Current Video Cards unable to play DX10 games at all?

[Kryai]

A lot that I've read recently has people saying that the current generation of video cards will be totally unable to play any games that use DX10. This seems fairly hard to believe as it would exclude such a huge player base that can't upgrade their video cards on the drop of a hat.

My dilemma is that I would like to build two new systems to be able to play games for 2 years or so without upgrading the card. I'm willing to spend up to X1900XT level right, but if the card will simply not play any D10 games that would be a major reason for me to wait till the next generation of cards comes out. (who knows when that is anyways!)

Is it true that current gen cards cant play dx10 games in the future? Or will they just not use all the features present? Or perhaps the performance will just be abysmal where they realisitically unable to run the games very well.

I'm still waiting a bit on availability of conroes so I will be stalling a bit, maybe a month, should I continue to hold off till next generation is revealed? I'm a bit worried as I've heard almsot nothing about the coming next generation, and I'd figure that there would be at least a few random benchmarks, or something besides the revamped X1950XTX coming out. Thus I am skeptical on how so they will be released.

I'd appreciate any thoughts on this. Thanks!

 

[Kromis]

I think most DX10 games will probably accept DX9 cards too. I mean, it would be a pretty crazy move to force people to upgrade.

Games like HL2 actually require DX7 as the minimum. And I thought it required some high end cards. Same goes for BF2 too. I was able to play it with a DX8.1 card!

 

[CrystalBay]

I'm guessing from experience, that first gen DX10 parts won't be that great. look at first gen DX8, DX9.... I may be wrong but , I would skip first gen DX10 parts.

The reason being that software has to catch up.

 

[Lonyo]

Current cards will be unable to play any games which use SOLELY DX10, but the number of games that that will describe is going to be around 0 for the near future I think.

 

[nrb]

Originally posted by: Kryai
A lot that I've read recently has people saying that the current generation of video cards will be totally unable to play any games that use DX10.

Yes and no. If a game is designed to run only on DirectX 10, then current cards won't run it at all. However, it will be some time before we see any games that run only on DirectX 10. What we will see quite soon are games that provide one or two enhanced graphical features when running on DirectX 10, but which also run on DirectX 9c almost as well. Those will run just fine on current hardware.

Game developers really can't afford to insist on DirectX 10 for a while, because DirectX 10 will only operate under Windows Vista, and it will be some time before they can assume that all potential customers will be running Vista, let alone assume that all customers will be running DirectX10-compliant hardware.

One thing I would say, though, is that games which make some use of DirectX 10 will be with us much sooner than many people would have you believe. The general opinion seems to be that the developers won't even begin to create DirectX 10 games until after DirectX 10 and Vista are released. But this is nonsense. Developers have been working on DirectX 10 games for some time. And, because the release of Windows Vista has been repeatedly delayed, a number of those games will probably be finished just a few months after Vista and DirectX10 hit the market.

 

[akshayt]

I would say 1.5-2yrs down the line there would/may be games which won't run on any of todays cards. But this won't be true for all game, maybe 50-80% of them at the max.

But for the coming 1yr, todays 1900XTs should be able to run anything just fine.

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: CrystalBay
I'm guessing from experience, that first gen DX10 parts won't be that great. look at first gen DX8, DX9.... I may be wrong but , I would skip first gen DX10 parts.

You are wrong. At least as far as DX9 parts are concerned. Sure, nvidias first attempt at DX9 sucked (the infamous leaf blower comes to mind with its horrible DX9 performance), but ATIs first DX9 card, the 9700pro, was an excellent card.

 

[yacoub]

Judging by how 90+% of gamers run older hardware than most of us here, the only way DX10-only games are going to be released before 2008-2009 is if a company wants to commit suicide and not get many sales.

 

[PingSpike]

A directX10 only game would be a sure fire way to sell almost no copies. I'd say at least three years before we see any titles that lack a companion DX9 mode.

 

[imported_Truenofan]

i would generally assume, in at least a year, the x1900xt/xtx will be midrange, and the cards will handle dx10 fairly well, but not many games will support it unless they're direct ports from consoles.

 

[razor2025]

no developers would be stupid enough to create DX10 only game. So, yes for years, there will be DX10 games that offer scale down for older DX cards.

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: akshayt
I would say 1.5-2yrs down the line there would/may be games which won't run on any of todays cards. But this won't be true for all game, maybe 50-80% of them at the max.

But for the coming 1yr, todays 1900XTs should be able to run anything just fine.

I was wondering when the X1900Xts would come in... Anyway, he's right. You should be fine with current-gen cards for at least a year.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Current graphics cards will not be able to play games like Crysis in DirectX 10 mode, but games will still have a DirectX 9 mode for a long time to come just as many games still fall back on Shader Model 2.x when support for 3.0 is not available.

 

[apoppin]

there won't be any full DX10 games for at least 2-3 years
:Q

Crysis is DX9 . . . Unreal 3 is dx 9 . . . planning for DX10 is PREmature as we [including the game Devs] have NO DX10 HW [to program on].

You got some time

:Q

 

[Piuc2020]

Yeah and the 9700Pro could play later DX9 games perfectly, I mean it was just a tad slower than the 9800Pro so it could still play games on DX9 today!

Nowadays there are a few games which are DX9 exclusive and DX9 came out like 3 years ago so I say the same will apply for DX10, your X1900XT will do fine until it is too slow, by that time DX10 cards will be the standard.

Also, no problem with buying a first gen DX10 card, it might turn out to be the next 9700 Pro (or *gasp* the next 5800 Ultra)

 

[PianoMan]

My understanding is that developers will be building games on DX9, but add enhancements based on DX10 - but I could be wrong.

I agree with everyone else though - every game developer would not solely build on DX10 - I'm not planning on getting Vista anytime soon...

...of course, I say that now... :roll:

PM

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
Yeah and the 9700Pro could play later DX9 games perfectly, I mean it was just a tad slower than the 9800Pro so it could still play games on DX9 today!

Nowadays there are a few games which are DX9 exclusive and DX9 came out like 3 years ago so I say the same will apply for DX10, your X1900XT will do fine until it is too slow, by that time DX10 cards will be the standard.

Also, no problem with buying a first gen DX10 card, it might turn out to be the next 9700 Pro (or *gasp* the next 5800 Ultra)

Even better, the 6200 with 1GB TurboCache!

Anyways, if you purchase a DX9 card, you'll most likely be able to play future games.

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: Kromis

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
Yeah and the 9700Pro could play later DX9 games perfectly, I mean it was just a tad slower than the 9800Pro so it could still play games on DX9 today!

Nowadays there are a few games which are DX9 exclusive and DX9 came out like 3 years ago so I say the same will apply for DX10, your X1900XT will do fine until it is too slow, by that time DX10 cards will be the standard.

Also, no problem with buying a first gen DX10 card, it might turn out to be the next 9700 Pro (or *gasp* the next 5800 Ultra)

Even better, the 6200 with 1GB TurboCache!

Anyways, if you purchase a DX9 card, you'll most likely be able to play future games.

LOL. I just had to laugh at that one...

 

[CKXP]

by the time you buy a DX10 card, you might be seeing DX10.1 shortly after...Beyond DX 10- A glance at DX 10.1

The other question to answer (or not answer, such is the way these things work) before we start is - When will DirectX 10.1 be released? From what we've heard thus far, it appears that it may well become available not all that long after DirectX 10 itself. What isn't so likely however, is that we'll be seeing DirectX 10.1 capable hardware before or at the time of the launch of this new iteration of the API. The main reason for this will be the additional requirements necessary to support DirectX 10.1's WDDM 2.1 driver model, but we'll go into that a little more thoroughly in due course. In other words then, although we may see DirectX 10.1 pretty soon in the grand scheme of things, don't expect to be racing out to buy a DirectX 10.1 capable graphics board for the forseeable future.

 

[imported_Crusader]

Current Video Cards unable to play DX10 games at all?



Not if a publisher wants to sell more than 2 copies of their game. The masses (ie. the majority of money pool) hardly have DX9 cards.
Money rules the roost at all times. You wont see "DX10 only" games for a very, very long time.

We are just seeing "DX8 only" games now, with BF2.

 

[TheRyuu]

All the next gen games you see are actually running on DX9 and using DX9 hardware. Crysis was ran a a X1900XTX CF rig.

Not sure what UT2007 was ran on.

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: wizboy11

Not sure what UT2007 was ran on.

iirc most of the gameplay videos from last year were run on dual 6800ultra's, not sure what it was run on this year at E3 (if it was on display)

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
All the next gen games you see are actually running on DX9 and using DX9 hardware. Crysis was ran a a X1900XTX CF rig.

Not sure what UT2007 was ran on.

most rigs were either CF xtx or Quad Sli . . . GX2x2

they always use the very best systems to display the upcoming games

 

[BFG10K]

There is usually a fallback path(s) to older DX versions when games start to take advantage of the newest DX version.