Direct X 10.1

[=USOR=Oleg-Russia]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Cheeseman

Yes, you need Vista to run DirectX10 and Vista Service Pack 1 for DirectX10.1 if you have the hardware that supports it. Sadly I purchased a notebook too soon as my Geforce 9 series card only supports Dx10.

I blame Canada, because the same laptop also had the option of an ATi Radeon HD 3650 which supports Dx10.1, but it took forever for it to arrive in Canada.

I found on russian site directx10 for xp so you can play games on xp with dx10 and you don`t need to install vista like i have it now.But soon wanna switch back to xp

[[R-DEV]Cheeseman]

Originally Posted by =USOR=Oleg-Russia

I found on russian site directx10 for xp so you can play games on xp with dx10 and you don`t need to install vista like i have it now.But soon wanna switch back to xp

Aside from small issues I'm happy with Windows Vista. Even though I'm running the 64bit version I haven't had much trouble with Serivce Pack 1 installed. Anyways, I suggest you go for an ATi HD 3870 as it's between the 8800GTS and GTX in power and actually quite cheap for a Dx10.1 card.

[Lexus@[gp]]

As I see it, there are only a very few games that run on dx10 at the moment, and even less that will run ONLY on dx10. It would be financial suicide for a games developer to create a game that is not backwards compatible.
So I would not worry too much about being bang up to date with a 10.1 card, as if people on here are correct, the differences are going to be so minimal that it will not be worth the extra outlay.
The best option is probably to wait until new 10.1 cards are released (nvidia as these are always the most popular). If there is a huge difference then get a 10.1 card, and if not, do the sensible thing, and get a 8800 series card which will then have really come down in price.
If you are like me, the only game I play is pr, my comp runs it fine, so is it really worth the outlay now, for something you dont need yet?

[nicoliani]

At the SIGGRAPH graphics conference, Microsoft gave a presentation detailing some of the changes coming in DirectX 10.1. Those that are interested can view the presentation slides here. The highlights are as follows:
DirectX 10.1 is a series of extensions to DirectX 10
It's supported by upcoming graphics hardware, but not current DX10 hardware
It requires (and will be part of) Vista Service Pack 1
This is business as usual, as far as DirectX is concerned. DX 10.1 hardware will be backwards compatible with DirectX 10, but current DX10 hardware won't be forward compatible. So games looking to support DX 10.1 still need a DX 10 rendering path to support today's DX10 cards. Think of it like when Microsoft released DirectX 9.0c with added Shader Model 3.0 support. Also, don't worry too much about it requiring SP1 (which isn't out yet). The DX 10.1 SDK only recently was made available, and by the time supporting hardware and DX10.1 are released to end users somewhere in the first half of 2008, SP1 should be readily available.
What are the changes? DX 10.1's goals are to offer the "complete" DX 10, giving developers better control over image quality and making mandatory some of the things that are optional in DX 10. For example, 32-bit floating point filtering is optional in DX10 (16-bit FP filtering is mandatory), but will be mandatory in DX 10.1. Also, in DX 10, the number of multisample anti-aliasing samples is optional—DX 10.1 will make 4x AA mandatory, and require two specific sample patterns. Graphics cards can offer more sample patterns, and developers can query them in their shaders. Graphics cards that are DX 10.1 compliant will have to offer programmable shader output sample masks and multisample AA depth readback. Game developers will be able to index into cube maps and perform bitwise copies from uncompressed textures to block-compressed texture formats.

If that's a bunch of gobbledygook to you, don't sweat it. The main takeaway is this: DirectX 10.1 is a straightforward incremental update to DX 10 that forces graphics vendors to adhere to a few more set standards with regards to image quality and a couple other under-the-hood graphics features, mainly to give games more control over image quality.

Microsoft Presents DirectX 10.1 Details at SIGGRAPH - Technology News by ExtremeTech

[nicoliani]

If somebody feels that Microsoft was too quite about 10.1, then here is already news about DX 11.
Something that will probably come with VISTA SP2 and be introduced sometimes in 2009, probably the beginning. It will be based on x86 and Intel's ray-tracing technology.

Tech ARP - Ray Tracing To Debut In DirectX 11