driver updates!

I've recently installed directX9 onto a friends pc in order to play a
new game that we've just bought, however I understand that I also need to
ensure that the drivers for my graphics card & sound card are also directX9
compliant!
I've tried searching the manufacturers site & many other download sites,
yet although I can find drivers for my cards, I have no idea if they are
direct X9 compliant or not as there seems to be very little imformation
available about each driver!
Is there any way of finding out if these drivers will work short of
just trying it & seeing? Are the manufactures sites usually the best bet for
these bits of software or or there better sites that carry details of the
improvements that come with each new release of a driver?
Thanks in advance, from a pc newbie!

you only NEED direct x 9 compliant drivers if your hardware does direct x 9
stuff (like a new ati 9800 graphics card) - if your hardware is a little
older and
only supports directx8 or even 7 features then strictly speaking you dont
NEED dx9 but a new game will probably insist on it being installed anyway.
bung in the latest drivers by all means but remember to uninstall the old
ones first using Add/Remove in Control Panel.


"Timothy Lister" wrote in message
...
I've recently installed directX9 onto a friends pc in order to play a
new game that we've just bought, however I understand that I also need to
ensure that the drivers for my graphics card & sound card are also
directX9
compliant!
I've tried searching the manufacturers site & many other download
sites,
yet although I can find drivers for my cards, I have no idea if they are
direct X9 compliant or not as there seems to be very little imformation
available about each driver!
Is there any way of finding out if these drivers will work short of
just trying it & seeing? Are the manufactures sites usually the best bet
for
these bits of software or or there better sites that carry details of the
improvements that come with each new release of a driver?
Thanks in advance, from a pc newbie!

....unless the drivers EMULATE DirectX 9.

If a game *needs* DX9, then it won't work unless the drivers supply
DX9 support - even if the hardware can't do it.

"MCheu" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 03:09:39 +0100, "Timothy Lister"
wrote::

I've recently installed directX9 onto a friends pc in order to
play a
new game that we've just bought, however I understand that I also
need to
ensure that the drivers for my graphics card & sound card are also
directX9
compliant!

Here's the thing. Unless you know that your card is DX9 compliant,
there isn't any point in having a DX9 compliant driver. You won't
get
those DX9 specific features unless your hardware actually supports
them. Here's the thing. If your video card *is* DX9 compliant, the
driver supplied with it and all drivers newer are going to also be
DX9
compliant. It would be silly to have it otherwise. Just about all
drivers of recent vintage will be compatible with the DX9 runtime --
that is, it will work with it just fine, you simply won't be able to
access any features that your hardware doesn't support.

Upgrading to a newer driver won't magically give you the features
required for DX9 compliance if your hardware isn't compliant.

I've tried searching the manufacturers site & many other
download sites,
yet although I can find drivers for my cards, I have no idea if
they are
direct X9 compliant or not as there seems to be very little
imformation
available about each driver!
Is there any way of finding out if these drivers will work
short of
just trying it & seeing?

Unless the driver is older than 4 years, it will work. That is, it
will function with the DX9 runtime. If you're running a video card
old enough that it has a driver that old, you can probably forget
about running a new game, even with driver updates.


Are the manufactures sites usually the best bet for
these bits of software or or there better sites that carry details
of the
improvements that come with each new release of a driver?

The card manufacturers? In my experience, no. The chipset
manufacturers often have "release notes" either on the download
page,
or downloadable via a separate link associated with the reference
drivers. I don't know if the information is what you're looking
for,
but the release notes typically include information on stuff like:
bug fixes, "performance improvements", new supported hardware.

Thanks in advance, from a pc newbie!


----------------------------------------
Thanks,

MCheu

On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 15:46:23 GMT, "Some One"
wrote:

...unless the drivers EMULATE DirectX 9.

If a game *needs* DX9, then it won't work unless the drivers supply
DX9 support - even if the hardware can't do it.


But does (which) game actually require DX9? Perhaps DX9 was on the
installation CD, it offered to install DX9... No mention yet of
whether any attempt was made to just run the game before making OS
config/driver/etc changes.


Dave

"Some One" wrote in message . ca...
...unless the drivers EMULATE DirectX 9.

If a game *needs* DX9, then it won't work unless the drivers supply
DX9 support - even if the hardware can't do it.


Well there is that, and at one time, and in the early days of Direct3D
and DirectX in general, drivers would do that for some features. Even
now, I guess fog table is an emulated feature in the NVidia ref
driver.

More and more, however, newer hardware features aren't being emulated
in software anymore. They simply report to the runtime or the game
that FeatureX isn't available and that's the extent of it. This was
discussed a few months back as the DX9 compatibility vs DX9 compliance
debate -- forget what the subject title was.

==================================================
Thanks,
MCheu

Thanx for the help peeps! For the record, the game I'm hoping to install
is Tombraider: Angel of Darkness! I'm hoping to play it on a friends pc
which matches all the criteria for RAM, Vid card mem, CPU speed, etc.
The game installs direct X9 & will not play, insisting that the hardware
drivers are updated to also be DX9 compatable!!
I do understand that such drivers would be useless for accessing new
features on the integrated SiS630 graphics chips & am hoping that as the
video buffer is large enough, I can play the game with updated drivers?
I know that games like to make as full use of the latest graphics
features available, but it seems odd that a company like Eidos would release
a game that, it seems, cannot even be played on most new-ish pc's unless
they have the very latest hardware features?
Thanks for your comments again! I'm getting to understand some of this
stuff & certainly learn an awful lot just by lurking this group!

Ta kony! Thanks for putting me straight on my chances of getting TR AoD
to run on my friends pc! Not knowing very much about the hardware involved
to generate these DX9 features (well, any graphics stuff really!) I had no
idea whether it would be possible & didn't want to waste too much time
searching for the latest drivers etc. if it's a lost cause!
At least the time spent checking this out by posting to alt.comp hrdwr
has been more constructive in that I've learnt a lot about the reletive
merits of onboard graphics vs GPU's!
Thanx again, to all who helped for taking the time out to reply!