DX 10.1 will not require a new video card

Rilla927 · Aug 14, 2007

Microsoft's Sam Glassenberg told Next-Gen in a phone interview, "DX10.1 fully supports DX10 hardware. No hardware support is being removed....It's strictly a superset. It's basically an update to DX10 that extends the hardware functionality slightly."

He said that the update is similar to what Microsoft did with DX9. "We did make updates to [DX9] that extended the supported feature set.

"All the hardware is still supported, all the games still run, all the features are still there, we've just simply extended the feature set and the lifetime of the API," he said...

Glassenberg conceded that "There will be new features [with DX10.1], and those features may be exposed on new hardware, but this is similar to the model that we had with DX9...[except] with DX10.1, we're saying [to developers], 'if you want to support the new features, you have to support all of them [including original DX10 features].'"...

Even though DX10.1 will support current DX10 graphics hardware, today's DX10 hardware will not be able to support all of the features of DX10.1, which includes incremental improvements to 3D rendering quality....

Glassenberg also addressed rumors that DX10--currently exclusive to Vista--would be coming to Microsoft's Windows XP. It seems that DX10's Vista exclusivity is unlikely to change.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6824&Itemid=2

Rage_3K_Moiz · Aug 14, 2007

They still say that some features will not be supported. I can't trust to what extent that statement is true but at least it gives some respite from the 'buy-a-new-card' thingy that was going on. Although I'm still unsure as to how much we can trust SP1 to 'fix' Vista.

sghiznaneck · Aug 16, 2007

I agree. I agree that you have to upgrade to "stay ahead of the pack", but after plunking down $600 bills for the 8800 GTX card when it first came out (which can now be had for $400 and some change, and then expecting us to plunk down a little more for a NEW DX10.1 card (which I haven't even heard exists or is in development), is a bit of a stretch. It's a little much to expect us to dump 1/3 of a monthly pay check (the lucky ones, anyway) for an upgrade to a new card when there is no mention of any major card manufacturers even discussing one on the drawing boards. Besides, it's a little tough to resell the original card when most gamers haven't even upgraded to a PCI-e compatible mobo yet. Not only that, if it is true, NVIDIA and ATI stand to lose bucoup bucks on standing inventories of the original DX 10 cards.

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DX 10.1 will not require a new video card

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