What are dx levels?

[Joel]

I noticed in Steam-related games that if you are having sound troubles you
are suggested to change your "dx level" to 90 or 80 and even lower to see if
the problem is not resolved.

What are dx levels? And are there really sound card/video card problems that
adjusting dx levels can fix?

 

[Pennywise]

I noticed in Steam-related games that if you are having sound troubles you
are suggested to change your "dx level" to 90 or 80 and even lower to see if
the problem is not resolved.

What are dx levels? And are there really sound card/video card problems that
adjusting dx levels can fix?

Believe they are referring to DirectX
Start | Run <type in> dxdiag <enter>
To find your version.

It's not usually wise to downgrade DirectX

 

[Bob I]

You set it in your launch options (see below)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Steam+DX+level

Third and 4th hits

 

[Joel]

You set it in your launch options (see below)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Steam+DX+level

Third and 4th hits

LOL! Yes, but what is it? What is its purpose? I knew how to set it. It can
go from 95 to 70 and the cmd is -dx95 or -dx 75 etc. Try to find that in
google for me plz

 

[ChrisC]

Hi, I believe what is being referred to is not actually downgrading dx but
using a switch or parameter in the game's exe which can force the graphics
to use a lower dx level. It is fairly well known option to get a
underpowered card dx9 to use dx8 instead of dx9, thus masking it's
inefficiencies, but with reduced image quality. The full list is here
http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/Materials/shader_fallbacks.html
ChrisC

 

[Bob I]

LOL! Yes, but what is it? What is its purpose? I knew how to set it. It can
go from 95 to 70 and the cmd is -dx95 or -dx 75 etc. Try to find that in
google for me plz

Contact Valve.

 

[Joel]

Thank you Chris. That is the answer I needed and I have seen on some of my
games that it said "dx9 video card required."

 

[paulmd]

Thank you Chris. That is the answer I needed and I have seen on some of my
games that it said "dx9 video card required."

It does sould very much like the DirectX interface version.

It sounds like a way of resolving hardware incompatibilities by using
an earlier version of the directx interfaces. Directx9 includes the
interfaces for versions 7 and 8.