ati x1700 and dx 10

will dx 10 work with an ati x1700

 

shortly said, no.

This is not the end of the world though as for a few years to come all games will be both DX10 and 9 compatible.

 

i have been waiting for crisis the second edition of farcry for pc but its only dx 10 compatible is the nvidia 7700 compatible with dx 10

 

If i remember correctly there is a testing of crysis on DX9 and DX10. So i would assume that Crysis will play on a DX9 video card. In fact many people, including my self, didn't see much of a different between DX9 Crysis and DX10 Crysis.

 

There is a possibility that it could work at some point soon, the Alky project is developing a DX10 wrapper that should eventually allow DX10 games to run on DX9 hardware and they claim that most of the DX10 features can be implemented under OpenGL on high end DX9 hardware and a good CPU.

They have an early alpha version to download, but apparently it just runs the Nvidia tech demos, slowly and very buggily, however it might mature into something big.

http://alkyproject.blogspot.com/

 

Guess i was wrong =\

 

I dont think that project will ever be used for anything. It is just a bunch of people playing around. And even if it works it doesnt mean any games will support it.

Crysis has 2 modes directx9 and directx10 with the x1700 you will be able to play it in directx9 mode. I dont know anything about the 2nd edition of Farcry but I strongly suspect that it will also have a directx9 version. Only some MS games might be directx10 only (and the x1700 will not be able to play them) since MS will try to push Vista that way.

 

Well I admit that the project may come to nothing as many minor dev efforts have. However I don't see how game support is an issue, if you write a wrapper for DX10 calls then it should, barring bugs work on all DirectX 10 games.

 

I think it would work something like this:

Game checks for Vista (only OS with directx10 support) if it finds XP then it starts in directx9 mode.
Or
Game checks for directx10 card. Finds only a directx9 card so it starts in directx9 mode.

Maybe you can trick the game into thinking that you are running Vista and have a directx10 card even if you dont but I dont think this is part of the project.

 

Even if you can trick a program into thinking you have a DX10 card, it isn't going to do much. DX10 functionality requires specific hardware on the GPU...hardware that is not found on DX9 chips.

 

Ahhh yes I know. But we were talking about that project ( http://alkyproject.blogspot.com/) that plans to make directx10 work on directx9.

 

Well, that will allow DX10 exclusive games to run (if that project actually works). But DX10 eye-candy will not happen on a X1700...it is my understanding that this project will approximate the visuals in DX9 as best it can.

 

In theory you could probably do all of the Direct X 10 eye candy under Direct X 9 just by translating each DX 10 call into multiple DX 9 ones. But in practice I don't know whether it would be feasible or worthwhile.

I think I remember reading some comment about their eventually wanting to port the project to OSX and/or Linux, so they might be wrapping the calls to Open GL rather than DX 9. I don't know if this changes anything though.

 

Well, since it required a new version of hardware (Shader 4.0, etc) in order to even do DX10 commands, I find it difficult to believe that you'll get DX10 graphics even if the project is completed. Until DX10 cards had come out, they had to do super-slow software emulation to even render a few pictures to make public.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if somehow MS managed to shut that project down. Vista is their new baby, and they don't want the rattle (DX10) stolen and given to an older kid (XP).

 

I think the point of the project isn't to get DX9 cards to function as gimped DX10 cards but to just try and get DX10 only games (see Vista) to run on XP.

 

You are probably right, but still it could come in handy and if completed it removes one of the very few reasons to upgrade from XP.

 

also- microsoft isn't about to start making directx 10 only games.

microsoft is a software company- even if they feel like being dirty - they will simply make "vista" only games that can use directx 9 hardware to optimize their profit. Which, to the end user, means that even though you have proper hardware (and competent software - xp) to run a game, you will still need to shell out for vista to pay Micro$oft's bank account

i cite Halo 2 pc.

 

I wouldn't worry about not being able to run games on dx9 graphic cards for a while. Right now the DX10 cards are just coming out and I would guess at most 5% of the gaming market has them. In addition only Vista supports DX10 and even fewer gamers are moving to that OS right now. If you have a DX9 card you will have no problems for at least a couple of years, and most likely longer.

 

My uncle is a lawyer for EA and he claimed that M$ has been exerting pressure on them to do Vista only releases but that they didn't have much interest in doing so.