Review questions

Hi guys

As some of you know I am soon to be reviewing the latest Zepto with DX10 graphics and HD-DVD.

What I'd like to know is:

1. Is there any current way of testing DX10, i.e. any applications released that use it?

2. Does anyone know of any HD testers floating around, preferably a HD-DVD I could get just for testing purposes?

Thanks

Jess

 

Hi Jess,

1) No DX10 titles as of yet, so try out the DX10 demo teasers from nVidia:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_cascades_home.html

2)

What? Oh that was just a random string of nonsense, just ignore it. Anyways why not just buy a cheap-o HD-DVD from Walmart and return it afterwards? If you're referring to HD-DVD players, I believe Toshiba is the only company that makes them at the moment.

EDIT:
Also, here's an expensive looking "official" testing kit:

http://www.hddvdprg.com/eng/technology/HDDVD_PRODUCT_TEST_TOOLS.pdf

Here's a software util to check your PC for playback compatibility:

http://www.cyberlink.com/english/support/bdhd_support/diagnosis.jsp

 

I was led to believe that this Zepto I am reviewing has HD-DVD. After looking on the site I'm not so sure. We will see.

Thanks for the teasers! Do they actually use DX10 or just videos of it in action?

 

As said above, NVidia has some demos out. And it says on the downlaods page that they require a GF8 GPU, so I assume they actually run the stuff (rather than just playing a video)
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_cascades_downloads.html

I'm not sure if these demos use DirectX or OpenGL. (I think DX, since it also requires Vista. I think they also have a few OpenGL demos out somewhere too, which could also be worth trying (since they make use the same features as DX10, and don't require Vista)
Alternatively, if you can live with only testing the eye candy, without too much focus on performance, you can check out Microsoft's DirectX samples in their DX SDK ( http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...a2-e953-475c-abde-f016e4f7b61a&displaylang=en )

Of course, this is targeted at developers, and the demos are meant to showcase individual features, so don't use them for benchmarking or anything like that. Still, they might be worth playing with for the eyecandy factor...
If you install the SDK, it'll install a samples browser as well as a ton of other stuff. Just start that, and you should be able to run all the samples for DX10 as well as older demos.

But mostly, I think you'll have to rely on NVidia's demos (no games out yet, and ATI don't have DX10 hardware, so they're not too interested in making demos of it )

 

It would be also great if you could get some benchmarks running DirectX 9 games - try FEAR Combat (free download/registration).

I hope you have fun with that notebook. Enjoy it while it lasts.