Just wanted to pass this along. Looks like a different DX10 game (BioShock)is getting some pretty decent results on a DX10/Vista setup. From Toms Hardware. Check it out here:http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2007/09/18/dx10_part3/

At last a game that has better performance under Vista than under XP. But still the difference is marginal, as is the quality difference; nothing like the step change in performance that was claimed by those extolling DX10 and Vista's virtues. Notice I use the word 'claimed' rather than 'promised'. We are not children having temper tantrums when promises are broken. But we are people who have paid money for expensive hardware and software on the basis of the performance claims made by supplier companies. These claims have been shown to be inaccurate. Those making these claims did so either knowingly (a falsehood) or unknowingly (incompetence). There is no third alternative.Either way, folks who have already shelled out their hard earned for Vista and DX10 cards will see little discernible benefit before their investment is made obsolete by DX10.1 cards. Not a good outcome for PC gaming and will certainly not help stem the tide of console games.Cheers,Noel.

>Either way, folks who have already shelled out their hard>earned for Vista and DX10 cards will see little discernible>benefit before their investment is made obsolete by DX10.1>cards. Not a good outcome for PC gaming and will certainly not>help stem the tide of console games.Hmmm... I generally agree on being disappointed when it comes to the DX10 marketing and how it was used to sell Vista. However, marketing aside I don't think such a morbid view is justified just yet. If you look back at the evolution of graphics feature sets, almost without exception by the time the features were used effectively in games there newer generation cards were already available. Don't ever by new technology without expecting it to become quickly dated... though that doesn't necessarily mean what you bought is worthless. These features are not magic ingredients, they are tools and it takes time to learn how to use them effectively and find the most effective ways to benefit the overall product. Give it another year before passing judgement on DX10 as a whole... even the games that come out with 10.1 support may still run much better on DX10 than they would have on 9.

There's hardly been any real DX10 games released yet guys. Everything thus far (including Bioshock) is a DX9 with DX10 support added after the fact.Wait for Crysis, that's gonna be the first real killer DX10 app. Out November 16th.

And the Crysis demo is going to be out in a couple weeks according to popular rumour.I don't usually play 'games', but I'll probably make an exception for Crysis. I look forward to seeing how well it works on my new Asus G1S notebook.Bryan

These are interesting times because we have an opportunity to compare DX9 performance and visuals versus those of DX10. When we come to the point that games are no longer released for both platforms, it'll be a lot harder for us to figure out what that gap would be like (and a lot easier for the developers and manufacturers to claim great increases in performance and visual fidelity when we have nothing to compare to).

I think the demo is out on Sep 25th.

Yeah, not a rumor, it's being released 9/25.

None of these comparison have any value relative to FSX, do they? FSX is unique in both the scope of simulation and the underlying code. One DX10 game could show a doubling of performance while FSX is unchanged. And another just the opposite. We really have to wait and see after SP2, what Vista owner's with 8800's report. Anything else is like dynamometer racing with modified cars; pretty much meaningless.Bob...

Isn't that the day halo 3 comes out? Big day I must say - Crysis and Halo, the two most popular games ever.

>Either way, folks who have already shelled out their hard>earned for Vista and DX10 cards will see little discernible>benefit before their investment is made obsolete by DX10.1>cards. Not a good outcome for PC gaming and will certainly not>help stem the tide of console games.DX10.1 WILL NOT obsolete DX10. It is an incremental update only. The updated API will provide FULL support for existing DX10 hardware and upcoming hardware that will support the extended feature set.DX10.1 will also makes some formerly optional features mandatory, including 4X AA and 32-bit floating-point filtering.Microsoft is trying to tighten the spec after their experience with DX9. With DX9 many features were not mandatory with that spec, so graphics vendors only chose the graphics elements they wanted to support. In turn this made it very difficult for developers who had to write mulitple render paths that targeted specific videocards.

BioShock runs great with almost maxed details on my setup (see specs below). In fact, ANY game runs flawlessly ... except for FSX where I am still struggeling with single digits once I load a more complex plane.Granted, AI traffic bites a huge chunk out of it for me (MyTraffic), but... it shouldn't - with a only few dozen (visible) planes running on a pre-defined, linear, not-really-intelligent (AI) course.Compared to the BioShock engine (realistc water rushing towards you, hundreds of particles, incredible lighting, dozens of non-linear AI animations, super-high res textures) or Oblivion (millons of moving vertices/polygons (grass), animations, true AI, high res textures, shaders that made FSX blush, stutter/blurry-free), the FSX performance is really sub-par and feels like 2003. I know the comparison is flawed, but that's just my impression.Blame it on the engine.If a title like BioShock would run on an older engine then it would look and feel only half as good and would be "just another game" with marginal reviews and soon-to-be-forgotten.I am not an expert, but it seems that except for incremental updates and enhancements, the core FS engine is still the same as FS2002 - with some Autogen slapped on in FS2004 and some more autogen in FSX to hide the blurries and to bring even the fastest CPU to its knees with an astounding, ground-breaking 20fps that makes every FS addict yell "Hooray" that an SP pushed the performance from a slideshow to a level where the human eye almost thinks it is really stutter-free. Meanwhile other engines deliver 100+ fps in a similar setup.X-Plane? 60-70 stutter, blurry-free fps here - with autogen, superior shaders, volumetric lighting. Search for "X-Plane Promotion Video" on YouTube. Now take that talent of one man and translate it to a much bigger team, like Aces, and compare it to what we currently have with FSX.Pixel shader 2.0 has been around since DX9 (2002) and has made it into FS in 2006. And even in 2006, the performance hit is enormous (water). So much for innovation - or Aces.Not to be a party pooper, but to stay realistic: I mean what innovative and ground-breaking games have Aces released? MS Train Sim? They're really not known for their superior graphic engine coding on a level like ID, Crysis, Unreal and others. It almost seems that their main engine coder has quit in 2002 and that others have been hired to stitch the pieces back together and inject some marginal enhancements.I somehow think that FS is still being developed in MS C++, while many, many newer and faster compilers, interpreters and languages have taken its place. Python anyone? Phython is tailored especially towards AI and lightning-fast data processing i/o (used in Eve Online, etc.). But MS would never use anything but a MS product for their engines. My hypothetic statements are maybe not as far-fetched as it might seem... but... I am not an expert, so it is only speculation.Pat

DX10.1 cards are a new generation that will be faster than the existing hardware. So in that sense they will make existing DX10 cards like the 8800GTX obsolete. Further, in another thread, Phil Taylor suggested that SP2 may use some DX10.1 features under the covers (not for rendering). He agreed that this meant new DX10.1 cards may run FSX SP2 better that the existing DX10 cards, even though FSX may look the same.Fair enough?Cheers,Noel.

>Further, in another thread, Phil Taylor suggested that SP2 may>use some DX10.1 features under the covers (not for rendering).>He agreed that this meant new DX10.1 cards may run FSX SP2>better that the existing DX10 cards, even though FSX may look>the same.Well... yes and no. What Phil meant was that DX10.1 will bring with it certain system-level improvements which automatically affect ALL DX10 games (wether 10.0 or 10.1) when run through DX10.1 on any DX10.1 hardware.So you're right in the sense that the DX10 version of FSX will benefit from some of the things done differently with DX10.1 software and hardware.But it's not accurate to say that Aces are changing something with SP2 to specifically take advantage of DX10.1. DX10.1 software and hardware just happen to do some things differently which will supposedly benefit all DX10 games.