directx 10 & vista

[Coosh]

I like my windows XP as it is; stable, reliable and all that jazz. do I really need windows Vista to use Directx 10?
theres a version you can download & run on XP, but I heard its more of a "Watered down version" and you don't get the full effect..
do I really need Vista to play the latest greatest Directx 10 games?

[Shadowhusky]

DX10 = vista only

[Cephius]

While DX10 is Vista only, you do not need Vista to run DX10 games, they'll just use DX9. It's not like you can't play those games without Vista. They run fine without it, and in most cases you won't even notice the difference. This may change as developers utilize more of what DX10 can do, but as it stands right now there's practically no difference and it's not worth upgrading for.

[Coosh]

I ran into my situation installing and trying to play Crysis.
(got new Crossfire vid cards, thought it'd make a good test game.)
the game barely worked, showed background only, no objects. I thought it might be because I was running XP (Dx9)

[Shadowhusky]

While DX10 is Vista only, you do not need Vista to run DX10 games, they'll just use DX9. It's not like you can't play those games without Vista. They run fine without it, and in most cases you won't even notice the difference. This may change as developers utilize more of what DX10 can do, but as it stands right now there's practically no difference and it's not worth upgrading for.

Not exactly true. Halo2 comes to mind...Vista only. Although there is someone out there that made a program/file to make it run under XP. Last I heard though the multi player didn't work under XP.

[Cephius]

Did Halo2 even make use of DX10 at all? That game was the exception to the rule... kind of Microsoft's way of saying "hey guys we told you Vista was going to be the ultimate gaming OS, but no one is using it, so we're going to force you to!" Anyway, generally speaking, you don't need Vista to play newer games.