Directx10

If your vid card is "Vista ready" does that mean that it is Dx10 compatable? If not are us guys with 7900/7950 GTX cards screwed in the near future? Im sorry but upgrading a vid card in a laptop is generally not very cheap or easy.

 

No. It just means it can run Vista Basic at the lowest settings. In other words, it means nothing.

 

You're not "screwed in the near future" though. It's going to be a while before we see games offering support for DX10 at all. And it's going to be much much longer (3 years at least, I'd guess) before we see anything *requiring* DX10.

 

Yeah, and in 3 years, any gaming computer is gonna be pretty outdated anyway, so you're really not screwed. Just not on top of the heap for as long.

 

That is not true at all. A 7900GTX for example can run Aero perfectly, but it cannot run Aero's special features which are DX 10 only.

Being Vista ready means that you have a notebook that can run Vista fine. A DX 10 card is not a must, but you can understand that it will make Aero look better and it will be compatible with games like Crysis. DX 9 is also compatible with Crysis, but DX 10 will look much better.

Charlie

 

Yes, which is why I said that it CAN run Vista Basic at its lowest settings, which you indeed CAN do with a 7900GTX or X1950XTX. If I had said it can ONLY run Vista Basic at its lowest settings, then I am totally wrong, but that is not what I wrote. In other words, I meant that some machines (if any) that are released now WITHOUT the badge means they CANT run Vista Basic at its lowest settings.

 

What do you define as lowest settings? A 7900GTX will run Aero fine, but it does not support all the eye-candy. So saying that it will run at lowest settings is a bit misleading dont you think.

Charlie

 

Aero is written on DirectX 9 not 10. Vista includes DirectX 10, this means any game that require DirectX 10 will run on Vista no matter the hardware revision of your graphics card. Game creators will recommend a DirectX 10 compatible graphics card eventually and it will allow DirectX 10 games to run at their highest level. DirectX 10 games will run alot slower on a DirectX 9 revision of a graphics card.

 

Err, no clue what you mean. Obviously, "lowest settings" means "without all the eye-candy". I thought Budding's post was perfectly clear. Yours seems a lot more misleading, no offense.

If a card can run Vista at Vista's lowest settings, it means it can run Vista *without* all the extra eye candy. Similarly, "highest settings" means "with all the eye candy enabled".

I really don't see how that can be misleading

True

Nope.
Vista includes DirectX 10 and 9 (or 9Ex, aka. 9.0L).
Any game that requires DX10 requires a DX10-compatible graphics card. It simply won't run on a DX9 card because the required features aren't supported. However, for the foreseeable future, games will be written primarily for DirectX 9, though some will offer DX10 versions as well for those who can run it.

But there is no way you'll be able to run a DX10 game on a DX9 card. (Well, technically there is, if you download the dev kit, have access to the game's source code, and don't mind running with software emulation and framerates around 0.2... But for all practical purposes, you can't do it)

 

My bad. Didn't realize it was a complete disconnect, I thought the slightly modded 9L allowed 10 features to be simulated on 9 hardware.