New DirectX Update

DirectX update for November.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&DisplayLang=en

 

Do these updates ever get published through windows update or do you always have to download them manually?

 

Thanks bud.

Looks like you are going to be doing lots of reviews in the future!

 

^ Heh taking requests, not demands. Probably will have enough money for 3 games and play some on friends' comps so it sorta depends on what I want and can afford.

 

Hey when i install it says ...windows has detected a newer or equivalent version of directX has already been detected and installation is not necessary....but i have updated one month back so mine is not latest...

Is there any way i can confirm i have the latest directX ?

 

Sweet, thanks for the heads-up.

 

cool thanks

 

Same question...can windows updates be configured so we get such updates automatically?

 

Go to Start->Run->dxdiag. This will give you detailed information about the version of DirectX you are running, including individual libraries.

Also, most security updates for DX are made available through Windows Update, so that's another way to check.

Regards,

z.

 

Thanks for informing.

 

I can't believe what i am seeing....it says directX 10 !!!

 

its impossible ....can u tell me why its showing dX 10

 

Of course it's showing DX10, that's the version you have installed.

 

meaning? directX 10 is only for new gen games .....it works on 8600 and 8800 ultra....

i thot mine is 9.0c

can u pls clear my confusion

 

Your card may not be able to utilize DirectX10 functions, however DX10 itself is essentially just a piece of software, which comes preinstalled on Vista. Your card will utilize the legacy DX9.0c shaders included with Vista when playing games (DX9.0L).

 

Q: What's IN the update?

 

I always have errors with the user runtime. I have to wait for the redist to be available.

 

Just so you know, there's absolutely no reason to install this. Every game that uses DX ships with the relevant version of the DX runtime as well. It's been that way since DX9.0c was released some 4+ years ago.

These quarterly releases are also not backwards compatible, so *if* you insist on downloading them manually, you'll have to download *every* single one of them. Which means 50 or so separate downloads.





Why bother, when the ones you need come with your games anyway?

 

That's excellent advice right there. The only reason to get all those individual packs is if you are developing games for a next-gen version of DX and need to test it with different configurations.

The versions that show up on Windows Update are security patches. I highly recommend installing them if they show up. However, the rest is mostly for a very niche market (fixes for certain computer configurations, alternative algorithms for certain other configurations, etc).

Regards,

z.

 

DX is backward compatible.

Having the most up-to-date version of the files often helps ignore incompatibility problems BEFORE you install.

DX10 is also a work-in-progress. Each update has helped performance or compatibility to some degree and is worth the few seconds it takes to update with the latest refresh every so often.

The web install detects what you need and what you already have and downloads the packages you are missing.

Also recent games (Bioshock, Hellgate London, etc) want you to download the latest DX refresh and won't play without them.

Why take care of this manually?
Maybe you like having maximum performance and a minimum of incompatibilities...

FYI, RUNTIME patches are for end-users to run the program optimally... SDK packs are for developers.

 

Yes, but these releases aren't. They only update D3DX, a utility library many games use, which is *not* backwards compatible. DirectX itself hasn't been changed since DX9.0c which came out years ago. (Not counting DX10, of course)
What these updates include is (from the download page) "the bi-monthly D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX components".
Here, just for you, I just ran the installer, so I should now have the latest version of DX9. Now look at the age of the file please:

Er no, because the game installs the exact version they need, and have been tested with.

And the only thing you're needing is this month's release of D3DX, which is installed by the games that need it. Except you don't need it because you don't yet have any games that are going to use it.

Or you could just let their installers deal with it, like the rest of us did. Bioshock played fine for me.

Maybe painting your PC red will make it go faster too.
Maybe there is no performance or compatibility difference.
Maybe you have heard of the term "placebo effect"?

I didn't claim otherwise.

 

Maybe telling your PC "deserters will be shot!" will eliminate BSODs...

 

Actully I can think of 2 games that required a manual update before they would work. Bioshock was one, and I forget the other off hand (want to say the orange box) but bioshock would not even start without the DX update and the game itself did not update it.

I had several things get fixed when I updated manually to the newest DX for august.

 

Oo, I've got to try that.

Seriously? I must have gotten that update already from another game then. That does surprise me though, because it's been standard routine for games installers for years. You'd think a high-profile game such as Bioshock at least followed the most basic rules. Didn't it have that "Games for Windows" stamp and everything?

Not really. Not in DirectX itself. In D3DX and other utilities, yes, but as I said, those aren't backwards (or forward) compatible. The game always just uses the exact version it was made for. If a newer version is installed, it's ignored. That's why they're all separate DLL's (d3dx9_23.dll, d3dx9_24.dll and so on)
It does mean they can have security updates applied to them (which is generally done via Windows Update), but the functionality of these libraries is never updated, because that would break a lot of existing games.