o.k say if i spent about £130 on a video card pci-e vista ready etc... but it had direct x 9 suport when direct x 10 games come out would i be screwd? I was looking and it seems that games will start using direct x 10 2008 so should i hang on or not?

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/4250/93758924hd1.png
Microsoft Flight Simulator X rendered in DirectX 9

http://img309.imageshack.us/img309/421/xbu0.png
Microsoft Flight Simulator X rendered in DirectX 10


http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9550

The difference is by the look of it like going from a normal television screen to HD. Obviously DX10 will attempt to pull harder on graphics cards so only those that are compatible will really shine.

wow i see ya point...ill hold out for a dirextx 10 then

Too bad M$ is paying developers to just code games for the xbox 360. They are fucking up PC gaming just in time for this DX10 bullshit.

Also in my experience - new improved graphix tools = crappy gameplay.

Ash, if you want to take full advantage on the 2 or 3 games that might finally come out next year to take advantage of DX10, you will need a whole new PC. You might as well wait until the titles are actually released, reviewed beyond the screen shots and the real system requirements are posted(by users on the message forums of the games).

ok thnks

from what i understand of this scenario is that directx is a set of software protocols to allow game creators to code games to access the PCs hardware without the game creator knowing the specifics of the PC in question..

also video cards are compared by the memory they have and to a lesser extent how fast they can acces it. with todays computers and video cards both of these are moot points because the video card can access the motherboard memory and add it to its own on the fly. also with todays speed video cards can keep up with everything except the very latest in games.

frankly the games i play only requires an 8 year old card. namely doom and unreal. my main problem is hosting games online, not video cards.

you can download the latest directx here:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/xna/aa937781.aspx
this site can also answer alot of your questions about directx.

These images of are two seperate and different photos. When you stop looking at the sky and clouds but focus your attention to the mountain and trees there's very little difference. Remember that when trying to judge anything make sure it's the same EXACT image that your looking at.

come to thik about it the mountin is close in the first picture

The two pictures are of the same scene, just rendered with different engines (and some texture changes to boot). The mountains and trees are in the exact same positions, there is no change in their angle or elevation. (You can check this out yourself by loading something like Photoshop up and placing one image as a layer on top of the other images background, then utilising the layer transparency setting to fade the top image in/out. In fact a merged image looks pretty cool)