DX10 Preview Mode - Is It Worth It?

[Guest TonyPiech]

I've got a DX10 capable vid card, and have been running FSX in DX10 Preview mode for awhile. But now I'm unsure if it's worth the need to run it over DX9? I can't see my progressive taxi indicators in DX10 Preview, and can't seem to assess much benefit from it. Am I missing something in this improvement? Also it's not really DX10, does anyone know when full DX10 will become available to run in FSX, if ever, and what WOW factor will it bring to FSX?Tony

[JSkorna 137]

Hi Tony,What we have now is what we will have until FS11.Preview means that, it is a preview for the future.Some like it, some don't. You are the final judge for your system and likes!!Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

[n4gix 4,947]

Considering that the "DX10 Preview" isn't much more than a DX9.0c implementation in the new DX10 Shader based code, I'm not terribly surprised that folks see no real difference......and in fact, actually see some "issues" such as the flickering as ground polys have a z-bias war, and the above mentioned problem with the progressive taxi line...It was named a "Preview" for a reason after all! :-lol

[David Roch 1,982]

Another point of view ...Using Vista x64 I get an average 40% fps increase with DX10 and a much smoother sim so I indeed see a real difference.Few problems remain though such as flickering runways, white bloom effect and navigation lights issue.

[Mike T 208]

On my rig, the DX10 preview looks worse than DX9. I can't seem to get hardware antialiasing working with DX10, plus the bleedthroughs at verious airports kill it for me.Then again, its just a DX10 "preview". It's not what the crew at Aces wanted, but was all they could deliver considering the Vista DX10 fiasco they had to work under. Look to FS11 for full DX10 or DX11.

[Guest firehawk44]

There have been several posts regarding the DX10 Preview function. Some like it, many really hate it. I like it based solely on seeing shadows in the cockpit and the fact it provides better FPS when enabled. It provides a sense of being there. I totally hate it when landing on runways with the "Z-Buffer" rendering problem which Microsoft states is the fault of the video card display drivers. NVIDIA and ATI/AMD really love Microsoft's DX10 as it increases sales because newer video cards are "DX10 compatible" and everyone wants to see what the new technology looks like. Then there's DX10.1 on the horizon and DX11. Again you will have to upgrade the video card to see what the new technology really looks like. A never ending chain and I'm about ready to break it by staying with my GTX 8800's. Microsoft supposedly is working with the video card makers when developing the DirectX technology but they didn't seem to be for DX10. DX10 was produced for Vista only and DX10 compatible video cards. I read stories where the video card manufacturers were not excited with Vista and were slow in developing compatible display drivers when Vista was first introduced. Today, the compatibility is much better. I remember FSX a year or so ago with the first display drivers developed for Vista (don't critique me on the time as time goes by fast when you're having fun!). They were full of bugs and the initial users, like me, were the beta users. FSX crashed a lot and the FPS were barely out of the single digits. Today, my FPS have almost tripled as newer display drivers evolve even though I have not changed any of my original hardware (I would assume some of that increase was not completely caused by newer display drivers but Vista and DX10 upgrades too). The technology is getting better and better but I doubt we'll see the real advantages and "eye-candy" of DirectX until DX11 and the next verions of this flight simulator program, and, sadly, you won't see it ever in FSX. Best regards,Jim