One of the biggest things that has been brought to the table lately is this new DX10 update called 10.1. This is a sales pitch that everyone has been flashing in front of your eyes to make you sit up pay attention and make you think you need it. Do not be fooled and sucked into this MicroHype called 10.1. It is nothing, means nothing and will not even be implemented into games in the next six months to a year. Direct-X 10.1 is being used as a sales strategy and marketing tool by both ATI and NVIDIA and in fairness NVIDIA now supports this stance of 10.1 being a non concern.
So the latest 3D VGA cards support the DX 10.1 API so what, it does not matter to you me or the man on the moon at this point. Do not buy any product for the sole reason of DX 10.1 compatibility is just MicroHype. It was rumored a few months back the Direct-3D 10.0 would not be compatible with your older DX 9 or previous game titles in Windows Vista. This has proved to be false and older games play just fine in Vista, whether it’s a new game or old. The only difference will come in the features supported by its version of the Direct-3D API. Hence DX9 games will not have the options turned on that DX10 or even 10.1 games do, but they will still run within their own parameters.
There a few things that D3D and DX10 bring to the table that should improve visuals and performance, but nothing to be a catalyst for buying a new 3D card are warranted. Cube map arrays are a new feature that helps bring together different layers in a 3D rendered scene, usually nothing bunds these layers together, but the implementation of Cube Map Arrays allows those area to be filled for a more realistic look. Cube Map Tables are now done in 3D supporting the Cube Map Arrays; previously all CMT was done in a 2D format. Shader core technology gets a face lift via Shader model 4.1, which increases the input and outputs of vertex Shaders to go from 16 (128-Bit Floating Simple Precision) to 32. The main goal of the new DX10.1 model is to improve the way games look by better Antialiasing and better processing of 3D information. The thing is, how much of this new technology will really help and when will we actually be able to visually notice a difference in our games?
