Vista - Latest DirectX Update

Redist is all the files web update only downloads the files needed to update.

thanks alot mr.dmex

One thing that isn’t apparent in the discussion here and I think it needs to be said. I’m new to Vista, so while this might be apparent to some of you guys rading this thread, it wasn’t to me.

Vista comes with DirectX 10, and DirectX 10 does not fully support all functionality of earlier versions such as DirectX 9, DirectX8, etc.

So, if you want your older games to work on Vista, you need to load the November DirectX 9c SDK described in this thread

My son had a game, Star Wars: JediAcademy, that didn’t work and asked me to look at it. The one clue was that the game gave an error saying something to the effect that his computer didn’t support 3D graphics. I thought, boy that’s strange. When I got to poking around on the system and then on the internet I discovered the DirectX 10 SDK documentation. It says in plain language that DirectX 10 doesn’t support all the functionality of DirectX 9. Then I found a blog where a person said to do this download to fix my son’s game on Vista.

So, Ouch, you might ask, “Why Microsoft would ever do that?” I don’t have the answer, but this download adds DirectX 9 and earlier functionality while it seems to leave Direct X 10 intact. I haven’t tried to verify but I assume it has to do with Microsoft’s Side-by-side technology (WinSxS directory).

All I really know is that after loading the SDK pack, my son’s game ran like a charm!

You are for the most part correct, you are understanding most of what DirectX10 does when it comes across a DX9 game, but you can't think of it as something that makes a game work, you need to interpret it as an emulator, or backwards compatability. With all programs on PC theres only so many systems it will run flawlessly on, when I come across a DX9 game i always install the DirectX that comes on the disc, albeit whether its DirectX 9 or 10, I can guarantee if there is any issues with a game, it will not be because of DirectX

Hey Tom,

You are correct to an extent however the documentation is kinda misleading on that subject...What Microsoft means is they made DX10 incompatible with DirectX 9 games because DX10 was rewritten with new features requiring the core code structures supporting DirectX be changed to support the amount of new featues they implemented...If they allowed DX10 to be compatible with DX9 it would break every last DX9 game trying to use the DirectX functions because they would end up calling the new functions instead of the original DX9 functions the game was built to use... (95% of the DX10 fuctions have identical names to DX9 fuctions so developers dont get confused about a function purpose going from DX9 code to DX10 code)

I did compare the DX9 functions with the DX10 fuctions found in the DirectX SDK for VisualStudio a few months ago while I was bored and I saw it supports far more features and functions that DX9`s codebase was ever able to sustain (it appears they made DX10 really modular so they could continue adding more and more Functions for game developers even after DX10 passes its used by date )

I hope it clears that up a little for you about what Microsoft was meaning to say by that statement

Steven

I have been reading all the posts and I probably sound stupid for asking this but are these downloads compatible for Vista 32-bit Home edition? Also, doesn't this download render older versions of direct X9 and X10 useless? I bought my computer only 2 months and I have been getting a lot of problems with it.

It works with all flavours of XP and Vista, the only difference is whether you need the x86 or x64 download.

And no it doesn't make the older versions useless, it will update those older files if there is an updated file and add any that are missing. If you use the web update it will only download the necessary files; if you download the redistributable you will get all the files, but when you run it it will still only install/update those files that are new and/or changed (and you can delete the downloaded/installation files when done).

Dear All,

I am new to Vista, and installed Vista Eternity downloaded from "AiO Forums".
Q1, Is there any installable DX10 for XP?
Q2, Its showing DX10 in my DirectX configuration window (Vista Eternity), But i am unable to get the DX10 support for games like Counter Strike Source..

Thanks,
Senthur

Q1 - No.
Q2 - Not sure what you mean by Vista Eternity, but the CS forums should have extensive information on how to force games to use Dx 10 - of course, your video card will also need to support Dx 10....

New versions - so hot off the press that not everyone has linked to them, and parts of M$ still lists November release as the latest.

Download details: DirectX End-User Runtime

Download details: DirectX Redist (March 2009)

Can you please tell me the difference between to two links above?