dirext X 9 or 10?..

which one should i download for my computer? i read somewhere that 10 doesn't work as well for some games as for 9.. but if im going to try to be playing the latest games, shouldn't i pick 10? or..

 

You have both installed, but get to choose which method you want games to run in. With an 8600m GT, there's a good chance no game is going to run well in dx10 on your computer.

 

If you are talking about the download from microsoft's website, ALWAYS get the newest DirectX because it contains all of the previous DirectX files in it. In other words, get DX10 and it will come with DX9.

You got stuff a little mixed up. Games that use DirectX 10 run slower than DX9 games. This is not because of the version of DirectX people downloaded, but because of the games themselves. Games will automatically opt to use the version of DirectX they were built on, unless they are DX10 and offer both options. For example, if you load up Team Fortress 2 the game will run DX9 even if you downloaded the DX10 installer.

The only reason you wouldn't really want to download DX10 is if you are running Windows XP, in which case, it really doesn't matter which version you download, only the DX9 will run.

 

Not everything DX10 will run slower.

AFAIK Bioshock runs in DX10 mode at the same speed as it does in DX9, but it looks a little better with some things (smoke particals and shadows).

 

If you have an XPS1730 then DX10 is likely to run smoother because the system hardware is powerful enough to run all of the new eyecandy and not impact fps at all. Most laptops with DX10 cards will probably see performance losses when in DX10.

 

Rather, it's the graphics card that makes the difference there, as anywhere. The 8700M GT will do DX10 tolerably with some games; with the 8600M GT it's right on the borderline of not worth it, depending on how many graphics settings you've turned on for the game. Regardless of the card - laptop or desktop - running a game in DX9 mode will give you better performance than in DX10 mode. DX10 is simply more demanding.

 

Specifically an XPS1730 with 8600GT in a working SLi configuration. Don't own a DX10 game yet but I've read enough to know that I won't be doing DX10 mode anytime soon.

 

Ah, SLI 8600M GT might be OK for some DX10 games as well. You should try the Crysis demo, since it's free. That would give you some idea.

 

How do you switch between dx9 and dx10?

 

Vista enables DX10 by default, for games like Crysis and bioshock you will have to edit the command line by adding -dx9 at the end of the .exe target.

 

I was actually just refering to some DX9 vs DX10 benchmarks done on Bioshock. I think it was an 8800 or something, anyway DX10 gave the exact same FPS as DX9.

EDIT: Now i just searched for this i found one showing the opposite. lol..

 

DX10 is a completely new way to do things... and supposedly 3x more efficient.
DX10 really only offers better modeled particles as the new "eye candy". Everything else DX9 can show you.

Note that "new" means the programmers have to learn new tricks and frankly that's an uphill battle.

Yes, current DX10 games perform less well than the optimized DX9 games...
However, it has nothing to do with a fair comparison of DX9 and DX10.
Driver maturity, Vista not being SP1, and just plain stubbornness of programmers and people comparing DX10 with AA on to DX9 with AA off are all hurting DX10 right now.

DX10 Bioshock is a LOT better than DX9 Bioshock.
People keep comparing average frame rate and not minimum.

 

DX10 is still fairly new to shine. DX10 and Vista go hand and hand with each other. Vista is still buggy and I imagine DX10 has issues to with compatibility, etc. Anyways, DX10 will not prevent you from playing DX9 games which majority of the games display in.