chips in a laptop have the same guts as it's desktop counterpart, so it would run just fine.

 

Ok thanks, maybe some games wont work because of bugs? But they will fix them? Maybe? Because I heard that some older games (like DX 9 games, like AOE3 didn't work too good in DX10/vista). Or maybe I just didn't understand what I heard.

 

Well if you through Vista into the equation a few games might be a little problematic but that is only because Vista is a bran new OS, so a few things will probably be a little bumpy at first but will eventually get smoothed out. But from what I have seen Windows XP has been running DX10 hardware fine so most likely Vista just needs a few drivers optimized.

 

Well, I have played all numerous steam games, Dark Messiah, Far Cry, Quake 4, all of the CoD's, C&C's, without any problems on my 8800. Although these are newer games, they did run without a hitch and ran at huge FPS.

 

Vista is actually going to ship with DX9.0L that will run when DX10 isn't. So if a game isn't DX10, it will use DX9 DLLs and code. If it's DX10...well, it plays using DX10 code.

 

Hmm...this may be a silly question, but do I need to have Vista to run DX10, or will it just be a download from MS's website like when you update to a newer version of DirectX 9C??

 

DirectX 10 is Vista-exclusive, so you will need it. DirectX 10 would also depend on a DirectX 10 capable card.

Supposedly there is going to be a new version of DirectX 9 though that will essentially have some of the same capabilities as DirectX 10, but I haven't heard much about it lately.

 

Yikes, I got my DX10 card, but looks like a may need a copy of Vista then, I guess I will wait and see how it all pans out. I won't be really concerned with it at the moment, but once the games start coming out (Crysis), I will be!

Woo hoo, 1000th post!

 

congrats on 1000. And thanks guys, anyone know if any dx10 gfx cards for laptops are in the works? How long did it take them to implement DX9 cards?

 

Where'd you hear that? That goes directly against what Microsoft has said. (which of course doesn't make it impossible, just unlikely)

 

That is kinda an unknown right now. There are rumors that a DX10 Asus notebook MIGHT be coming out in as soon as a month, but as far as I can tell they are just rumors for now. Of course now that Vista is officially out there is going to be a landslide of new DX10 tech and games coming out soon most likely.

 

Just something I'd read in a few articles, but nothing substantial.

The gist of it was basically that although DirectX 10 itself would only come with Vista, there would be an update to DirectX 9 (DirectX 9D or whatever) coming out as well that would offer at least some of the DX10 functionality (I'm not sure what the requirements would be though; I'm guessing this would essentially be for people with Windows XP + a DirectX10 capable GPU).

I agree it would probably be unlikely, but it seems like something that might make things somewhat easier. Guess we'll wait and see.

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35110

 

Ahh, yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.

Not much detail there. From the sound of it, it sounds like it is more about just making DirectX 10 games work under XP, but probably not offering DX10 features (even if you have a DX10 card)

 

They had it wrong.

DX9L is for backwards compatibility of DX9 in vista....

 

How does that work? Wouldn't DX10 on Vista already include that backwards compatibility?

Would you have to install both DX9L and DX10 on Vista? I don't get it.

 

I dunno, but they are already installed...

 

Soonest I've heard discussed is March-April timeframe. But no one really knows for sure. There's some conflicting rumors out about the new ASUS laptop (A8Jr). It may or may not be a DX10 part. No one (includeing ASUS or AMD/ATI) is saying anything official.

If your hardware won't support DX10, then you will run DX9L (Legacy) in Vista. DX9L may give you a few new bells and whistles (over DX9 C in XP) but I doubt it.

 

Ok thanks, I'll wait then March/April isn't too long to wait, but I hope Dell gets one then, not only Asus. And although this is unrelated:

I heard about Santa Rosa or something (lol) what is that exactly? (It had a spanish/mexican name).

 

i think is a dual core centrino processor abyss

 

Santa Rosa is the codename for the next iteration of the Intel Centrino platform. You can read more about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrino#Santa_Rosa_platform

It's not completely unrelated, as this is also expected in April. It will also help in getting the full benefit out of the current Core 2 Duo chips (which are currently still running on the older "Napa" platform).

 

what is centrino anyway? i thought it was just what they called processors in mobile laptops...
lol
so those NBs right now with C2D doesnt have centrino?

 

Centrino is the overall brand name for the entire Intel mobile platform.

The link I posted to above explains it:

 

Ok so a new mobile processor is due out at about the same time as the mobile DX10 cards right? All the more reason to wait then.

 

yeah that's right i guess
but whats up with a centrino 2? i dont understsand how its gonna differ....

 

I'm not sure what Centrino 2 refers to (EDIT: Just looked it up, apparently Centrino 2 was a name used to refer to what became the Sonoma platform, which has already been out). Centrino Pro is going to be the official name for the "Santa Rosa" platform, which will contain the following improvements:

The next generation of the Centrino platform after that is the Montevina platform, which is due in 2008, and will have the following improvements:

 

is the x3000 going to be any good?

 

I recall there being some initial reports that weren't very pretty (some indicating worse performance in some cases even than GMA950), but I am not sure how legit they were (since I think they were probably done with premature drivers, and maybe not even complete hardware).

Now that we are seeing desktop machines at least on the market with X3000 graphics, hopefully someone will do some benchmarks, etc. to see how the final product performs.

But I am not sure I'd expect anything significantly better than GMA950 though; it seems like the goal of X3000 might have been more about supporting some new graphics stuff, but not necessarily offering much better performance. I just mean, I wouldn't go in expecting it to perform like a GeForce 7400, necessarily.

 

thats terrible
hopefully nvidia and or ati will come up with a next gen dx10 laptop card (i think everyone on this forum including myself is waiting for this lol)

 

Well, again, we don't know anything for sure. At least initially the concern was that the X3000 graphics were built around the idea of supporting additional shaders, etc. but not necessarily offering better performance. But I don't know if this has been demonstrated in any real world tests yet. As I mentioned though, now that we're seeing computers show up with X3000 graphics, hopefully someone will do some benchmarks and we'll be able to see for sure.

 

The reports of X3000's getting sub-GMA900 performance are grossly mistaken - they were done using drivers that didn't support most hardware acceleration and thusly the processor was doing an unreasonable amount of graphics processing that will be placed on the X3000 itself in the final driver release.

nVidia is having problems with sub-par performance due to bad drivers, too - for isntance the 8800GTS is frequently outperformed by the 7950GT in games due to the horrible state of the current 8800 series drivers.

 

cmon cant wait til june.
what of the x2300 thats apparently coming out with the asus aJ something?

 

Say since the GMA950 is run primarily through software shouldn't it support DX10 with maybe a bios or driver update? I am probably wrong, but it seems possible.

 

Cool, that makes sense.

Are you aware of any more current benchmarks, etc. that do show what can be expected from X3000? Is it in fact going to be a significant performance boost? I'm kind of curious what people will be able to expect from it. Would be nice if people who are stuck with integrated graphics (either because it's the only thing available or just the only thing available cheaply) will be able to get better performance out of it.

 

I was able to download a directX 9 driver unto my 94 dell optiplex GX1. Would my 2006 A8Js be able to download dirextX 10 drivers?

If I were to rank my X3000 Aptonline desktop (5.6 ghz dual core) I would rank it as a midrange notebook. Definately better then my friends dell 6400 (with x1400) but not better the x700. (FPS wise)

 

DX10 drivers will only work under Vista. Even then, since your laptop's GPU is DX9...you won't get to see DX10 graphics effects.

 

if i played a game (aka crysis) on xp with a dx9 based card would it run or would i have to have vista to even run that game? cause i know that dx10 is with vista but would the game run in dx9 version on xp?

 

That will depend on the question if Crysis supports DX9 or not... if it does, you can run it, if it doesn't, you probably can't...

 

No, they were based on incomplete data. But as far as I know, we don't have much better information now, so it's too early to say they were mistaken.

Are they? Under Vista, you mean? Or in general?

 

nVidia is currently looking at a potential lawsuit because they haven't been able to get decent Vista drivers out...

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/02/nvidia_lawsuit_vista_drivers/

 

Crysis (and every DX10 game I've seen mentioned so far) will run on DX9 and XP. For several years game makers will be supporting both levels of DX.

I've got an Intel x3000 GPU (integrated) in my desktop, and ATI 200m on my laptop. I don't play any modern games (only old nintendo emulations) so I can't speak to FPS on games, but both systems do OK for the occasional photo or video editing. I'll try to find some GPU comparisons out there.

I wouldn't expect the mobile x3000 to be any different than the desktop version, with reduced clock speeds. Still wiki seems to suggest that the hardware is DX10 capable - maybe just a flash update?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA

 

At least with the upgrade program and the workaround you can actually install the full version.

 

Yea, definitely a plus!

 

This upgrade "workaround" has been around for just about every MS release I can remember. My first MS product that wasn't included in a computer was Office 2000...and yup, that's how I got it.

I'm 100% certain that MS intentionally leaves these doors open for the public, as if/when that knowledge gets out people will consider it quite the deal and be more itchy to purchase it. It works every time...

 

Very true! Good marketing strategy. It is certainly making me itchy to buy it!

 

Is this a reference to the thing where you can do an install with just the Vista upgrade disc, and run it in the 30-day trial mode, and then do an install of Vista from that point (i.e. without needing a previous version of Windows)? Or is this something different?

-Zadillo