DX10 Graphics that much better than DX9???

[myth8892]

Myself and my son both run win xp, I have a copy of windows vista ultima 32 bit and was thinking of giving that to my son and buying myself either another copy or Vista home premium 64 bit.
We both are running 4gb of ram and for now, are not planning to upgrade on ram, I was just wondering if the graphics are that much better in DX 10 compared to DX 9, Neither one of us do anything but play games and Surf the net.
The only game we both plan on playing, will be AOC.
Should we take the plunge???

[CandymanCan]

Yes

[enteon]

don't know if you know it, but a 32bit os is able to use 3.5gb of ram max. 3gb are more likely. if you have a lot of vram on you graphics card, those 3gb can be further castrated. but every application can still only use 2gb of ram.

anyway, if dx10 games used ray tracing, they would just look :banana::banana::banana::banana:ing awesome :shocked:
but as far as i know, they don't. but one that does is in development, i think.

in case the game was properly coded, dx10 looks better and is faster while displaying the same quality, therefore looks better while using the same amount of resources.

crysis is not a good example... :rofl:

hopefully half-life 2 episode 3 will be dx10 :)
because the source engine is being ported to linux :woot:

[Yukon Trooper]

If you're stuck on Vista you may as well. Right now there isn't a huge difference, but it will mature and show worthy improvements in the future.

[zanzabar]

the only game thats good in dx10 is assassins creed the rest are just kinda meh its a little better

also dont get HP get biz, but overall if u have the ram needed at a good speed and a good fsb on the chip then vista is great but on a 266mhz fsb with some 800mhzc4 or 1066c5 u wont be to happy

[myth8892]

Right now my setup is a Matx board, G33m-d2sr by gigabyte, I am running the e8400 chip at stock speed (don't Know really how to OC yet), I am using X-fi xtreme gaming card, G.skill pc8500 2X2 kit, I have the EVGA 8800 gts (g92) card, everything is at stock, Havent OCed anything as of yet.
My son setup is basically the same but he is using the evga 750i motherboard, but with only one gpu, same as mine, he is also using the G.skill ram but the 1000 version not 1066 like mine.
I have a copy of 32 bit vista ultima like i stated, can get another copy for us for 30.00, having a college student get me a copy. But i was always hearing that the 64 bit version was more stable, and stated before, neither of us do anything but play games and surf net, So in reality i think the 32 bit version would be good enough but if people say i should get the 64 bit version i will, of course that copy would go to me and he would get the 32 bit ultima :D.
And i will get the business version like suggested above if i do get the 64 bit version.
I bought another copy of win xp the other day from Microcenter, haven't opened it yet, but i can return it and get vista if need be, that is why i was asking all of this.
Of course we want the best graphics we can get, eye candy is nice, so that is why i was wondering if it was really that much of a difference.
Since AOC is supporting DX10 as well as DX9, but if DX10 looks that much better than 9 version, i would go get another copy of vista.
And thanks for your replies, so far it has been helpful.

[Brian MP5T]

enter the bios...

set your FSB to 1400 and hit F10

Your memory is rated for 1066Mhz..

that will greatly increase you Frames with the dual video card..

[zanzabar]

u can use any key for x86 or x64 is they are the same version, but i like the x64 better

and biz is the same as ulti but no bit locker and no media center, and unlike HP it has networking tools, the full set of admin tools, domain groups, user groups, and the backup utility

[SoulsCollective]

don't know if you know it, but a 32bit os is able to use 3.5gb of ram max. 3gb are more likely. if you have a lot of vram on you graphics card, those 3gb are further castrated. but every application can still only use 2gb of ram.
Please make sure you know what you're talking about before you post.
If a computer has a 32-bit OS, it will therefore use 32-bit addressing. The 32-bit wide address allows the processor to address 2^32 bytes of memory, which is exactly 4,294,967,296 bytes, or four gigabytes. As said above, the amount seen is often less than this, due to memory mapped I/O. Memory-mapped I/O places memory which is visible to a peripheral on the system bus (like a graphics card or HDD) in the address space of the processor. To communicate with the device, the processor can simply write the data into the range of memory the device has mapped into its address space. While significantly faster than using a specialised bus for I/O access, this means that the amount of DIMM RAM that your system can see is equal to 4GB minus all peripheral memory.

@ OP - for more on the subject of 32-bit OS RAM limitations see Here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=186194).

On the topic at hand, however, DX10 does not give at present huge graphical advantages, primarily because developers have yet to learn to code for it. The API does offer the potential for both prettier and more efficient games, but this has not yet been fully taken advantage of.

You're not losing out on much at present by sticking with DX9.

[myth8892]

Thanks very much soulscollective for your imput as well, I believe what i will do, is take back the win xp i bought my son, Let him have my copy of winxp and get vista 64.
At least if i have any problems with it, I can resolve them myself for the most part.
@Soulscollective---Since i am going to take back the win xp, I might as well try vista myself, Which edition of the OEM 64 bit would you suggest? as stated above, business was recommended, Is that cool with you?
I understand currently hardly any games actually take the full advantage of DX10, but they are being written now, and i guess i might as well get ready for it, and if i have bugs or what not, I can at least hammer them all out.
Many thanks to everyone and the replies i have received, YOU all have helped me a great deal.

[SoulsCollective]

Personally I'm using Business x64, because I have no use for Media Centre but quite like the backup and security/networking features in Business. As of yet I haven't come across any bugs or instability, and am loving Vista compared to XP - on a 4GB machine it's a lot snappier and boots faster than my old XP Pro x64 install (same hardware). It'd be worth your while doing a quick Google first to make sure that you have all the drivers you need - I rather shot myself in the foot on my first install, because my wireless NIC didn't come with Vista x64 drivers, and so I couldn't get any net to get any drivers for it :rolleyes:

[enteon]

Please make sure you know what you're talking about before you post.


um... your second quote said the same what i said... just unnecessarily complex. ;)

[SoulsCollective]

um... your second quote said the same what i said... just unnecessarily complex. ;)
No, it didn't. You told them a 32-bit OS can support a max of 3GB of RAM, and that video cards will reduce this to below 3GB. This is wrong.

[myth8892]

Ok, I ordered vista 64 business with SP1 today and should arrive friday evening.
Do i have to do a fresh install on a formatted HD? It is the OEM version of course,
Also i have win xp pro as well, and was going to put it on another HD for my son, But i already had to call in last time when i installed it, Will it be ok to reinstall and have to do another callback??
I would rather just give him this HD with it already loaded but all my MB drivers are on it, that's about the only difference but i don't know how to remove them before i give the HD to him for that we could
install the new drivers off the 750i on it.
I have appreciated all your help guys and i am glad i am taking the plunge into 64 bit vista, a bit nervous, but glad.

[enteon]

This is wrong.

This (3 to 3.5 GB) is right for 99% of 32bit people and all they have and want to know.


I would rather just give him this HD with it already loaded but all my MB drivers are on it, that's about the only difference but i don't know how to remove them before i give the HD to him for that we could
install the new drivers off the 750i on it.

you can boot from that XP and uninstall all board related drivers in the hardware manager, don't you?