vista, dx10, and gaming

[guitarxe]

i've read a lot of good things and a lot of bad (more of those) things about vista, and right now i have absolutely no desire whatsoever to install vista. that would be easy if not for the fact that i am a gamer, and new games and games after them are and will be using dx10 for the best visuals, and alas dx10 is only for vista.

so now i don't even know what to do. will dx10 ever be out on any other platform other than vista? how big of an improvement is dx10 over dx9? with new video cards that are coming out which are designed to support dx10, will there be a point in buying them, even if i'll probably never use vista?

has vista changed any of it's junk from the time it was released, or is it still the same junk as it was?

 

[Scotteq]

First off: Vista at it's release, and now, is FAR FAR BETTER than XP was at the equivalent points in it's development. Most of the noise to the contrary seems to come from people who have apparently never used it... Yes, there are incompatibilities with existing hardware/drivers. And if you have an older system there is almost no reason to upgrade. But neither is it the horrible abortion many would have the world believe.

Regarding DX-10: There will be no updates announced or planned for older hardware and operating systems to make them compatible. My understanding of the reasons why is that the changes from 9 are deep and differ significantly at a deep enough level that MSFT deemed it not economical to make it backwards compatable and/or upgradable. There was some noise on the web about some person(s) supposed porting over. But they also wanted the general public to send them money to pay for it, which stinks to high heaven of a scam.

But if you think you want Vista just for DX10, then don't bother. There are *no* games on the market written for DX10. They are all DX-9 with extensions for whatever subsection of the newer spec the devs could work in so the marketing guys can write "DX10" on the box.

Save Vista for your next build.

 

[guitarxe]

hm, i like that answer thanks

to be more clear, the only reason why i want vista IS for DX10 (because after all, what else has vista to offer other than DX10 that XP can't). if somebody can assure me that the new games (the ones coming out in 08) will look just fine under DX9, then i'll be one happy gamer.

but still my question about the video cards stands. if i'm not going to be using Dx10, would i really need to buy cards that support it?

 

[Scotteq]

No, you don't really need to buy cards that support DX10. But if you're going to replace your card with something worth running, you won't have much choice in the matter anyways.