DX10 on WinXP... I mean 9.0L

[W1nTry]

Well this should be good news to all of us planning on keep XP until it's support officially kicks the bucket from MS.

DirectX 9.L will be a DirectX 10 for Windows XP

Apparently


By Fuad Abazovic: Monday 16 October 2006, 09:45

 WE MANAGED TO glean a few facts about the upcoming DirectX 9.0 L we told you about here.
DirectX 9.0 L is simply a renamed and refurbished DirectX 10 for Windows XP. It will make DirectX 10 games to work on Windows XP.

And games such as the upcoming Crysis won't work on the existing DirectX 9.0 c. they need a DirectX 9.0 L

One of the biggest issues is the fact that Nvidia or ATI won't have any mainstream or entry-level cards until at least mid- to end of Q1 2007. This suggests that if Vista tips up around the beginning of the year, gamers will be turned off by it.

Electronic Arts, the publisher of Crysis, wants to sell hundreds or thousands, even millions of copies and we doubt that Nvidia can produce and sell that many Geforce 8800 GTX and GTS cards.

It will be interesting to see whether the Windows XP Crysis will be different from the Vista ones. µ

So indeed the real question is what will the performance of DX10 games on XP be like with 9.0L? I am almost inclined to believe that it will suffer performance losses vs. it's vista sibling seeing as MS will be trying to push Vista to as many ppl as possible. At the same time however, it cannot afford to be a complete dead duck in the water as was pointed out, DX10 cards will be thin even after Vista launches... But then MS isn't exactly known for caring too much about their hardware counterparts, so time alone will tell.

[Prowl]

I'd expect lots of patches to speed up dx10 on xp.

[Arcmanov]

As it stands now, the majority of gamers anyway will be sticking with XP, unless some magic piece of software development on Microsoft's part allows ALL current gen games to work on Vista.  Flawlessly.

Nvidia and ATI's Vista drivers aint all that either.  I tested FEAR on Vista using Nvidia's beta drivers, and even on the lowest setting, frame rate problems galore, so PLENTY optimisation have to take place there.

Microsoft will HAVE to make DirectX 9.L work properly for XP (well I HOPE so), as I can forsee the GAMING populace out there hesitating more than a little bit to go through the hassle with an unproven OS, even if its just for Crysis.

[W1nTry]

DAMNIT TO HECK!!!!

DirectX 9.0 L works on Vista only

L is for Longhorn. D'oh!


By Fuad Abazovic: Tuesday 17 October 2006, 09:38

 UNFORTUNATELY, we were wrong about DirectX 9.0 L.
We managed to confirm the existence of DirectX 9.0L but it won't be a DirectX 10 for Windows XP. It will be the other way around. It is a faster version of DirectX 9.0 that will run under Vista only.

So I have to disappoint all of you who expected to run DirectX 10 games under Windows XP (and apologise, huh, Fudo? News Ed.) as there won't be an API to supports it.

DX9.0L is a special version of DirectX 9 for Vista only that allows DX9 games to run with Vista's new driver model. It's not possible to run D3D10 on XP without running in pure software emulation.

The D3D10 API was designed around the new driver model in Vista. In addition, Aero Glass runs on DX9.0L. Aero Glass is one of the main reasons DX9.0L exists on Vista.

Our sources also confirmed that L in DirectX 9.0 L stands for Longhorn. So we are back at the beginning - you need to buy a new graphic card and a new OS to have the hardware DirectX 10 acceleration on an API that supports it. µ

[Arcmanov]

Therefore, it makes no sense buying a DX10 video-card unless yuh buyin Vista one time.  Full stop.

[W1nTry]

Well actually arc, DX10 cards will run in XP cause they implement DX9 as well. As far as I know anys. So you CAN buy DX10 parts now even without Vista cause in the least it should be faster than existing DX9 parts.

[Crixx_Creww]

Hmm so seems like i was right about what i said i saw in the nvidia magazine

dx10=vista
dx10=new hardware

[Prowl]

I smell 3rd party patches!

[W1nTry]

I smell 3rd party patches!

Possibly but not likely as that may require someone to write a complete API for it... could be done I suppose. What I gather is that DX10 implementations work with the interface in Vista and is part of the new driver hierarchy. You need an OS with the correct API to run DX10 on DX10 hardware not just the driver.