Directx 10 and today's graphics cards

[jax_spades]

Okay, so I know that all of the latest and greatest graphics cards support Directx 9.0c. Will they be able to handle DirectX 10? Or should I wait to buy a graphics card, when some that are DX10 compliant are available?

IT's just funny right now, cuz it sounds like the computer world is on the verge of all new things--PPU's, GPU's that will handle physics better than the PPU's, DX10, Vista...although Vista sounds like more a pain in the but than something that is great.

So.
Should I wait? Or will an nVidia7900 or an ATI Radeon x1900 be able to work with DX10?

 

[Vile]

Yes they will be compatible with DirectX10...

Link

 

[reaper]

Okay, so I know that all of the latest and greatest graphics cards support Directx 9.0c. Will they be able to handle DirectX 10? Or should I wait to buy a graphics card, when some that are DX10 compliant are available?

IT's just funny right now, cuz it sounds like the computer world is on the verge of all new things--PPU's, GPU's that will handle physics better than the PPU's, DX10, Vista...although Vista sounds like more a pain in the but than something that is great.

So.
Should I wait? Or will an nVidia7900 or an ATI Radeon x1900 be able to work with DX10?

They will run games with DX10 but won't have all the features that DX10 provide because the hardware just simply doesnt have that potential (i.e. SM 4.0). If you need to buy a vid card right now, just buy a X1800XT and then sell it off on ebay or something when DX10 cards come out.

 

[randomizer]

Look around and you will find plenty of info on this already but to answer your question as to wheter a 7900 or x1900 will work with directx 10, no. No current video card supports dx10 at all. That doesnt mean you cant use vista when it comes out, it just means that you wont be able to use dx10 features. When it comes to games, they will all support dx9.0c for probably at least a year as well as dx10, and again you can play them but not with the dx10 features. I'm not sure about games that are native dx10 as to whether you will be able to play them at all. I mean you can play FEAR with a dx8 card if you wanted to but it would be slow and look bad. And no (to answer the commonly asked question) a video bios update will not allow a dx9 card to use dx10 features because it still has no hardware support.

Now to answer your question about wheter you should buy now or not. Well like always it depends on whether you want excellent performance and graphics now or play the waiting game and always be a few steps behind, saying "I'll just wait till xxx comes out". And when it does, something else will be just around the corner and you will want to wait for that. So it depends on a few things. What do you have now? What is your budget? How much do you care about 200fps with 8xAA and 16xAF (obvious exageration)? Do you enjoy waiting?

The bold questions are the most important at the moment. Give your system specs if you can. Hope my essay helped you.

[EDIT] Reaper has a good point about the x1800xt

 

[Morton]

I have the same dilemma. I have Athlon XP 2400+/1Gb RAM/Radeon 9700. I still play games like Neverwinter Nights, Battlefield Vietnam, Doom 3, Farcry and Thief 3. My system is quite sufficient for these, but in the future I would like to move to games like TES4: Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Crysis. The first three games are DX9 and won't probably have any kind of DX10 patches, but Crysis will be DX10. I was thinking of upgrading my computer this summer, but then I realised that Oblivion is the only game in which I would see the difference (Doom 3 and Quake 4 run fine on high details and even with 2xAA on my current system, NWN2 will be out only in the end of October, Stalker and Crysis in 2007).

It would be easier to decide whether to get a DX9 or DX10 video card if I knew exactly what features DX10 brings. Some other questions: Is Unreal 3 game engine DX9 or DX10? Is it possible that the first generation DX10 cards won't support all of the DX10 (or DX 10.1 / DX 10.0x ...) features just as Radeon 9xxx series, for example, don't seem to support some DX9.0c features (HDR) despite being DX9 cards? I would prefer to get a DX9 card if the first generation of DX10 cards will neither support all DX10 features nor be as optimised for DX9 games as the current DX9 cards.

 

[SciFiMan]

In the future a card will either be DX10 or not. MS has done away with allowing "partial" cards. There are only 3 minor optional features in DX10 that vendors can choose to implement or not. Developers will be able to count on all PC's being fully compliant when coding games. But while a current card will "work" under DX10 (using DX9 emulation) it won't obviously support any of the DX10 features. So you might consider getting a minor upgrade but I personally wouldn't get a highend card this close to year end. I suspect there are enough goodies in the first version of DX10 that MS won't need an update so soon, and by then we can get the second round of cards.

FWIW, I have a Athlon 2800+ with a AGP X1600 Pro. It's fast enough to get me to early 2007 since I have to build a whole new system (my 8 yr old will get current one). At that point I'll get mid- to high-end card, about when Vista and the first DX10 games come out. As far as I know, announced games today such as Crysis work with DX9.0c.

 

[kaotao]

OMG. This topic has been covered a million times. Take a look around, and you will find answers to all your questions.

 

[jax_spades]

Sorry, Kaotao, I didn't feel like looking through the 815 pages on this forum, or the several hundred-thousand hits on google.

So I asked you guys.
Thanks for the help everyone else!

I think I will wait to reap the benefits--I wasn't planning on building my new system til around christmas time anyways.

 

[GeneticWeapon]

C'mon man....use the freakin' search button :roll:

 

[Morton]

In the future a card will either be DX10 or not. MS has done away with allowing "partial" cards. There are only 3 minor optional features in DX10 that vendors can choose to implement or not. Developers will be able to count on all PC's being fully compliant when coding games. But while a current card will "work" under DX10 (using DX9 emulation) it won't obviously support any of the DX10 features. So you might consider getting a minor upgrade but I personally wouldn't get a highend card this close to year end. I suspect there are enough goodies in the first version of DX10 that MS won't need an update so soon, and by then we can get the second round of cards.

Thanks for the info. I hope the delay of R580+ release date will not delay R600 to 2007. If R600 will still be scheduled to the end of this year or nVIDIA manages to get AA and HDR functioning simultaneously in their next generation card, I'll wait for DX10 too.