Does installing DX10.1 matter?

YOU KNOW THE graphics wars are heating up when the 'presentations' start to fly. The latest one is from NV talking about their upcoming 8800GT/256 which will be out soon, but it is the header that makes me think it is more than innocent advertising. "Kevin Unangst, Senior Global Director for Microsoft Games for Windows: " DX10.1 is an incremental update that won't affect any games or gamers in the near future."

The difference between DX9 and DX10 is astounding, according to Microsoft, but I would say it is not leaps and bounds over dx9 right now. Microsoft says it is superior to dx9, but they don't really tell you why or how. What we were told is that DX10 is an API more efficient than DX9 for certain effects. Unfortunately, the new version of DX10 is targetted only to function on Windows Vista. Ie, it is Vista only: If you ever want DX10, you will have no choice but to upgrade. DX10 is pretty much the same speed as DX9 in Bioshock making DX10 a sort of hoax IMO.

The number of games using DirectX 10 keeps growing day by day. And the reason is that the latest batch of mind-boggling games can only be enjoyed with an exceptional graphic card, which is DX10 and SM (Shader Model) 4. There is no games right now built as a 100% native DX10 game, though. In the future, some games will use DirectX 10 to improve performance, while others will use DX10 shaders to improve graphics. Few games currently support this upgrade, but highly-anticipated games such as Hellgate: London, Crysis, World in Conflict and Age of Conan will be DX10 enhanced. Lucky for the XP users, 0nly a few games right now are listed as going to DX10(Vista) "only" games.

Looking at the landscape as things stand today, Nvidia has the best DX10 hardware, simply because Nvidia has the only DX10 hardware on the market. They were the first company to launch DX10-compatible graphics cards in November 2006 with the release of the GeForce 8800, older brother to Nvidia's new addition to Dx10 cards the 8800Ultra. I think nVidia is doing a great job, they are the first company to supply DX10 cards, can ATI/AMD get you ready for the release of Vista yet. Wow, the Nvidia 8600 series DX10 compliant cards to sell for around $150. The newest Direct X won't be as expensive as most imagine.

As a rule, DX9 performance far exceeded DX10 performance. Sure, there are a few where it does overcome the performance deficit, but they are few and far between. At the moment Nvidia and ATI are more focused on DX9 than DX10 and I'm sure you can understand why. Performance is lacking in my opinion in DX10/Vista but there maybe a time were that will change but right now bang for buck just isn't there.

It should be remembered that a big portion of DX10 is internal restructuring that is completely independent of the GPU used. This is because DX10 is a standard, not a performance variable. Dx10 is Microsoft's way of force-feeding the most unwanted OS since WindowsME down the gaming public's gullet. Personally, this is the only reason I'm interested in Vista, and I think many gamers feel the same way.