Directx 11 on Vista

[CaptScarlet]

FYI, on Windows update today is a optional update called "Platform Update for Windows Vista" which will also install DirectX 11. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971644

John

[Blackpatch]

Thanks for the heads up John. Saw the update but didn't install as I wasn't sure what it was - until now.

[AndyM77]

Shame there is only 1 card supporting DX11 at the moment....

Besides, it won't benefit Railworks in any shape or form as it's a DX9 application and the engine would need massive modifications / rewrite to take advantage of DX10.1 or DX11 paths.

The "Hardware Tessalation" is a nice feature in DX11 and probably could have been put to great use within Railworks

YouTube video and benchmark available - Unigine DX11 Benchmark tool

[styckx]

Shame there is only 1 card supporting DX11 at the moment....

Besides, it won't benefit Railworks in any shape or form as it's a DX9 application and the engine would need massive modifications / rewrite to take advantage of DX10.1 or DX11 paths.

The "Hardware Tessalation" is a nice feature in DX11 and probably could have been put to great use within Railworks

YouTube video and benchmark available - Unigine DX11 Benchmark tool

Any DX9 or DX10 rated card can utilize a lot of DX11. (So Microsoft claims) Microsoft screwed up with DX10 because you 100% needed a DX10 compatible card to use any DX10 features. That's why to date only about 20 some games even use DX10. DX11 will be much more succsessful since it's not closing the door on people with older hardware.

[AndyM77]

Any DX9 or DX10 rated card can utilize a lot of DX11. (So Microsoft claims) Microsoft screwed up with DX10 because you 100% needed a DX10 compatible card to use any DX10 features. That's why to date only about 20 some games even use DX10. DX11 will be much more succsessful since it's not closing the door on people with older hardware.

I'm sorry but you've misinterpreted what has been written. If you've got a DX9.0 card it'll only ever run the DX9.0 (or lower) instructions. A DX10.1 (or 10.0) card can run DX10.1 and DX9.0 instructions. A DX11 card will be able to run DX11 instructions and 10.1 (10.0) and DX9.0.

It's always been this way.

DX11 (or even 10.1) will not enable a DX9 card to run any quicker or smoother as a DX9 card will not understand the instructions. The only thing that new(er) DX revisions or 3 monthly 'Redist' updates bring are "optimised" DX .dll files or include security patches for things like Direct Input, etc..

So for a new game that would use DX11 you need a DX11 Compatable card - this means it'll use all the instructions in the DX11 code path. If you have an older card that isn't DX11 compatable then it'll drop down into the path that the card can use and the game can provide.

A good example of this is the new Futuremark Games Studio game "Shattered Horizon" - http://store.steampowered.com/app/18110/ - Minimum Require ments: Windows Vista/7 (Does not support Windows XP), Graphics: 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT / ATI Radeon HD 3870, DirectX®: 10 (Does not support DirectX 9)

So, with this being a DX10 exclusive game you need a DX10 card as minimum, as there is no DX9.0 code path for older cards to run. There is no magical way you could get a DX9 card to run this game even if you updated to the latest DX11 [wink]