Question about Directx 9 Compatability? and Radeon

[Ghosthunter]

Purchased a laptop with a Radeon 9000 Mobility card with 64 MB ram

it supposedly supports up to Directx 8.1

I noticed some new games like Vice City says it needs Directx 9

Does that mean I will not be able to play it on my new laptop?

I am pretty sure but want to double check.

Also what do you think of the Mobility 9000, I know the Geforce has a supposed better card, and the 9600 is coming out soon, but I cannot wait until they are implemented into notebooks.

[zooner]

yes, it'll be fine with directx 9. You might have have all the features of directx 9 enabled, but it'll be fine if you install it. My gf4 doesnt support directx 9, but I installed it because a couple of games required it.

[Brent]

just cause a game requires dx9 doesn't mean it uses dx9 features

it simply needs the api interface of dx9, could even be just for directdraw or directsound

the mobility 9000 is a dx8.1 chip, it supports pixel shader 1.4 and vertex shader 1.1

[Ghosthunter]

thanks


so once i get my laptop i can upgrade it to dx9 with no issues correct?

[Brent]

Originally posted by CAG
thanks


so once i get my laptop i can upgrade it to dx9 with no issues correct?

yes

but you still won't have dx9 features available, because your card only has dx8.1 3d features

dx9 api software is backwards compatible with dx8.1 though, so you'll be fine, and in your case, required if you want to play that game

[Ghosthunter]

cool thanks for info

now what about the card itself?

I have a choice of spending $471 to get a different model dell with the geforce 4 4200 64 MB mobile card, supposedly is the fastest card right now on the market, until 9600 or nv31 hits the mobile scene.

I wish I knew exact date when m10 or nv31 is going to be in notebooks, but no clue

Think it worth to spend $471? only thing I dont like about getting that otehr model is it is a wdie screen format and does not use a standard resolution

Or this m9 should be neough to play most games out there?

[Brent]

any updates?