OK, I'm firmly convinced that for Win XP, DirectX 9.0c is the
latest installable DirectX module.
But I got a casual (easy) game collection CD for the holidays
that is for Windows XP, but requires DIRECTX 9.0
in the video card and didn't like the 9.0c SW module.
I also looked into video cards to possibly upgrade
enough to run W7 or W8 fairly well and noticed
that various video cards have DIRECTX 10 or ? in them.
Apparently this opens the door to having Direct X 10 or 11
on a Windows XP computer.
Why would DIRECTX 9.0 in a vid card work better
than the DirectX 9.0c software module for a game?
Is there a lot of other software that runs on WinXP
but can even use DIRECTX 10 (in video hardware)?
It's not like these are slow computers where
software DirectX runs slow or anything...
Is hardware DIRECTX 10 or 11 fairly common
for on board video in newer mother boards?
DirectX 10 and 11 are an architectural change. As to
which element does what when it comes to graphics. The
WinXP OS is not prepared for this (and, it was done
on purpose, just to stick a knife in the ribs of
WinXP users).
Enjoy your WinXP. Enjoy your DirectX 9.0c for as long
as drivers are offered to make it possible with modern
video cards.
Once WinXP is off life support, the video card manufacturers
will not feel inclined to continue DirectX 9.0c support.
It costs them money to continue to regression test that
everything still works in WinXP, so the day after WinXP support
is dropped by Microsoft, ATI and NVidia will be "dancing in
the streets" as they eject WinXP support from their buildings.
If you like your old DirectX 9.0c video games, make sure
you've bought a card (by now) to play them with.
This DIRECTX 11 card has DRIVERS for WinXP and W7.
If the DIRECTX 11 hardware and firmware can't
be used in WinXP then what does the driver
do with it?
Would a game application actually prefer
DIRECTX 9 hardware/firmware to the
DirectX 9.0c software module?
I see a card that has shaders and stuff for DIRECTX9.
Would the DirectX 9.0c software module USE that stuff?
I found when studying upgrade options that
back when the upper CPU chips were $500
or $600 each, upgrading seemed less worthwhile
but now those same chips are $10 to $30
like the high end ones with hw Virtualization.
When a CPU that used to go for $600 sells
for $30, upgrading isn't so far fetched.
While WDDM has some backward compatibility
defined for it, there's nothing to say ATI/NVidia have to support
XDDM forever on new designs. They could drop it at any time,
simultaneous with stopping WinXP driver support.
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