directx 10

[preet]

Hi.
Is it advisable to someone who want to buy a vga card to wait for new cards which will support directx 10 or to buy one which has a good performance, hoping it will be compatible to directx 10.

thanks.

[Wandrille]

well right now there's only one gpu that is directx10 compatible and that is the geforce 8800 chipset
and i would advise waiting unless if you really want to spend a lot of money on a new graphics card that has the geforce 8800 chipset

[preet]

Hi.
the question which arises is, will the expensive vga cards which are now suporting directx 9 will benefit from directx 10 later, in some way?

[jlreich]

the question which arises is, will the expensive vga cards which are now suporting directx 9 will benefit from directx 10 later, in some way?
In short, no they will not benefit from D3D (DX10).

If you want to play the upcoming high end games get a D3D card and run vista. DX9 cards will be compatible with DX3D, but from what I unsderstand they will run under a DX9 emulator in Vista which wil require some overhead to accomplish. Which means a hit to performance.

I wouldn't spend anymore than $200 on a DX9 card right now unless you plan on staying with XP for quite some time and you just can't afford an 8xxx series card. If you want to spend more than that move on up to the 8800 cards, or hold out for awhile until there are more version of them available and prices drop even more than they have since it first came out.

Personally I just bought a 7900GS ($170) and I am very happy with it. I usually upgrade my v-card about once a year and plan on staying with XP for at least the next year as my main OS, or until or it just isn't reasonable to stay with XP anymore, so I'm good to go for the next year. But although I am gamer I am not an extreme gamer. I personally don't care about D3D at this point in time. But that's just me.

You need to ask yourself do you plan on moving to vista? Can you afford $350 or higher for an 8800, or wait until the prices drop? Do you want to play the upcoming D3D games at very high settings?

[saphalline]

D3D 10 compliance is very specific, as the others have mentioned. You either have a DX10 vid card or you don't. DX9 vid cards are incapable of running DX10 at all. D3D 10 requires a unified shader architecture, which DX9 GPU's/VPU's do not have. No way around that. It's a very hard line between the two.

So if you want a DX10 compliant vid card right now, it must be a GeForce 8800 GTS or GTX. If you can wait, more budget-friendly D3D 10 vid cards will be emerging soon (within the next 6 months). If you can't wait, just buy a decent DX9 vid card for now and start saving up for a DX10 monster later.

[preet]

what i think is vista will render our life a bit difficult here in mauritius. first of all vga card like the geforce 8800 cost you two of salary and those high end cards which today supports directx 9 cost 1 month of salary. and vista is priced like buying a new pc here. well people around here will be very reluctant to upgrade till the price drops to its maximum.