MS Vista and Nvidea - interesting Papers.

[Manny 1,293]

http://www.nvidia.com/page/technology_vist..._techbrief.html

[Guest wyoming]

that existing Nvidia cards with the GPU 6xxx, 7xxx etc. are Vista ready? I am also at a loss about figuring out what is going to work with what... DX10 with existing cards? With XP architecture?

[W2DR 1,860]

It seems to me that, at this point, "Vista ready" isn't really meaningful except for driver support. What's critical with any new video card is whether or not it's DX10-compatible. Notice that the Nvidia folks aren't claiming that the current cards will work with DX10. I think we may see the first DX10 cards sometime this summer (pure speculation). DX10 will only be available with Vista. There will not be a DX10 release for WinXP. But, Vista will also work with DX9 - sort of the best of both worlds. The initial FSX release is going to be 32-bit DX9, so it will run with either WinXP or Vista. Will there someday be a version of FSX (or a patch) that will allow for DX10? Will there ever be a 64-bit version of FSX running under Vista? Only the guys at MS know those answers.Doug

[Guest EdrickV]

A little digging turned up this:http://www.nvidia.com/object/windowsvista.htmlWhether that means those GPUs will support DX10 or not I'm not entirely sure."Let me help you out. You're cleared to taxi any way you can to any runway you see."

[W2DR 1,860]

I'm not sure either. I think they're saying that all the cards will at some point support all the Vista features including DX10 but they seem to assume that the reader knows that the current cards will not. I'll sure be glad when the first of the year gets here and all this is behind us. Kind of makes my head swim...Doug

[Guest GabrielR]

isn't it weird?We are living exiting times. For the first time in the history of FS we know about the developing new version of the Sim, but also, for the first time we know nothing about the futurue of what surround its release, DX10, WinVista, 64bit support.... As you said, in a years time everything will be unveiled and we will be posting whishlists about FS11.

[W2DR 1,860]

Interesting times indeed. I'm just disappointed that I'll have to wait so long before upgrading my aging computer. But I don't see that it makes any sense to change anything now. Once we get FSX released I think the hardware picture will become much clearer - at least as far as the sim goes. What I can't get a handle on, though, is how much benefit we'll get from Vista and a DX10-compatible GPU. I really don't want to have to change to Vista in the first year but if the performance benefit for FSX is great enough that would change my mind. Either way, I guess we'll know the answer(s) about this time next year.Doug