Question regarding DirectX 10

I have the GeForce 7300GT SILENT 256MB graphics card and because the GeForce 7 series use DX9 I had to install DirectX 9c. The thing is, tomorrow I'm changing to GeForce 8600GT 512MB and I know the GeForce 8 series use DirectX 10 which Vista uses as a minimum. I checked in the DX Diagnostic Tool for which version of DX do I have cuz I installed DX9 it said that I have DX10 installed. Then I checked the Vista Help and Support and it says that DirectX 10 is the minimum version of DX Vista supports.

So, finally, my question is:

When I change my graphics card tomorrow, will it be running with DX10 right away or is there anything I need to do?

DX10 will be active once the card and driver are installed. Just install the latest nvidia driver and you will be set.

Thank you very much.

Make sure you do this:

1. uninstall nvidia drivers
2. boot in safe mode, and use 'Driver Cleaner' for your nVidia Drivers
3. reboot in regular, and install new drivers (even if they're the same ones)
4. reboot after install...

This is the ONLY sure fire way to avoid bad installs and errors or driver corruption.

eh, i just put the damn thing in and then uninstalled the old crap after. Had no problems at all. And you don't need DX10 to run Vista!!! You need Vista if you want to use DX10, lol you have things mixed up. It's just microsofts scheme to make everyone get Vista

ussually this works fine, you'll only get problems sometimes when you try to reach higher clocks.... (overclocking.... see BlazingPC-Overclocking Forum)

and that's exactly rigth, you need vista for DX 10, but not a DX10 card to use vista, vista will run DX 9 of course!!


Also, rumour has it (i'm pretty confident this is true) that XP SP3, yes i said SERVICE PACK 3 will support DX10 or even DX10.1

I'm not using Vista cuz of DX10. I just wanted to make sure about the whole DX10 thing and my VGA swaping.

What about if I install Vista on a PC that has the GeForce7 series that don't support DX10? Do I have to install DX9c?

Yes you would use DX 9.0c then. Besides you can only use DX10 on new games, anything made before DX10 will be DX9 or lower. But newer games will also support DX9 mode even though they are capable of DX10 also. People who have DX8 cards will be left behind though

OK. So let me just get this straight:

1. Does the DX10 has all the DX9 files too, so when a game doesn't support DX10 it switches to DX9?

or

2. Do I have to install DX9 and then each game chooses it's corresponding DX version?

Sorry for the maybe stupid sounding questions, but I'm really new to Vista so I don't know how it works and that's why I came here. Thanks again to everyone for their replies.

Lets put it as simply as possible All your DX9stuff will work on Vista natively. No need to install DX9, DX9 and DX10 are already there

Just put the card in and no more worries except the latest driver for your card.