Importance of DirectX 9 compatability

[J.Clarke]

Hi,
I'll be ordering a system with the ATI All-in-Wonder 9000 Pro
(http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9000/aiw9000pro/index.html). I like
the card because it is relatively cheap, has on screen TV viewing
capability, and enough memory (64 MB) to drive the somewhat low-fi
games I plan on using (Sim City 4000, Age of Empires) but I am worried
because it only states having DirectX 8.1 capability. Is this
something I should worry about or is DirectX 9 not an issue for most
users? I do plan on doing some basic home video editing if that is an
issue.
Thanks for the help, Steve.

The 9000 is DirectX 9 compatible. What it does not do is accelerate the
functions that are new to DirectX 9, so if you use those functions they
are run on the CPU using the software provided as part of DirectX 9 and
thus they run slowly. FWIW, Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness, the first
DirectX 9 title to ship, works fine on an 8500DV as long as you don't
try to max out all the graphics functions. So do SimCity 4000 and Age of
Empires. And DirectX is not an issue for video editing.

 

[Steve]

Hi,
I'll be ordering a system with the ATI All-in-Wonder 9000 Pro
(http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9000/aiw9000pro/index.html). I like the
card because it is relatively cheap, has on screen TV viewing capability, and
enough memory (64 MB) to drive the somewhat low-fi games I plan on using (Sim
City 4000, Age of Empires) but I am worried because it only states having
DirectX 8.1 capability. Is this something I should worry about or is DirectX 9
not an issue for most users? I do plan on doing some basic home video editing
if that is an issue.
Thanks for the help, Steve.

 

[Mark Glover]

It shouldn't be an issue I wouldn't have thought. It states only DirrectX
8.1 because DirrectX 9 is so new they either havn't had time 2 test it or
they havn't updated their info yet. If it turns out not to work with Dirrect
X 9 (which is very unlikely) u can quite easily revert back to DirrectX 8.1

 

[Tod]

My Sapphire ATI 9100 128MB AGP
works fine with my games.

 

[Keith Clark]

There are cards that explicitly state they are designed for Direct X 9...

FX5600 based cards, for instance.

DX9 does have a security hole, and the fix for it broke PAL compatibility, so if
you're using a PAL system then you may want to stay with DX 8.1

Keith

 

[Derek Wildstar]

Hi,
I'll be ordering a system with the ATI All-in-Wonder 9000 Pro
(http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9000/aiw9000pro/index.html). I like the
card because it is relatively cheap, has on screen TV viewing capability, and
enough memory (64 MB) to drive the somewhat low-fi games I plan on using (Sim
City 4000, Age of Empires) but I am worried because it only states having
DirectX 8.1 capability. Is this something I should worry about or is DirectX 9
not an issue for most users? I do plan on doing some basic home video editing
if that is an issue.
Thanks for the help, Steve.

The posters are correct in that you will not 'not' be able to use a future
title with your video card due to your hardware not being DX9 compliant,
whatever functions DX9 would have provided will be either emulated or
unavailable, potentially effecting frame rates and cutting edge eye-candy.

However, more importantly, is a lesser considered issue of what version and
method of Pixel Shading the card is using and how is that impacted by the
titles you plan on playing. To sum up all the technical issues in a
sentence: If the game is using a certain pixel shading methodology and the
card isn't natively supportive of that, you run into a "DX9" style problem
where performance might suffer and a certain image quality element might not
look right, or at all. It's not a huge issue, but I consider it as important
as DX compatibility, and it achives lesser importance as we start dropping
the old versions of PS-ing and everyone starts doing things more or less the
same.

 

[Samuel Paik]

I'll be ordering a system with the ATI All-in-Wonder 9000 Pro
(http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9000/aiw9000pro/index.html). I like the
card because it is relatively cheap, has on screen TV viewing capability, and
enough memory (64 MB) to drive the somewhat low-fi games I plan on using (Sim
City 4000, Age of Empires) but I am worried because it only states having
DirectX 8.1 capability. Is this something I should worry about or is DirectX 9
not an issue for most users? I do plan on doing some basic home video editing
if that is an issue.

The 9000 Pro doesn't accelerate NEW DirectX 9 functionality, so applications
that require the new functionality will not run. However, I doubt there
are ANY applications that REQUIRE the new DirectX 9 functionality, yet.

You may want to look into the ATI All-in-Wonder RADEON 8500DV as well,
which is similarly priced (it's now officially considered discontinued).
The 8500DV has a faster 3D GPU, can support component video output
(for HDTV) with an inexpensive dongle from ATI, includes a FireWire port.
On the other side, the 9000 Pro has the THEATER 200 chip which has
improved video capture over the RAGE THEATER chip in the 8500DV.
I liked the single video input/output block of the 8500DV better
than the separate video input block and video output cable bundle of
the 9000 Pro--less clutter at the back of the PC.

The 9000 Pro comes with Multimedia Center 8, so you can just download
the upgrade to the latest MMC, you have to buy an upgrade for the 8500DV
if you want to upgrade to MMC 8.x.

Sam

 

[Samuel Paik]

However the Firewire port is of limited utility--there are some known
issues with it related to its access via the AGP bus.

Interesting. I don't recall having a problem with it, but I didn't
have the 8500DV for long.

However that single connector is quite fragile.

Is it more fragile than the 9000 Pro input block and the output cable
bundle put together?

Sam

 

[John Lynch, Jr.]

It shouldn't be an issue I wouldn't have thought. It states only DirrectX
8.1 because DirrectX 9 is so new they either havn't had time 2 test it or
they havn't updated their info yet. If it turns out not to work with Dirrect
X 9 (which is very unlikely) u can quite easily revert back to DirrectX 8.1

capability,

Easily to go back to DirectX 8.1? That would require a reinstall of your OS.

 

[Bo]

My experience has not been good using ATI cards in conjunction with
LCD screens, I'm guessing but it seems like they don't maintain a
sufficiently stable clock, since (for example) Windows often fails to
restore itself in the same screen position, etc. This is with two
All-In-Wonders and another ATI vid card, no problems at all with
several other cards tested. I get weary of having to fiddle with the
screen positioning & size adjustments.